Westminstenders: The Brexit Apprentice

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa May is increasing looking like she is running an episode of the Apprentice with two teams trying to compete in their plan for Brexit. Complete with the obligatory reprehensible contestants.

On one side we have Team Creationists intent on hard Brexit and on the other we have Team Sensibles desperate to get a softer deal.
May herself has been held hostage by seasoned expert negotiators the DUP. Once No 10 has reported the deal was done, only for the DUP to say it wasn’t. Then it said, it would be settled today. But the DUP disagreed and said ‘the weekend’. Now its 'next week'.

Meanwhile the Queen has been messed about with a scapegoat over when her Queen’s Speech will be. It’s likely to be a week on Monday.
Meanwhile the Brexit department is also in chaos.

The Number two in the department was sacked and replaced by a Remainer, and the number three quit amongst reports that he no longer thought Brexit was achievable and that there was no way that the Great Repeal Act could pass through the Lords. He has been replaced by the Head of the infamous Arch-Brexit Whatsapp group.

Oh and Gove got hired. Nuff said on that one.

After some slight back tracking from David Davis, Hard Brexit is still on in all its glory. Negotiations are going ahead next week. Well that’s what we are saying. The EU, on the other hand, don’t won’t to go ahead until we have an officially sworn in government. Which seems pretty fair enough.

Tune in to find out which Team wins this week’ The Brexit Apprentice

Interview with the new Labour MP for Kensington "Her concern about building standards for social housing is based on documenting the quality of the recent redevelopment of the Wornington Green estate, where in the past three years she says she has seen ceilings of new houses collapse, plumbing failures, “water leaking through the walls because they hadn’t fitted a waterproof membrane, ceilings collapsing because rain got through the ceiling because the cladding hadn’t been fitted. Their vision for social housing means that they get away with poor construction and we have seen the effect of that elsewhere”.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/unforgivable-local-labour-mp-vents-fury-over-grenfell-tower-fire?CMP=share_btn_tw

Has the whole event been cancelled 'because of Grenfell'?

Initial reports were that PH has "pulled out" but the event seemed set to go ahead.

It's now been cancelled.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40288358

You'd have to be completely devoid of any empathy to not meet with residents of the area under these circumstance. Media or otherwise, she has failed to show basic human kindness.

It's as though she has a phobia of impromptu meetings with the public.

The poor construction is prevalent across all housing, not just social housing.

It's what happens when you cut corners with your construction crews as well as materials etc.

Mass amounts of cheap, imported, ready trained labour who have been trained to lower standards than in Britain & throw in communications issues wrt language barriers.
Add in unscrupulous cost cutting on standards of materials used, poor checks & balances & wholly removed management focussed on profit & quantity over quality.

All part of the Human Factors & Maintenance Error chain which leads to failings.

Laura Kuenssberg‏Verified account @bbclaurak 28m28 minutes ago
Now House say again we can't televise the proceedings of the Hurd statement, even tho number 10 told me we can

Laura Kuenssberg‏Verified account @bbclaurak 8m8 minutes ago
After going round many many houses, we hope this important cttee meeting is about to be televised

Laura Kuenssberg‏Verified account @bbclaurak 8m8 minutes ago
Quite why Parliament and govt couldn't get ducks in a row before meeting started is beyond me and v frustrating

Laura Kuenssberg‏Verified account @bbclaurak 1m1 minute ago
Laura Kuenssberg Retweeted BBC Parliament
You can watch it here

BBC Parliament‏Verified account
@BBCParliament
BBC Parliament now has pictures from #GrenfellTower fire statement in parliament. Watch: bbc.in/2t5zZmO

I wondered how long it was going to take before someone blamed this on foreigners. That's not going to cut it. It's the job of those at the top to ensure those below them do their jobs appropriately. If people consistently don't do that, then those supervising should be getting rid. If corners are being cut, that is by permission of those higher up the food chain than down it. If they choose money over decent working and safety standards then the. Lame lies squarely with them.

May will not be PM for the inquiry which they have said will take years. As soon as she us gone it will be put on hold by the next Tory PM as has all recommendations from the 2009 fire. Empty gestures, empty words. Glad to hear the survivors will be housed in London. Meanwhile the ones who carried out refurb and the management company carry on. They should be shut down now! They will be busy getting rid of anything incriminating. Like Hillsborough will it be 20 years before those that died families get justice?

I wondered how long it was going to take before someone blamed this on foreigners.

Disingenuous.

I am not blaming anything on 'foreigners'.

My blame is wholly on the people at the top that create these situations.

Do not deliberately & wilfully twist my words into an 'anti-foreigner' agenda.

Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative) saying they should hold the inquiry under the 2005 inquiries act so that witnesses speak under oath and can be compelled to appear as part of the inquiry.

Mass amounts of cheap, imported, ready trained labour who have been trained to lower standards than in Britain & throw in communications issues wrt language barriers.

Do you have evidence of this? Because experience in the domestic sector in London is that the entrance of builders from overseas into the market has actually improved standards as well as made it more cost effective.

Fairly evidently, as evidenced by the amount of litigation, a lot of British workers in the building industry have not been trained at all let alone to accepted standards.

The Construction Industry is saying that they cannot meet the government's building targets if they do not have access to foreign workers because there is a shortage of skilled British builders.

I am not saying there are not problems in the Construction industry generally or that we should not be training more young people in building skills but given local experience I am very about laying the blame at the door of FOM.

Charmageddon: Mass amounts of cheap, imported, ready trained labour who have been trained to lower standards than in Britain...

Do explain your definitely-not-anti-foreigner comment further....

X-post.

Whatwould, I did not 'lay the blame at the door of FoM'

Yet again, wilful disingenuous twisting.

Language barriers & differences in training & H&S appreciation & approaches between cultures & countries of origin.

This is not the fault of the people themselves - I didn't ever say it was either explicitly or implicitly.

It is wholly down to the management & contracting companies to mitigate these problems but they don't, because it costs money.

Quite so, Hashi. Say the cladding was at least partly responsible for the rapid spread of the fire at Grenfell Tower. If that particular type and /or construction is permitted in the UK when it is not in other countries, that would be the fault of legislators. If the management body didn't specify fireproof materials and construction in its tender, regardless of what is permitted, that would be KCTMO's fault. If it did specify such materials and construction and the contractors and subcontractors didn't comply with the specification, that would be the contractors' fault, and also the fault of KCTMO for not inspecting the work regularly.

Whoever the individuals are who undertake any work, those above them have a duty to supervise and inspect.

I'm out.

There is a valid problem there, but it obviously cannot be raised because it is immediately twisted to become an anti foreigner agenda.

I have posted on another thread about incidents like this being not down to any one thing but a chain of unrelated & interrelated discrete things that line up perfectly in one moment.

Now the properties managed by the management company and the cowboy builders who did the refurb should be checked immediately. Both these companies should now be vanned from either managing or refurbing any property as from now.

Charm Nothing disingenuous about it. You have highlighted overseas builders, here as a result of FOM, as a problem. What is your evidence because I find it very hard to believe from experience of overseas builders who are both more skilled and motivated by taking pride in etc standard of their work and perfectly able to communicate in good English, than their British counterparts

If it's not the blame of foreigners then there was no need to mention them really. Untrained or poorly trained applies just as well to brits.

Tory election research found Boris deeply divisive

The suggestion was that Johnson – who has previously been seen as a strong election asset by many Tory MPs because of his popularity and success in twice winning the mayoralty in London – had developed a “polarising” effect since the EU referendum.

A lot of anger appeared to be linked to the claim of Vote Leave, for which he was the most high-profile supporter, that Brexit would deliver £350m more to the NHS every week.

The issue was raised during this general election campaign, with one man, Grant Curnow, heckling Johnson during a visit to St Ives by shouting: “You lied to us, Boris. You lied about the money.”

The foreign secretary was also confronted by students carrying protest banners when visiting Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied classics in the 1980s.

Johnson’s potential to be toxic, particularly in strong remain areas, could be a possible setback if he ever took over the leadership of the party – especially given that he used to be one of the very biggest Conservative hitters.

No twisting was needed

There is a valid problem there, but it obviously cannot be raised because it is immediately twisted to become an anti foreigner agenda.

No twisting required. Try backing up your statements with facts instead of baseless prejudice against foreign workers and maybe you'll experience fewer "misunderstandings". HTH.

Interesing post by MNer on one of the Grenfell threads:

I have been involved LA procurement for building & refurb projects in the past, and the LA has always specified exactly what materials are to be used. The choice should never be left to the contractor, as it invalidates the tender procedure if all tenders are not bidding to provide exactly the same thing.

If the council didn't specify fire resistant materials, they will have to give their reasons for not doing so at the public enquiry and/or inquest and, given what happened and the repeated concerns raised by residents, I would hope they are prosecuted for it. If they specified fire resistant materials and the contractors decided to save a few quid by substituting something cheaper, then I would hope they end up on a corporate manslaughter charge.

When refurb was carried out all protection to the fire well was removed and not replaced and who puts gaspipes in a fire well? And gaspipes that were not encased. Who puts gas boilers in front if the door? What about the firedoors? There should not have been smoke in the fire well. There was no fire safety check carried out AFTER refurb by an independent agency. The work was signed off by management team. When the tenants asked for an independent assessment they were refused and as legal aid is no longer available the tenants could not get one done. The tenants knew it was an unsafe refurb. All these things and the cladding led to the most horrendous disaster we have ever witnessed. The death toll will definitely be over 100. I am amazed anyone survived. It us something I could never forget. Those poor souls never stood a chance.

After Grenfell Boris is even more toxic. Those wonderful fire fighters came from such a large radius there us no way that would not have affected overall response. On top of which they had to 're enter the building more times than they would have trained to do...no available relief

People are already saying he has blood on his hands