It’s so telling that you consider people being angry at 150 people dying in an entirely preventable fire to be “bile”.
I’d like to see you head down to the streets of North Kensington and tell the people there that they’re “spouting bile”.
I’d say there’s two chances of you telling that to somebody there to their face.
The likes of you would charge homeless people rent for sleeping under a bridge if you could get away with it.
Everyone is appalled and angry, but you’re the only one on here politicising this tragedy to reinforce your left wing views. All I’ve done is highlight your hypocrisy.
You seem to be a bit slow, so you give the standard cliche response of a right-wing fool - “stop politicising it”.
It’s an inherently political issue.
Only idiots like you can’t see that.
So, why should I not politicise this inherently political issue?
This couldn’t be more political.
Is it because it offends your politics?
It is, isn’t it?
In January 2016, 39% of Tory MPs were landlords.
With the vast majority of the Tory party, they voted overwhelmingly against a Labour amendment to the Housing and Planning Act which would required all private rented accommodation to be “fit for human habitation”, because “it would be a burden on landlords and discourage people from renting out homes”.
Imagine demanding rented accommodation be “fit for human habitation”. The barefaced cheek, the sheer sense of entitlement…
Of course, this kind of thing is “not political”, apparently.
He has already ladybirded this to you. You didn’t give a fuck when the regs were ignored at Apollo House as it suited your agenda. You have no idea how fit that was for use as residential units. It may not have flammable cladding exactly per this tragedy but there could have been any number of issues that caused a similar incident. The point is you didn’t know or care, you were delighted with the activists.
Safety regs were ignored here, resulting in an awful tragedy and you’re using this to shite on about the right wing. Your hypocrisy and simple one track agenda is crystal clear. Let’s see you find nuance in this.
In fairness Ambrose, this is a political issue, it’s a direct result of planning laws made by politicians. The people affected (at least the ones who survived) certainly seem to be making it a political issue.
The Guardian summed it up well earlier, this is May’s Hurricane Katrina.
@sidney is placing the blame for this on ‘the right’, while the building is still smouldering and bodies still unrecovered. Building control, safety standards and fire control in his opinion have been compromised, again by the right, to bring about this disaster before any investigation has been carried out. Do you think that amounts to political point scoring?
Do politicians have a direct hand in categorising building materials or is it a standards authority? I’d imagine the latter.
Who would trust more?
i) A group of committed volunteers who made sure a building was safe for a homeless protest because they are genuinely committed to helping people?
or
ii) A Tory controlled council and a Tory controlled government, neither of whom give a shit about about the safety of council tenants because they’re in hock to vested interests?
And I’m not absolving the previous Labour government either.
Your choice.
Again, the likes of you would charge rent to homeless people for sleeping on the street if you could. Pass the sick bag, please, while you use them to defend the exact type of politics which has led to possibly 150 unnecessary deaths.
These rent-paying people who died are the exact same people the likes of you consistently vilify for looking for “free everything”.
Were they qualified to make that assessment? The fact that they were committed was enough I suppose.
Again, the classic weasel response of an offended right-winger when they see the catastrophic results of their brand of politics.
The Tories have never given a shit about people like the Grenfell Tower victims. They don’t vote Tory.
Explain, you keep avoiding this. What did the Tories do to change building regulations since 2010?
first mention.
I wouldn’t mind Sidney, he’s clearly off his rocker and the left v right debate is irrelevant. I’m sure you’d find as many left wing politicians to blame as on the right for this fuck up. Standards Authorities are based on legislation, which politicians pass. This is very much a politicial issue.
Let’s see what’s found out before blaming the Tories or the “right wing”. How about that?
Your post on the amendment bill by Labour has fuck all to do with this. I’m sure your point is evil tory landlords making working class live in slums etc. However, dig a little deeper on that and you’d see its not quite quantified exactly what improvements the ‘habitable living standard’. There are already certain health and safety standards for residential units. I’m no fan of grubby landlords either with 5 BTL properties pushing up rents but landlords cross the political divide, in the UK anyway.
The local government minister, Marcus Jones, said Pearce’s proposal would result in “unnecessary regulation and cost to landlords” that would deter further investment and push up rents for tenants.
He said: “Of course we believe that all homes should be of a decent standard and all tenants should have a safe place to live regardless of tenure, but local authorities already have strong and effective powers to deal with poor quality and safe accommodation and we expect them to use them.”
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A succession of Tory housing ministers have sat on a report commissioned in the wake of a 2009 Lakanal tower block fire in London which killed six people.
The report was delivered in 2013 and they have sat on it ever since.
Why have they sat on that report, despite the evidence mounting up from around the world that these type of flammable panels can kill, and despite the fact they are banned on high rise buildings in Germany and Australia?
Why did a Tory housing minister say it was not the responsibility of his government to push for sprinklers to be mandatory in tower blocks?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-minister-warned-beefing-up-10622601
Cost of retrofitting sprinklers: £200k (according to Newsnight).
Extra cost of fitting flame-resistant cladding instead of flammable cladding: £5,000 (according to The Times).
The type of cladding used was also banned in the US.
That’s the US, the home of lax regulation.
The UK government’s own experts warned them of the risks of this type of cladding.
Although Mr Pickles does come out of that article sounding like a complete prick, I’ll give you that.
Tories are some cunts alright. This doesn’t just happen in conservative council areas surprisingly enough. The 2009 Lakanal house fire that precipitated that report happened in Southwark, a labour dominated council since it’s inception.
"In 2017 Southwark Council pleaded guilty to four charges concerning breaches to safety regulations. It was fined £270,000, reduced from £400,000 because it had pleaded guilty, plus £300,000 costs. The council expressed “sincere regret for the failures that were present in the building”.[15]
As @fitzy said though, this is not a left or right issue, not that you’ll get that.
150?? Fucking hell. I thought that the 6 and even the 17 figure was miraculously low given that the building housed over 500 people. Still shocking to hear that though. It’s going to cast a long shadow if that is true. 150 people burned to death. Doesn’t seem real.
New Labour embraced the “light-touch regulation” model and that Labour council was rightly blamed.
That’s why New Labour needs to be buried and Corbyn is burying it.
But bad as New Labour were, the Tories were always a hundred times worse.
The “light-touch regulation” model is at the very heart of Tory policy and always has been. Light touch regulation means shit or no regulation. We’ve seen this type of thing before. The Berkeley balcony disaster springs to mind.
As well as that, it’s a cultural and class thing.
At best, the Tories don’t care about poor people. At worst, they actively despise them and work to make their lives as miserable as they possibly can.
I thought it was a lovely irony that one of the Tory landlords that voted against the Labour amendment to make rented accommodation “fit for human habitation” had the surname Trevelyan.