London Fire: Grenfell Tower thread five

[RhythmAndStealth]

RIP

Five victims officially named
At least 79 victims expected, possibly more
Many displaced and struggling

To all those affected and all those helping

Thread four
Thread three
Thread three contains links to threads one and two.

Paget-Brown has quit!

The gas was still fuelling the fire over twenty four hours later - the fire brigade couldn't shut it off.

The money side if it is very much like donations to aberfan which never got to families.

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

K&C council leader Nick Paget-Brown resigns, blaming bad "legal advice" for locking out press/public. He can't even resign with humility.

Dear God. Is that seriously the reason he's given?!

We will have a right under the FOIA probably (subject to legal privilege) to read that legal advice telling the council not to hold the meeting in public so as not to prejudice the enquiry.

www.buzzfeed.com/hannahalothman/kensington-and-chelsea-council-is-under-pressure-to-publish?utm_term=.vakpV4awk#.yfrp1QY3z
Kensington And Chelsea Council Is Under Pressure To Publish The Legal Advice That Led To A Meeting Being Called Off
However, one councillor said it was unlikely there was any written advice to publish, as in-house lawyers had given verbal counsel to cabinet members ahead of the meeting.

Councillor Rock Feilding-Mellen has gone too.

Statements for Paget-Brown
www.rbkc.gov.uk/newsroom/all-council-statements/cllr-paget-brown-%E2%80%93-resignation-statement-30-june-2017

and

Feilding-Mellen
www.rbkc.gov.uk/newsroom/all-council-statements/cllr-rock-feilding-mellen-resignation-statement-30-june-2017

And they'll all be replaced by ones who are better in the job won't they;?.

Is it possible to be worse?

(Maybe don't answer that)

Well whatever was to be discussed at the meeting would have been out there in the public domain and free to see by any potential jurors in a future criminal case. Pretty certain (given the antics) that whatever it was would not have shown nick and the rest of the council in a favourable light.

Yuck reading Feilding-Mellon's statement.
"It has been suggested several times since the tragic event of the 14 June that I should resign, but until now I have felt that it was my duty to do whatever I could personally to back the Council’s efforts to help the fire’s victims, to encourage all of the dedicated officers within the Council as they worked tirelessly for the relief effort, and to support the Council’s Leader. It will be for others to judge whether it would have been better for me to resign immediately, but I would have found it hard to forgive myself if I had ducked out at such a moment of crisis for the borough."

This is the man who has been in hiding for the last how many days!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/grenfell-fire-volunteers-help-residents-compile-death-toll

In the absence of an official list, residents are relying on volunteer demographers and data experts to help them compile estimates of the death toll, filling names into online floorplans and spreadsheets, with data colour-coded according to who is confirmed dead, presumed dead, still unaccounted for or survived.

They have allocated names to flats on different floors of the building and are listing 197 survivors, 52 people presumed dead, 24 confirmed dead, two missing. They believe there are a further 27 people unaccounted for – neither reported missing nor safe – raising the probable death toll to 103, vonAhn said, a figure she describes a “conservative estimate”.

How can a country in 2017 Europe be relying on fire survivors to account for those lost. Incredible. Terrible.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/3921474/leader-kensington-council-resigns-grenfell-tower-tragedy/
Leader of Kensington council Nick Paget-Brown resigns in the wake of Grenfell Tower tragedy after Downing Street demanded his head
The council boss was widely criticised over the council's response to the disaster earlier this month

KENSINGTON council’s shamed Tory boss finally quit after Downing Street demanded his head over the Grenfell Tower fire, The Sun can reveal.

Conservative chief Nick Paget-Brown resigned just hours after No10 slammed him for trying to hold a meeting about the tragedy in secret.

And he was told on Friday lunch time by London Minister Greg Hands that the Government had no confidence in him after “catastrophically poor handling” of the disaster aftermath.

A senior Government source told The Sun that there was “an increasing exasperation” at Mr Paget-Brown’s behaviour.

They added: “The last straw was the bizarre and entirely predictable cock-up by trying to keep that meeting a secret.

“Obviously the existence of the meeting was going to leak and the media were going to want to be there.

“And it was deeply embarrassing for a Conservative council to try do these things behind closed doors as it was Margaret Thatcher who opened up council meetings to the public.”

The senior source added: “A lot of the good effort was being tarnished not just by the fire but the handling and the aftermath – ultimately local leaders have to take responsibility and it was just catastrophically poor handling.”

I'm not even sure where to start with this article...

'good effort'? 'tory image?' the need for the government to be seen to be intervening.

Notable that the chief executive Nicholas Holgate went 9 days ago after intervention from the Communities Minister and they didn't request Paget-Brown to go at the same time.

the need for the government to be seen to be intervening
Finally they are worried?

This thread seems to have gone rather legalistic and less about the victims

stopfucking re. your point about donations.......take a look at the vid i linked at 13.53

So yet again the concern about how things look which is partly what caused this tragedy in the first place.

I haven't read the whole thread and this may have been highlighted before but I have just googled this and it makes for disturbing reading.

grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/grenfell-tower-from-bad-to-worse

This thread seems to have gone rather legalistic and less about the victims

Things posted merely reflect the current point of the news arc on the story and what events have happened. The news arc has been related to justice and Hillsborough over the last couple of days together with the appointment of the judge for the public inquiry.

Then its switched to the council cock up, which has taken the focus off victims again (Even Paget-Brown commented that he had become the story and this took away from the victims in his resignation).

The truth is I've seen little about the victims anywhere over the last couple of days. I've just posted what I've seen - its not that I haven't been looking. Lammy has talked about problems but that's about it. I agree the victims are not getting coverage they deserve.

I'm not really sure how you can avoid the thread following developments and how the media are reporting things. That's not trying to ignore the victims and the lack of action for the victims either. This also reflect the priorities, interests and background of the media (who are generally not BAME, poor or in social housing) which is part of the problem.

But don't think this is also down to 'lack of interest' or 'not caring'. Its just the decisions that are being made by those who decide what is 'newsworthy'.

If you see something post it. Or just talk about it. Keep making the point.

press.labour.org.uk/post/162437873584/grenfell-inquiry-too-narrow-says-jeremy-corbyn
Labour Press Release: Grenfell inquiry “too narrow” says Jeremy Corbyn in letter to PM

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/kensington-mp-emma-dent-coad-on-grenfell-safety-shouldnt-be-an-aspiration
Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad on Grenfell: ‘Safety shouldn’t be an aspiration’

By midday, Dent Coad was in the Commons chamber for prime minister’s questions, although she wasn’t called to speak. She had wanted to ask Theresa May whether the government’s commitment to resettle all the Grenfell families within three weeks – “that expires next week, by the way” – was still on track. “She committed to those three weeks, but I don’t think it’s possible for them to do that.”

and

“A lot of people who were the worst hit are getting the help that they need, at last. But there are certainly people in hotels on their own, where they are the only survivors in a hotel. They may not want to eat in a restaurant, they may not have the right kind of food they want, or at the right times they want."

“Some people are still having trouble getting access to the money they need.” She’s not quite sure why. One woman whose child had been in hospital after the fire, and needed extra facilities in her hotel after the child was discharged, was told they weren’t available, says the MP. “She was quite rightly angry about that. So, there are a lot of things that aren’t being dealt with properly, still.”

Her biggest concern now, she says, is that “even for people who are well accommodated now and well looked after, they have got one hell of a life ahead of them.” Kensington and Chelsea does not have enough facilities for people who may have a mental health crisis, she argues, despite the fact that in the immediate aftermath of the fire, she was inundated with offers of help from senior psychiatric doctors and consultants, “and there was nowhere to send them for the first 10 days. It was just ridiculous.”

and

“But – yeah,” she says now. “The mountain of work coming our way is just extraordinary.” She already has a queue of between 350 and 400 casework requests from constituents awaiting her attention, about 300 of which are related to Grenfell. “I’m trying to get an experienced caseworker in yesterday, just to start ploughing through it all.” Does she feel overwhelmed? “You can’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed. With something like that, you just have to tackle it.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/diane-abbott/grenfell-tower_b_17348876.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ir=UK&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
We Must Not Lose Sight Of The Human Beings Still Caught Up In The Grenfell Tragedy
Blog piece by Diane Abbott (published in the last half hour as it goes)

One thing that quickly became clear in the course of the meeting was that many of the things that government ministers claim are happening to help the survivors are not happening at all. My strongest impression is of continuing chaos. For some survivors English is not their first language but very little information or written advice appears to be in translation. There is still no central crisis centre where all who have been affected can go and get help. Survivors are having to go from place to place to get the advice and support that they need. Some survivors are in hotels but families can be in different rooms and facilities suitable for tourists are not suitable for traumatised families. For instance many rooms have no refrigerators and a woman with asthma complained of being in a room with no window.

Other survivors have been offered temporary accommodation. But they are worried that this is short-term and don’t know what will happen in a few months time. They are often in accommodation which is more expensive than Grenfell Tower and are worried that they will not be able to afford it when the temporary placement ends. They also confirmed that they are being offered unsuitable housing out of the borough. Numbers of survivors do not seem to have access to social work support and counselling. There seems to be a shortage of family liaison workers. And in particular there are not enough culturally diverse social and support workers. Too many survivors and their families don’t seem to be able to access the financial help that MPs have been assured is available. The community who have been providing the overwhelming majority of support, are concerned about what has happened to all the charitable donations of food, clothes and money. There is no central inventory, no way of tracking where all the donations have gone.

I'd also add that there are limits to what journalists perhaps can say about certain things relating to the victims without making personal details public. The point at which they can go and do an interview with shocked people is passing, if not passed, and their presence now almost becomes something of an intrusion. The victims also need a filter for their privacy, which perhaps doesn't provide the same level of 'human interest' for newspapers. Instead there is a shift to people speaking on behalf of victims in a more general manner. But this will naturally be less often in the media for this reason.

Abbott's last paragraph to her blog post says:
The media circus will move on from Grenfell. But we need to continue to focus, not only on the architectural and regulatory issues, but the human beings caught up in this tragedy and how they can get the help and support they will need far into the future.

Beinazir Lasharie, a Labour councillor on Kensington and Chelsea Council, says the authority didn’t listen to Grenfell residents’ concerns before the fire. She says she is still waiting for counselling after the disaster and, like other residents, is suffering from post-traumatic stress.
www.channel4.com/news/beinazir-lasharie-nick-paget-brown-should-have-resigned-earlier

This lady is a hero, mother and lives just next to the tower.

I get that and thanks Helena

I feel very frustrated and I am at a loss of what to do to be honest

I would like too see the council at least act with some humanity . Things like changing the lock for the community centre . That's not a manpower issue that's common decency and building relationship and communication .

Helens so / the gist that if they accept charity money it affects their Benefits ?

What Diane says in that blog matches with what the volunteer in that video was saying.

On the Victoria Derbyshire show Jon Delaney did ask what sort of tenancy the Grenfell residents would be getting when they move into a place. Sharma said it would be the same as they had before.
But he couldnt quite commit to permanent accomodation. The residents quite rightly dont want to keep being moved around like chess pieces. They are fed up of having to chase and chase and chase. Where ARE these donations. There is no word strong enough to describe how badly the residents have been treated.

Makes you feel like just going down there and trying to help sort it out. It's a precious piece of London with precious people harmed by this awfulness. Or at least make up a nice bed and a pot of tea, for respite, for survivors. A lot of them are running on empty now.