In case, the Minister of Cohesion of the Territories, Richard Ferrand, proposed Saturday the aid of France, to participate in "the expertise of the identification of the causes of the fire and propagation factors" of the Grenfell Tower, which occurred in London.
General / Off-Topic London Flats Fire
- Thread starter Patrick_68000
- Start date
Whilst a kind offer the cause is know. The building was clad in inflammable materials.
It is sure that it is not materials incombustible which propagated the brazier
--- If a Minister proposes an aid, this is that the factors of propagation are not known in full and in all their details. Otherwise he would not propose. They are informed people. The work of expertise made by the British is certainly going to last several weeks (On television they even said several months). Because Theresa May asked for a thorough investigation
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Absolutely. It boils down to a failure in housing regulations to recognise a fire risk in high rise buildings when adding external cladding. But why miss a good opportunity to slag off the Tories
No, the Mayor of London (elected in May 2016) isn't responsible for decisions made by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council before he took office.
Personally? Possibly not, though as yet it has to be determined to what extent the particular policies which led to this entirely-avoidable tragedy are down to decisions made by specific politicians.
With elected office comes accountability. If people don't want to be held responsible for their actions they should stay out of politics.
It is sure that it is not materials incombustible which propagated the brazier
We have a long standing tradition in the UK of spending millions of pounds having inquests into the obvious. I meant no offence to you though Patrick.
An example being the Iraq war. We spent about £100 million on an inquest that basically said.... Iraq couldn't hit us with WMDs, and we went to war on a lie..... everyone knew that about 3 months after the war started but 10 years later and a fortune later that is what we were told.
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We have a long standing tradition in the UK of spending millions of pounds having inquests into the obvious. I meant no offence to you though Patrick.
An example being the Iraq war. We spent about £100 million on an inquest that basically said.... Iraq couldn't hit us with WMDs, and we went to war on a lie..... everyone knew that about 3 months after the war started but 10 years later and a fortune later that is what we were told.
I know well. But you also know that an investigation can not be reduced to the observation that it is inflammable materials which have fueled the brazier. The victims' families want to know everything, in every detail, "until the color of the sheaths of electric cables"
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Britain has never had a 'Minister of the Interior'. Mrs May was however Home Secretary from May 2010 to July 2016. The Home Office oversees the fire service of England and Wales.
Yes and perhaps I'm unintentionally being a bit insensitive.
Perhaps you should blame the government that spent all the money forcing the current one into austerity https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-note-successor
You are not insensitive, of course, but you are not directly concerned by this drama
--- If you had a child in the building, you would want a rapport of 1000 pages with all the causes, all the consequences, all the chronologies, all the culprits at all the levels of the chain. I also think that there will be a collective in front of justice for a trial which will last for years
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And by that 'logic', each government is absolved of all responsibility, because of the actions of the previous one. Nope. With power comes accountability. If you don't want to be held accountable for your actions, stay out of politics...
She was the Home Secretary since 2010.
Muppet! It was the banks that ruined the economy not the government in power. George Bush running a right wing government did the same thing in the USA
Some dates.
In 2005, a fire at Harrow Court in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, killed a woman and two firefighters trying to rescue her. The Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service report recommended the UK Fire Service should explore options for high-rise buildings, including the "provision of sprinklers.
Regulations in England mean that only buildings constructed since 2007 and which are taller than 30m are required to have sprinklers fitted. This requirement wasn't applied retroactively so did not apply to Grenfell Tower
After six people died at Lakanal House in south London in 2009, the coroner said "It is recommended that [the Department for Communities and Local Government] encourage providers of housing in high-rise residential buildings containing multiple domestic premises to consider the retrofitting of sprinkler systems.
After a fire at Shirley Towers, Southampton, in 2010, which killed two firefighters, the coroner said: "Social housing providers should be encouraged to consider the retrofitting of sprinklers in all existing high-rise buildings in excess of 30 metres in height.
The Grenfell fire was similar to one that broke out in Dubai in 2016 - the difference is "that building had sprinklers and nobody was killed", according to Alan Brinson of the European Fire Sprinkler Network.
In 2015, a spokesman for the Chief Fire Officers Association said that nobody had ever died in a fire in the UK in a property with a "properly installed sprinkler system working the way it's meant to".
Clearly the blame lies with the current government rather than those in power at the time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40293035
In 2005, a fire at Harrow Court in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, killed a woman and two firefighters trying to rescue her. The Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service report recommended the UK Fire Service should explore options for high-rise buildings, including the "provision of sprinklers.
Regulations in England mean that only buildings constructed since 2007 and which are taller than 30m are required to have sprinklers fitted. This requirement wasn't applied retroactively so did not apply to Grenfell Tower
After six people died at Lakanal House in south London in 2009, the coroner said "It is recommended that [the Department for Communities and Local Government] encourage providers of housing in high-rise residential buildings containing multiple domestic premises to consider the retrofitting of sprinkler systems.
After a fire at Shirley Towers, Southampton, in 2010, which killed two firefighters, the coroner said: "Social housing providers should be encouraged to consider the retrofitting of sprinklers in all existing high-rise buildings in excess of 30 metres in height.
The Grenfell fire was similar to one that broke out in Dubai in 2016 - the difference is "that building had sprinklers and nobody was killed", according to Alan Brinson of the European Fire Sprinkler Network.
In 2015, a spokesman for the Chief Fire Officers Association said that nobody had ever died in a fire in the UK in a property with a "properly installed sprinkler system working the way it's meant to".
Clearly the blame lies with the current government rather than those in power at the time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40293035
By that you mean, the government that bailed out the banks that crashed the economy into a recession? The deal that cost taxpayers an arm and a leg and that the poorest tax payers are now enduring the fallout of in incredible hardship. Unnecessary, over the top austerity with the purpose of creating a state of private companies for public services and tax havens for global conglomerates.
History has shown that you don't stimulate an economy without investment. As it happens, you also don't prevent tragedies and accidents by reducing the amount of emergency service personnel available nor by cutting their budget. That's how you create disasters.
Conservatives have very weak economic principles that seem to fly in the face of the economic guidance and stewardship from some of the worlds biggest investors and financial advisers. The biggest players are capable of recognising how austerity is a tool that should be used sparingly because it is not a panacea, it can also damage growth/GDP. I fear the Conservatives have stood by it for far too long and the additional public anger from its use is creating hostile environments and allowing populist politics to take centre stage.
Javert
Volunteer Moderator
This story has been circulated for so long that it has become accepted truth. However, it was actually the 2008 crash which mainly triggered the need for austerity - if the economic forecasts before that crash had been borne out, there wouldn't be nearly such an issue today. Arguably they were spending beyond their means (and so are the Conservatives by the way), but the impact of the 2008 crash was much much bigger. Saying that the current austerity is only caused by Labour spending too much money is not true.
That said, I think Labour are guilty of playing politics by failing to do anything about it in the 2 years running up to the 2010 election, because they didn't want to destroy their election chances by starting austerity before that. If Labour had won the 2010 election, we would've also had austerity nearly the same as what the Conservatives have done. In addition, I have little doubt (sadly) that the Conservatives would've done the same thing between 2008 and 2010 if the situation was reversed.
As regards the bailing out of the banks, I know there is still a body of opinion that this should not have been done and the banks should have been left to fail and suchlike. The counter argument is that this would've caused the entire world economy to collapse and things would be even worse today than they already are. I don't consider myself expert enough technically to judge on that, but I certainly can empathise with the feeling that giving billions of pounds to banks to prop them up after their poor decision making doesn't look good to those who don't have much money.
I'd also like to make a factual correction. There is no section D notice in force on the Grenfell tower story. A section D notice was issued for the Manchester bombing, because there was a criminal investigation affecting national security in process, and printing certain information would have compromised that investigation. This is why the UK was so angry when some of that information was made public in the US.
Section D notices are for matters of national security involving criminal activity and suchlike - a section D notice would never be issued in a situation like this tower fire, and if it was I have every confidence that it would be quickly struck down by the judiciary.
More likely, it's a combination of incompetence and the process that we have in this country. The convention is that a person cannot be considered as dead until a coroner has declared them as dead. In this case, we don't know how many people were in the tower, we don't know how many escaped, and in some cases it's likely that the fire was so severe that only ash remains, or you cannot tell for sure how many bodies are in the room.
The process in the UK (rightly or wrongly) is based on two assumptions:
- It's better to reveal no information than to release information that might turn out wrong later.
- It's better to reveal no information if revealing it could cause additional distress to families of victims, or on the other hand give them false hope.
As I remember, it took a very long time for the death toll from 9/11 to be confirmed, and even now today, they are not sure that the death toll is correct.
One other comment regarding the use of cheaper cladding materials - we don't actually have the technical specifications for these materials. Although it seems bad that they chose a cheaper material with only a marginally lower cost, we need to wait for the conclusion of the accident investigation. The statements I've read was that the more expensive material was "less flammable" rather than completely fire proof. As such, the investigators may end up concluding that the fire would still have spread in the same way even if the more expensive material had been fitted - we don't know that until the experts have investigated fully.