Westministenders: The bookends to a year of political chaos. Just how far have we come?

[RedToothBrush]

The 15th June 2016.

The Thames was filled with a flotilla of boats in a publicity stunt for the Leave campaign to draw attention to fisheries. Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey in their heads thought they were Leonardo and Kate, but the moment was rather more titanic in nature and could not have been more Alan Partridge if they had tried. Coming up behind was Bob Gedolf in a shameful and cringeworthy display of swearing and abuse that really didn’t help the Remain camp in anyway. Largely unnoticed was a small boat with a family following it all unfold…

The next day things went from fiasco to horror.

Farage unveiled the Dog Whistle Poster and Jo Cox was murdered. And the UK seemed set on its course for 7 days later when the world was turned upside down by the referendum itself.

14th June 2017.

Fast forward 365 days later and another tragedy unfolded. This time of a very different nature but with no less political significance.
Grenfell.

A moment of national shame. A symbol of so many things that had come to pass in the previous twelve months.

The election just the previous week had changed the direction of travel we seemed to be headed and left the Prime Minister exposed and looking wildly out of touch. The Maybot was given one more chance.

And the Maybot seems to be failing the test of her party who had the grace to grant her a second chance.

The Queen dressed in the same shade of blue, May delivered her ‘victory speech’ in, ignored the security threat and visited the ranks of the poor and the forgotten. A deliberate message to May not to forget who she serves? A Queen who feels aggrieved and angry by May’s behaviour? Who knows.

As for Brexit. The government looks lost. Adrift. The ‘Fight of the Summer’ over the EU’s plan for talks sounds out the window despite the denials from the Brexit Department. Hard Brexit is still on the cards. Apparently. But what does anyone believe now? May’s and the Brexiteers domination of the agenda is shattered, its power starting to be questioned.

What next?

This evening the anger is building.

Who knows, what will happen. Some of it might be predictable, but the future is far from certain and we have definitely entered a new era. We just don’t know who will lead it, or what its ambition or what the end goal now is.

What we do know, more acutely than ever is that we are all human and the wise words of Jo Cox about having ‘More in Common’ ring though ever more strongly.

Once again we feel ‘on the brink’.

I am starting to think that this is going to be a sore point

.
And so.

If May wants to set minds at rest, care for survivors of Grenfell Tower, she's going to have to give a clear, open, compassionate amnesty to all illegal immigrants, for the duration, until this tragedy is at least in a recovery phase. It's the only way accurate numbers of dead are going to be gauged.

It can't just come from the police, obviously.

No it can't just come from the police. It has to come from government because part of the dynamic is the loss of trust in government. It is irrelevant if it is local or national. Any elected Tory is the same to many.

The idea of requisitioning vacant homes is interesting when you think about it historically. In 1916 and during ww2, too large homes were temporarily requisitioned. It's not socialist - it's just a pragmatic response to deal with an immediate problem.

I know she won't give an amnesty, but it is a real test of humanity versus dogma here.

I still think and hope, there are too many wise community activists in faith an non faith organisations to let the SWP and teenage anarchists get a foothold on causes which are too important to be wrecked by calls to violence, red.

I also think that the police have extremely sophisticated ways of monitoring and preventing civil disorder now compared to previous times.

There is a long and proud tradition of non violent protest in the left.

Amnesty agonised over whether to support the ANC when they decided to take up arms.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has confirmed that a London-wide local authority recovery operation in response to the Grenfall Tower fire was launched yesterday.

Is May's deport first ask questions later, one of the reasons why there may be a numbers discrepancy between survivors and those lost.

Echoes of people disappearing from the census in 1991, when the -community charge-- poll tax came in ....

(And despite the authorities promises that the census data was sacrosanct, I know one person who after the census received a poll tax demand using their middle initial. Which had only been used on the census form ....)

The idea of requisitioning vacant homes is interesting when you think about it historically. In 1916

Apparently, at the start of WW1 the UK took in 250,000 (a quarter of a million) Belgian refugees.

There's actually a really lovely memorial called something like "the Belgian Gratitude Memorial" on Victoria embankment if you're ever walking that way. It was put there in thanks for the assistance given to Belgium in WWI, in particular the sheltering of so many refugees.

DumbledoresApprentice

Thanks (as a Londoner, I'm ashamed not to know of it.)

I only learned that fact from the Radio Times feature on the Ian Hislop programme on immigration next week (warning: feat. Katie Hopkins).

But it's an incredible fact, and suspiciously little-known.

But at least I know about the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Belgian_Memorial,_London

(odd link - the comma is real ?)

DumbledoresApprentice I'll have a look for that, thanks.

^Jo Cox's widower 'awed' by scale of UK events to remember his wife
Brendan Cox says tens of thousands of Get Together events to mark year since MP’s murder show communities want to unite^

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/17/jo-coxs-widower-awed-by-scale-of-uk-events-to-remember-his-wife

The numbers are definitely going to be a sore point I think Woman.

red If you've ever signed documents like the Official Secrets Act and had to work under it, you'll know that governments may require that many things not be disclosed, that have nothing whatsoever to do with emergency work, national security, economic interests, helping victims etc:

It is too often hiding embarrassing facts that the government of the day does not wish known, merely because it would disclose their mistakes, incompetence and / or venality.

Those who are ordered to keep quiet have to do so, on pain of losing jobs, pension, reference and possibly facing criminal charges.

So, it wouldn't be so much that the police say have nothing to gain by minimising the death toll - they may be strongly constrained by the government in what they are allowed to give out and when, especially with the govt excuse / reason of not prejudicing a future public enquiry or prosecution

However, in the age of social media, coverups are more likely than ever to leak or otherwise be rumbled.
So I suspect a serious discrepancy in the death toll couldn't be hidden for long, nor could breaking of building regulations, rather than merely best practice.

The thing about the sourcing / outsourcing, free market etc issues is that decisions should not be taken on ideology. We have a bunch of Tories running around preaching the free market and deregulation and imposing that from above when the decisions should be taken from the bottom up based on a proper analysis of whatever the target is and then implemented with the proper resources and expertise. In essence it is the same issue as Brexit, a bunch of Tories driven by ideology completely ignoring the complexity of the issues or anyone who actually knows anything about them or has the necessary skills to deal with them. People like Fox, Davies and Gove should not be put in charge of anything until they have gone to the Emerald City and got a heart, a brain and the courage to use them.

If anyone wants to know what a truly Free Market looks like they should study China since 1976, women and children sold as commodities, infecting people with HIV whilst harvesting their blood which was taxed as an agricultural product, baby milk laced with poisons, schools built without even steel reinforcing rods in an earthquake zone that collapsed like a house of cards when the inevitable happened..... But then a tower block that goes up like a torch taking so many human lives with it is beginning to sound like some of the same....

bestiswest That's the one. The very recent fire in the college I work in was only saved due to fire doors and sprinklers. I remember the school fire and the devastation it caused

Ah, yes I remember that granny.

I doubt there will ever be an agreed number of victims: the official number will be smaller than some people claim, simply because without proper evidence it can't be increased to include everyone that has been reported missing. (Undoubtedly some will have taken this opportunity to disappear)

I wouldn't support a full amnesty (far too open to abuse), but I would institute a process whereby any non-Brit Cit Grenfell resident could apply to the Home Office at no charge for papers which either confirm legal status (fingerprints will verify if a valid visa, ILR or refugee status has been granted in the past), or allow consideration of temporary leave granted outside the Immigration Rules with the presumption that anyone who has not broken the law (other than the IR) should be granted leave to remain

Paul Bernal @PaulbernalUK
When you read about new powers to tackle ‘extremism’, notice how some of the #GrenfellTower protesters are being called extremists.

I wouldn't support a full amnesty (far too open to abuse), but I would institute a process whereby any non-Brit Cit Grenfell resident could apply to the Home Office at no charge for papers which either confirm legal status (fingerprints will verify if a valid visa, ILR or refugee status has been granted in the past), or allow consideration of temporary leave granted outside the Immigration Rules with the presumption that anyone who has not broken the law (other than the IR) should be granted leave to remain

The problem is the Home Office has a proven track record of ignoring the law ...

#GrenfellTower protesters are being called extremists

I understand that residents who complained were threatened with legal action. Some interesting parallel MN threads on the awful treatment of Housing association and local authority residents, in sub standard/ dangerous accommodation.

Jeremy Cliffe @JeremyCliffe
To get through its crisis, Britain needs to return to the school of political economy known as Varieties of Capitalism (VoC). Here's why:
The UK economy is built on an eco-system of impatient capital, generalist skills, services industries and weak unions.
In VoC theory, that makes UK a "liberal market economy" (LME). A country that makes these mutually-reinforcing factors its competitive edge.
Ed Miliband got this theory, yet shied from its implication: Britain must accept its unequal model or attempt a risky change of eco-systems.
His 2015 programme was a tortuous attempt to confront Britain's inequalities within its LME eco-system. Perhaps for that reason, it failed.
Theresa May inadvertently shares this outlook. She is not against Britain's current economic model, but thinks it can be made more equal.
But Jeremy Corbyn envisages the UK shifting to what VoC theorists call a "coordinated market economy" (CME), like Germany or Sweden.
That means making: impatient capital -> patient, a generalist skills system -> vocational, hierarchical workplaces -> collaborative.
I have long believed this shift impossible in UK for deep & path-dependent cultural reasons. VoC theory assumes LME/CME split unbreachable.
So I thought UK's best hope was to increase equality within its LME constraints, ie through infrastructure spending, devolution, education.
In fact, I made a whole Radio 4 documentary advancing this theory about VoC and Britain: [ t.co/c6SbN6bjQW?amp=1 ]
But what if I got that wrong? What if Britain can accommodate a shift to a more CME economy, to a more guild-like web of mores & structures?
Corbyn's good result makes me wonder: is Britain less wedded to an LME model than I thought? Could its culture accept an eco-system shift?
In short: could Britain turn from a LME to a CME? And could it make a success of that? I used to think the answer obvious. No more. [ENDS]

As an example of the egregious and increasing inequality, while half the population is struggling to pay essential bills, the wealth of the tiny % in charge of private utility companies is rocketing:

72% pay rise to Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of SSE (electricity), to bring his pay to £2.92 million.

This is after recently arguing against consumers having their bills capped, to save them up to just £100 a year.

40% pay rise in 2016 to chief executive of Centrica (owns British Gas) bringing his pay to £4.15 million

On the subject of covering up numbers - on which I don't actually have an opinion - it's possible but I've no idea if it's an issue here. The decision to do so would be a political one, it would not be on the level of the police or fire service - the data they provided would be collated and manipulated - nor would it be the media - the media would be fed false information under what's called 'news management' - which is a kind of fake news.

A paranoid, jumpy government who is being blamed for the fire might be temped, they also may be tempted to cover up numbers of illegal immigrants as it shows their immigration policies not to be working just as they're trying to persuade the public they're under control.

Whether anyone would actually try, I haven't the remotest idea.

LME hasn't delivered the UK a competitive edge - the UK has been continually losing its competitive edge under all sorts of different economic and social systems since the late 19th century, i.e. late Victoria

In contrast, since WW2, the greater efficiency of Germany's socially cooperative model, CME - which the victorious allies basically ordered for them - has given them a clear competitive advantage over the UK, including trade outside the EU

Reminder: Despite the chaos, the A50 clock is still going TICK TOCK

Brexit - view of UK chaos from Switzerland

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/standard/lachnummer-europas/story/29320034

(translated)
"The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that he expects the British to finally clarify their position since he can not negotiate with himself. < wince >

The irony of this statement is that it would be best for the British if he did exactly that !

At least, they would know a representative on their side,
who knows the extent of the task and is able to find a deal that is fair for both sides. < it's that or cry >