Westministenders: The Zombie PM

[RedToothBrush]

Back from the dead, May carries on whilst the vultures circle.

She had tried to out smart her rivals by running of to the palace to tell the queen she could form a government before they could act.

Definitely she stood and pretended nothing had changed. Except everything had. The wrath of her party was unleashed and there was open revolt. She has been summoned to appear before men in grey suits tomorrow at 5pm to hear their verdict.

How do she decide to make amends and reach out to moderate Tories? By sleeping with the DUP. And appointing Gove to her Cabinet.

How long will this last? How long can it last?

But maybe they could do that at another point before 2 years are up anyway. Making the UK sweat is good for all future negotiations (and many already angry at the concessions Thatcher et al got anyway).

The Guardian Live Feed

11:12 Alan Travis
There are almost 7,000 fewer firefighters in England than five years ago, leading to longer response times and a 25% fall in the number of fire prevention visits, according to the latest Home Office figures published last month.

The reduction in the number of firefighters and staff employed by the fire rescue services to 42,300 has been more than matched by a long-term fall in fire deaths from more than 750 a year in the early 1980s to 264 in 2014-15.

However, the number of fire-related deaths rose to 303 last year – a 15% increase – bringing the downward trend to an end.

The number of uniformed firefighters stood at 34,400 in 2015-16 compared with 41,202 in 2010-11 – a fall of 6,802.

The Home Office figures show that the fire service carried out 581,000 home fire risk checks in 2015-16 - 25% less than five years earlier. The 63,000 fire safety audits of non-domestic premises last year, also down 25% compared with five years ago.

No indication that this made a difference in this case. Indeed the fire service were on the scene in minutes but I'm sure that concerns will be raised.

The fire prevention things are especially alarming in view of the blog from residents association:

grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/kctmo-playing-with-fire/
From Nov

grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/kctmo-feeling-the-heat/is
From Mar

Given the election we've just had and how austerity is thought to have affected it the election (including the shock of Labour winning the seat in Kensington) this is going to be a big deal.

The whole thing is awful. Just horrendous. The worst has yet to come out. I really hope the scale of it, isn't as bad as I fear it could be. We should not have these questions hanging over it in addition to the sheer tragedy of what's happened.

Multicultural London - "Citizens of Nowhere ?" - pulling together while PM May is ... Nowhere to be found. Exactly the sites where they are looking after the residents and were taking donations are inundated and they are now quickly pulling together new sites for donations. Who is doing this? The Churches and other community groups...... Don't even the US put together a federal / official government response to emergencies? Our Leader doesn't even poke her head out of the door.

Interesting interview with tenants association saying he was bullied by contractors when he made numerous complaints about fire safety, position of boilers installed, lights and fire alarms and gas pipes being fitted in the firewall stairs? Another saying that maintenance by council been bad over a number of years. 'Nobody cares about us here, we are forgotten' says one resident. 'They want to run the area down and move us out so they can gentrify the area.' ' they put the plastic cladding on as a reward for 2 years disruption and to make it look pretty' all quotes from residents. Horrendous my thoughts and prayers to those deceased and Injured and to their families.

Oh and while i am having a rant

Some people on here need to grow the fuck up

It is not labours fault that the tories were not as successful as they needed to be

It is not labours fault that the tories are planning a coalition of chaos with a group with terrorist links

If the government decides to stay in the customs union or keeps FOM...that will also not be the fault of labour, lib dems or remain voters

It will be the fault of the government

If anything goes wrong with the government ...it will be the governments fault

Anyone who struggles with this concept is obviously either 4 or thinks like a four year old

If little tommy is being told off he cannot say that Amanda made him do it

Thats not how life for grownups works

And if you are 4?

Put the machine down sweetie and go find mummy or daddy

I am off to post this on the correct thread

And it's ordinary citizens and Churches who are rallying around to help. Come on wealthy Tories of Kensington and Chelsea - do your bit for society, dig into your pockets and dig deep. Start to give something back for the privileges you have stolen from others.

Austerity has a lot to answer for as does contracting private companies to do the work. The council should have their own workforce for this but due to Government cuts over the last 10 years tragedies lime this happen. There are going to be massive questions to answer here.

What damning reports by the Residents Association. I hope that heads will roll for this and that it won't just be some underling being scapegoated but the top management.

"Multicultural London - "Citizens of Nowhere ?" - pulling together while PM May is ... Nowhere to be found."

And now the 'government' use the Grenfell Tower fire as a reason why the Queen's speech will be delayed.

Who do hey think they can fool and have they no chime? It's the worst of dog ate my homework excuses. The goat was bad enough but now this

The council should have their own workforce for this but due to Government cuts over the last 10 years tragedies lime this happen.

Quite, ever since Thatcher's day it's been "Public Sector bad, Private Sector good". Plus a desire to tear up health and safety regulations (hence wanting to leave the EU) - can't have those tiresome regs. getting in the way of making profits.

I've worked in both sectors BTW, and there are good and bad managements in both.

Sounds like the refurbishment was more for cosmetic reasons than anything else. To benefit the neighbours' eyes.

YY

As with most things these days.
A pleasing sticking plaster; an acceptable & relatively instant veneer rather than the boring, more costly & unglamorous proper work.
A tweet of remorse when something goes horrifically wrong, rather than proper preventive action to stop it happening at all.

This is 21st century Britain - image means more than substance & this is prevalent throughout each and every part of our society now.

I don't want to hear 'lessons will be learned' anymore, I'm sick of it.

The City is still planning for the worst sort of Brexit and therefore an even bleaker future for London.... As Sadiq said to the Brexit Committee, you do not help the rest of the country by making London poorer...

So far, the emphasis has been on being ready for a worst case scenario, according to people familiar with the banks' planning. That is an exit from the EU where banks lose their "passporting" rights to operate freely, where there is no access granted on the basis of "equivalence" of regulations and where there are no transition arrangements in place to act as a crash mat for the UK's financial sector.
^So are banks likely to hit the pause button now that the election result has thrown into doubt the government's strategy for a "hard" Brexit?
Well, probably not. Financial analysts generally agree that the hung parliament makes a different type of Brexit more likely. But many also argue that it heightens the small risk that we get jettisoned out of the Union without any deal at all, either by design, delay or just by dint of sheer incompetence.^
^More importantly, it isn't clear that the options being discussed for a "soft" Brexit would work for the City well either. Staying in the customs union would mean tariff-free, frictionless trade of goods but doesn't cover the type of cross-border provision of services the City provides.
The "Norway option" - staying within the European Economic Area - would mean banks based in London would keep passporting, a major advantage. But that too presents problems in the long term, say people involved with the industry's work on the subject.^
^Being within the EEA but not within the EU means being a so-called "rule-taker" - signing up to the rules and regulations of the EU without having any say in making them. That is enough to make the industry twitchy. It could also mean financial regulation being made without the input and expertise of the largest financial centre in Europe.
Hence the City's insistence that the industry will ultimately need a bespoke arrangement with Europe - one that grants access to each other's markets; one that sets out ways for keeping regulation aligned (though not requiring it be identical); and one that has a method for resolving disagreements as they inevitably arise.^
That may be needed no matter how hard, soft, tough, easy or otherwise the UK's Brexit proves.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40267408?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnewsnight&ns_source=facebook

As Sadiq said to the Brexit Committee, you do not help the rest of the country by making London poorer
What wealth there is in the whole country derives mainly from London. This is the golden goose, they seem intent on killing....

Sorry, the goose that lays the golden egg.

[Grin] Rufus.

When will I ever get Mumsnet formatting right?

Early though it is to start reaching conclusions it does look as though denying the need for better fire regs is going to be a major issue in the wake of the fire. This is from the Guardian live feed and in amongst the stories of real people caught up in this horrendous tragedy, one an artist and friend of Lammys who is still missing, was still Facebooking from her 20th floor flat at 3am

"A leading fire safety official has told the Guardian that his organisation has warned ministers for years that building regulations connected to fire needed to be improved, but that reviews were repeatedly delayed.

Dr Jim Glocking, technical director of the Fire Protection Association (FPA), an industry body which carries out tests on fire safety issues, among other things, said a major issues was that insulation underneath cladding on the outside of tower blocks did not need to be fireproof.

Glocking said that while he did not know the situation at Grenfell Tower, the rapid spread of the blaze indicated thus could be the case.

He said the association had received increasing numbers of reports about insulation on the outside of buildings catching light.

“They can be slapping on up to 300mm deep of polystyrene on the outside of the building,” he said. “It can be very significant. I have no knowledge of what happened in this particular case.”

Laboratory tests on such cladding carried out by the FPA “found that there was scope for really large-scale fire spread under certain circumstances”, he said.

“The problem with external fire spread is that, obviously, the external envelope is the communicating feature of all areas of the building. It does offer scope for very rapid and large-scale fire spread, on a scale that was unheard of, but we’re starting to hear more of, certainly around the world.”

Glocking said that while having windows open in summer would increase the spread of fire into flats, FPA laboratory tests had show it could also happen via external wall pipes to bathrooms or kitchens.

He added: “think the inexcusable element here is that with cladding or insulation there are choices. There will be a perfectly good non-combustible choice that can be made, but somebody is not making those calls.”

The FPA had “lobbied long and hard” for building regulations on the issue to be changed, but nothing had happened, Glocking said: “Various ministers have said over the years that there will be an imminent review, but it keeps being put on hold, in spite of organisations like ourselves campaigning very hard.”

I asked Glocking if the FPA’s message to government had been that if nothing was done then there could be a very major incident.

He replied: “Sadly, that is very much the case.”"

Excellent rant @Rufus. I know it's not meant for this year but I still like it!

*thread. Autocorrect is not my friend today.

I don't want to hear 'lessons will be learned' anymore, I'm sick of it.

And in this case, it is becoming apparent that lessons from 2009 may not have been learned since a review was still in progress and incomplete. Which is even worse.

it does look as though denying the need for better fire regs is going to be a major issue

One commentator made the point that current regs need to be enforced also.

So where is Mrs May? Where are the rest of the Cabinet? Have they gone down to help with the relief efforts? I won't hold my breathe waiting for a yes answer.

There is talk that the HoC WILL now sit tomorrow despite the issue over it not being officially sworn in so a statement can be made.

insulation underneath cladding on the outside of tower blocks did not need to be fireproof.
wtf?

There are been so many avoidable deaths and tragedies since 2010, (H&S flaws, Red cross declaring NHS humanitarian crisis, flooding, police cuts, children suffering in schools, DLA harassment, homelessness, hunger, harassment of EU and non EU nationals), because of conscious, reckless or negligent government policy.

We need a Truth and Reconciliation commission like Tutu's to start to heal and fix this country. The travesties people have suffered need to be acknowledged.

But funding first for the basics. NOW.

That May is absent again, on a day like this, speaks volumes.

That May is absent again, on a day like this, speaks volumes.

Especially when we get her cant about wanting 'A country which works for everyone'.