Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Grenfell flats fire

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Looks like appalling communication on the public inquiry.

    I am no expert obviously but I think a fairly quick inquiry on how the conditions for the fire arose is about right. There are lives at stake.

    But there's much more to look at, in terms of housing policy, for want a of a better word "culture" of institutions, as Macpherson did with Stephen Lawrence. Let the families and their counsel set up the terms as we do the first bit.

    It looks a bit like a whitewash waiting to happen now.

    Comment


      I'm being kind there in assuming the purpose isn't to whitewash.

      Comment


        I'm a bit wary of Sadiq Khan's call for unelected commissioners to take over the running of the council –*it feeds into this idea that non-democracy is better than democracy, and that 'technocratic competence' is the main issue at stake here. It's a political failing, and requires a political solution.

        I agree with Tubbs's call, mind, for a Macpherson-style review of the whole culture and runnings of local authorities. For all sorts of reasons, there has been a huge failure of accountability going on there for years, a lot of it down to contemptuous treatment from national government, including Blairs. The introduction of council cabinets and 'scrutiny panels' as a replacement for more open committees was always a bad idea.

        Comment


          Time for limited electoral reform too- I suggest we use Sandwell and Islington Borough Councils as a trial (each have only one non-Labour councillor, they're practically Rotten Boroughs?)...

          Comment


            Yeah, agreed. FPTP does local government no favours, even those parties that win crushing one-party majorities with it. (Though Islington's one of the better London Labour councils)

            Comment


              Bring back the GLC?

              Comment


                PR for local government in England and Wales would be very good.

                Commissioners for Kensington and Chelsea isn't a bad idea because I think it's a huge ask for any LA to respond to something like Grenfell. And this LA looks less capable than most.

                Comment


                  A friend who works for a Housing Trust in the area tells me that they immediately offered all their empty homes for emergency rehousing, but the Council told them there was no need, and that people were accommodated. Many of those were in high-rise hotels. Why would you house traumatised people there, rather than in low-rise flats managed and passed as perfectly habitable by a reputable Trust?

                  Comment


                    Grenfell Tower: illegal subletters will not be prosecuted

                    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...y_to_clipboard

                    Perhaps this will help reveal the true death toll. I think there's a general suspicion of authority which isn't helping and the actions of the borough in particular has not helped.

                    Comment


                      Grenfell survivors issue 12 demands to PM to overhaul response to tragedy

                      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...y_to_clipboard

                      Comment


                        Owen Jones and Frankie Boyle

                        https://youtu.be/EyFZX39joSM

                        Boyle makes some excellent points imho

                        Comment


                          It's been referenced upthread I think, but the restricted terms of reference for the inquiry ("how the fire started and spread") smacks of the original Hillsborough inquest and its 3:15pm cutoff time. It's hard not to conclude that it's deliberately designed to exclude consideration of broader institutional negligence.

                          Comment


                            I think that's unfair, see the judge here. He's already said that he appreciates what his inquiry will and won't do.

                            “I’ve been asked to undertake this inquiry on the basis that it would be pretty well limited to the problems surrounding the start of the fire and its rapid development, in order to make recommendations as to how this sort of thing can be prevented in the future,” Moore-Bick said afterwards.

                            I’m well aware that residents want a much broader investigation ... whether my inquiry is the right way in which to achieve that I’m more doubtful. There may be other ways in which that desire for an investigation can be satisfied.

                            “I would hope to be able to answer basic factual questions such as: how did the fire start, how did it spread, how was it able to engulf the whole of the building at such speed? And also questions such as what internal precautions there were, what steps were available for alerting residents and for allowing them to escape.”
                            I think it would be absurd to boycott this. I mean how does that work? You might have info about stuff that failed disastrously and could go wrong in other flats and kill people, but you boycott the inquiry?

                            But there's certainly more needed afterwards.

                            Comment


                              To be fair, the BBC's report has a different feel to it so perhaps I've jumped to conclusions.

                              Comment


                                I think it would be absurd to boycott this. I mean how does that work? You might have info about stuff that failed disastrously and could go wrong in other flats and kill people, but you boycott the inquiry?
                                I think raising the spectre of a boycott is at least a useful bargaining tool, which looks like it might already be having an impact. I don't feel massively inclined to tell people who've survived this harrowing event what to do, really.

                                Comment


                                  Local MP and Chris Williamson (now on the frontbench) saying the judge should be replaced for, as far as I can tell, no very good reason. Lammy was doing the same yesterday.

                                  I take the point about survivors but MPs need to do better here.

                                  Comment


                                    What do they need to do better? "Manage" the anger of victims?

                                    Comment


                                      Yer man Jolyon Maugham QC seems to think they've got a bit of a point

                                      Comment


                                        I was puzzled by that. He's strongly condemning the attacks on the judge, but doesn't see his call for a boycott as feeding into it.

                                        There is one man who's getting it exactly right though, and fair play to him.

                                        Jeremy Corbyn is not backing the shadow fire services minister’s call (see 1.43pm) for Sir Martin Moore-Bick to resign as chair of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, according to a party source. The Labour leader “has not called for him to go”, a source said.

                                        Corbyn has demanded a two-part inquiry looking first at the specific issues at Grenfell and then a wider examination of national issues. And he also wants transparency and the full involvement of the residents in the process, a source said.

                                        Comment


                                          Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
                                          What do they need to do better? "Manage" the anger of victims?
                                          Williamson and Lammy don't have to be saying anything.

                                          Dent Coed has a much more difficult job, but personal attacks on the judge as an inhuman "technocrat" and the like is daft.

                                          Comment


                                            If you look at his record, it does seem that there have been one or two cases where he has tended to come down, when he has made his judgements, on the side of the establishment and he has been overturned in the supreme court on that basis.
                                            Says heavyweight legal commentator, Chris Williamson. Now on the front bench. See also "Remainer Europhile judges".

                                            Thankfully, David Liddington, the Justice Secretary, has already put out a statement supporting the judge.
                                            Last edited by Tubby Isaacs; 04-07-2017, 16:15.

                                            Comment


                                              Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                              Says heavyweight legal commentator, Chris Williamson. Now on the front bench. See also "Remainer Europhile judges".

                                              Thankfully, David Liddington, the Justice Secretary, has already put out a statement supporting the judge.
                                              Not like judges have a history of supporting the establishment, is it? Or that there's a history of judicial cover-ups/whitewashes of state abuses and violence.

                                              This technocratic reverence with which "serious" people talk about the judiciary is a cancer. The judiciary is a bunch of old, publicly-schooled, white men making decisions that back the status quo. Sure, they're independent of the government but that doesn't mean they're on the side of residents of council estates.

                                              Comment


                                                I think it's fair to question whether a judge who thinks it's perfectly proportionate to force someone to take social housing 50 miles from their community or face being termed intentionally homeless is the right pick for this. But it's the terms of reference, and whether there will be a more wide ranging inquiry that's really important. The judge is secondary really.

                                                Comment


                                                  Originally posted by Bizarre Löw Triangle View Post
                                                  Not like judges have a history of supporting the establishment, is it? Or that there's a history of judicial cover-ups/whitewashes of state abuses and violence.

                                                  This technocratic reverence with which "serious" people talk about the judiciary is a cancer. The judiciary is a bunch of old, publicly-schooled, white men making decisions that back the status quo. Sure, they're independent of the government but that doesn't mean they're on the side of residents of council estates.
                                                  I agree with all that, and I suspect that the government are specifically looking for a cover-up and have chosen the right man to deliver it, but all this "technocrat who can't empathise" stuff is very weak. That's just saying you don't like the look of him, which isn't good enough, when surely you need to be looking at a) the ridiculously limited remit of the inquiry and b) what the man has said and done in the past, such as allowing those people to be relocated to Milton Keynes. Surely it can't take all that much digging to find something more solid.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Originally posted by Alderman Barnes View Post
                                                    I agree with all that, and I suspect that the government are specifically looking for a cover-up and have chosen the right man to deliver it, but all this "technocrat who can't empathise" stuff is very weak. That's just saying you don't like the look of him, which isn't good enough, when surely you need to be looking at a) the ridiculously limited remit of the inquiry and b) what the man has said and done in the past, such as allowing those people to be relocated to Milton Keynes. Surely it can't take all that much digging to find something more solid.
                                                    Isn't the issue with this judge his past rulings in favour of local councils socially cleansing working class tenants?

                                                    Specifically his decision that tenants who turn down houses 50 miles from their support network can be treated as "intentionally homeless"?

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X