Rees Mogg uses common sense to flee burning building.

[longwayoff]

Or, he would, if he were to find himself in that situation. Having previously insulted the medical knowledge and expertise of a leading neurologist, he now advises ignoring fire service advice, saying those who died in Grenfell lacked common sense and should have left the building. AIBU to say this man's ignorance is an embarrassment and he is unfit for public service?

VelvetSpoon at Lakanal the issues were not construction issues, but subsequent failures in the maintenance of fire safety features (including resistant structures and compartmentalised ceilings) to which Southwark council later pleaded guilty.

LFB's advice as stated after these facts came to light was:

“If buildings are built and maintained correctly, walls, floors and doors in flats and maisonettes give you protection from fire – a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes – so, if there is a fire elsewhere in the building but not inside your home you’re safer staying in your flat unless heat or smoke is affecting you. Stay put and call 999”.

“If you leave your flat you could be rushing into choking smoke, the fire itself or firefighters using equipment to bring the fire under control in another part of the building".

All dependent on correct construction and maintenance, of course.

MeTheCoolOne

Fair point. JRM’s comments are different in context.

Apologies PigletJohn, I stand corrected about Lakanal House.

Makes it even more horrifying this was allowed to happen almost 10 years later.

Of course he has sympathy for the Grenfell House residents. He's a decent man and I imagine he is angry and frustrated at the horrible situation whereby they stayed put and died because they trusted authority.

Had the fire brigade given the order to run and some had died of smoke inhalation or other causes the fire service would have been blamed for that too. No one would have said, 'Well, fewer people died that would otherwise have been the case had they stayed put.'

I agree with the poster upthread who said he's a cunt.

I don't think that can be said enough actually. Cunt, cunt, cunt.

Lilyflower1 The bar must be set exceedingly low if you think that shower of shit is a “decent man”

"He's a decent man"
No evidence of that

Of course he has sympathy for the Grenfell House residents. He's a decent man

Is that you Mrs Mogg?

All I will say is that time after time it's been shown that when people follow their gut instinct and try to survive, it sometimes means breaking the 'rules'. Yes, some people would have died whichever choice they made. That is the tragedy. I don't think JRM was criticising the residents at all. I think he meant they were given bad advice from the fire brigade HQ . He wasn't blaming the occupants.

As always comments like this get taken out of context and used as political footballs.

Easy to say what you would do after the event though. Not at the actual time, when your children are sleeping, when you're however many floors up, when you're being advised by the fire brigade, are shit scared, etc etc. Who knows what they would in fact do. The people must've been shocked and confused.
It's beyond thoughtless of him to have made those remarks, its actually nasty. The poor families whose loved ones died that night

Rees Mogg is a terrible human being. God knows why his Somerset constituency keep voting him in. Let's hope they see sense this time and vote tactically to get rid of him.

Rees Mogg apologists; he's apologised to Dr Nichol and apologised for his crass statement yesterday. Have a word with him, you obviously know far more about him than he does himself.

Also, it shows his contempt for 'poor people' Just literally zero idea of how life is different for different people, and how we don't all have that public school arrogance that we know best or that we can replace all our stuff if our house burned down because we have plenty in the bank. Zilch empathy. He's not a nice man.

Fucking hell. Possibly if some of the big wigs had used common decency sense in the first place and not given the go-ahead to have the building cladded in combustable material, nobody would have had to contemplate making that choice at all.

I genuinely wouldn't piss on that cunt if he was on fire.

Nobody, not one single person can correctly predict how they would react in a real life threatening situation. People always do this. Oh well I would have done that. It's totally obvious. So-and-so is lying (or stupid, or malicious) because they didn't do this obvious thing.

Um, when you are in a LIFE THREATENING SITUATION, 1, you don't have access to all the facts, so what is "obvious" from the outside is not in the slightest bit clear to someone within the situation who is essentially blindfolded. Inside those flats people only had two things to compare - the relatively clear air inside of their own flat or the impassable hallway. They had no idea if they were going through unpleasantness into safety, or into certain death. They had to guess. They didn't know if the fire was going up or down or left or right or burning out or contained. They didn't know if firefighters were just outside the door or on the other side of London, whether they had helicopters or ladders or where the rescue (if it was coming) was coming from. It was difficult for people to even tell which floor they were on, if they tried to move.

But also 2, you are not operating under calm logic. Your brain is pumping probably more adrenaline than it ever has in your life, and you are operating purely on fight or flight. You are inhaling chemicals which may make you disorientated and confused. You cannot see or hear well due to smoke, chaos and so on. Your children are frightened and crying. Have you ever experienced tunnel vision or paralysis or loss of speech/coherent thought from being scared? Asked DC to stop arguing in the car so that you can concentrate on a complicated junction? I imagine it must be like that but a thousand times worse. Psychologists and behaviour scientists often study large fires and disasters where there is record of people's behaviour in trying to escape because it is often so inexplicable to observers. Even they do not understand it, why do random people so confidently state exactly what they would do? You don't know.

Seriously fuck anybody who claims that they know what they would do in any impossible situation. It's such a moronic thing to say.

He has now said he should have perfected his comments with “In hindsight”. Of course Rees Mogg is the worst type of politician and his constituency voters really should vote for someone else. Why they think he’s suitable to represent them is beyond me. He is unacceptable as an MP let alone one with cabinet responsibilities.

Lilyflower, you are all kinds of confused as to what constitutes a decent human being.

He repeated again and again what a terrible tragedy it was. He was sympathetic.

But this is utterly meaningless when you look at what he and his colleagues have done, or rather failed to do. They had more than enough by way of warnings of the dangers of using this sort of cladding, yet over the course of several years in power they did precisely nothing about changing the housing regulations to offer residents basic protections. It's pointless sounding sympathetic and concerned about something directly caused by their own dreadful, wholly avoidable failures.

I find it remarkable that a building that high was built with only one central staircase.

Me too.

When I first started work, I worked in an 18-storey building, built in the late 1960s. It had two staircase, at opposite ends of the building. In the event of evacuation, people on even-numbered floors used one staircase and those on odd numbers the other. This prevented created a natural gap and prevented congestion. It seems inconceivable to me that residential premises, of the same period, have just one staircase.

I realise that homes will generally be less densely occupied than an office block, but they are also more likely to have a significant proportion of elderly and very young residents.

But the bottom line is that no building should be clad in shite that goes up like a Roman candle.

JRM is not a decent man. Last year at this time there was those idiots that burned that effigy of Grenfell. Now this. Is there something about this time of year that makes some people determined to denigrate and upset the Grenfell residents?

And if they did give a shit the enquiry wouldnt be arse about face. The first part of the enquiry should have been about the lead up to the fire covering how they were ignored and even threatened with legal action when they raised issues with the refurb and the safety concerns with the refurb. Ive been warning for many years how social housing tenants are ignored and told to put up and shut up when it comes to these issues.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=-j_CxQFziFU

My current favourite JRM meme!

I think he meant they were given bad advice from the fire brigade HQ

Usually in such buildings stay put is the best advice and its people leaving who get hurt and killed.

You can argue at which point they should have realised the building wasn't well maintained and the advice changed accordingly.

The inquiry said they should have changed it much sooner and assume this would have saved more lives but I've heard interviews with firefighters who point out they had no way of alerting all the residents to get out - they still had toxic smoke in stair wells and one staircase they were still trying to get firemen up.

I think it all detracts from the regulatory failures at local and national level that led to a massively unsafe building – despite some residents desperately trying to get some someone to care about the problems they could easily see.

Blaming #GrenfellTower victims for dying is vile, especially:

• 18 x over 60yrs inc:

• 7 x over 70yrs & disabled
• 1 x 65yr old disabled & blind 18th floor resident

• 18 x children inc:

• baby stillborn to poisoned survivor
• 6mth old baby

Surely there is a world of difference between saying what HE would have done and implying the residents were stupid because they didn't try to get out? I don't think you can draw a conclusion from his comment other than what he would have done. As I said before, the people who survive plane crashes, train crashes, getting lost in the jungle, are often the ones who do not stay put , even if it's against the expected behaviour. I think that is what he meant, nothing else.