The Great Tower Block Fire Tragedy of London

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Even Herr Madge is trolling the Maybot now by meeting the residents

She did look very upset,  she was doing this stuff in the 40's remember and she still has to do it 70 odd years later when we effectively do it to ourselves.

She does not need to troll anyone,  she is bullet proof in my book.

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

Even Herr Madge is trolling the Maybot now by meeting the residents

Do you think she'll be telling them how much money she just got to do up her gaff?

 

[TrentVilla]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

Even Herr Madge is trolling the Maybot now by meeting the residents

Maybe she is offering to put them up in her several hundred spare rooms. Probably not.

[bickster]

Just now, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

She did look very upset,  she was doing this stuff in the 40's remember and she still has to do it 70 odd years later when we effectively do it to ourselves.

She does not need to troll anyone,  she is bullet proof in my book.

You are completely missing the point

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Or "Any chance of your new chief advisor coming down for a look?"

Is that the "Mr Tortoise Head" person who used to be housing minister ? 

 

[bickster]

Just now, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Is that the "Mr Tortoise Head" person who used to be housing minister ? 

 

That would be the one

[Xela]

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

What a absolute muppet, why they even interviewing this clown trying to stir up more hatred between communities? I get your angry but seriously shut up this has nothing to do with religion or race.

Before this she is actually slating the police and fire crews. These guys are heroes risking their lives trying to protect us. Take your anger out on the politicians the people responsible for the structure not the people who are underpaid trying their damnest to keep us safe. 

Absolute clown shoes. 

Some people thrive on division and conflict, she is clearly one of them. She needs to shut her deluded mouth. 

[Xela]

2 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

Requisitioning sounds a little bit like playing to the crowd and playing politics with this, it's not a practical suggestion to help the people affected in the Here an now.

There clearly is an issue with rich overseas investors 'landbanking' in London  and it should be looked at through the proper channels and legislation and if agreed, measures put in place going forward. What you can't do is just take peoples legally owned property now just to score some political brownie points. 

[Raver50032]

27 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

I am happy to give the nipper the benefit of doubt,  for all we know his best friend(s) are missing and he does not know how to process this.

He's sees people asking an obviously important man who is on camera,  I duuno,  he is only little and he has seen and lived through it.

(This is partly why May won't meet the public unless it's a totally cleansed environment on her terms only) Can't have people (Or children) saying things like "building  regulations,  strong and stable ?" with a smouldering shell in the background can she ? 

Oh, don't get me wrong... I have no axe to grind with the kid at all. I fully get the anger and the need for answers. But what on earth can Mr Khan actually say to the kid to answer him? He can't promise the earth, because he doesn't have the power to do that. All he can do is show empathy and demand his own answers. That may, or may not wash with a 7 year old. Watching it live, it kind of felt like a stunt and totally not his fault at all.

The problem with angry people caught up in all of this is their misguided 'lashings out.' I guess it makes for 'good TV' huh? One guy with earphones in earlier today, live on Sky TV heckling Andrea Leadsom just couldn't take the answers being given. All he could do was mutter and shake his head in disbelief. What was he expecting her (the leader of the House Of Commons) to do or say so soon after an incident, other than re-iterate fact and show empathy? I also kind of got the impression that the Police Chief doing the press briefing was being heckled by the crowd for not committing to estimating the death toll. Good on him, in a position of authority like that and managing incidents (done a fair bit of that myself in my time), you are taught to stick to fact. Reporting and speculating anything else provokes trouble elsewhere, whether it be locals on the warpath for a scapegoat or the media lapping it all up to fill 24 hours of news coverage.

We never saw anything like this after Manchester or London Bridge. I wonder why that is?  

[MakemineVanilla]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

Shifting blame. It's the way they work, it's what they do. They want, need and create bogeymen.

Everyone with a political interest seems to have their preferred target.

But it seems likely that when the whole thing is unravelled it will turn out to be a convoluted bureaucratic chain of oversights converging on a series of chance events.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

You are completely missing the point

I did.  Sorry about that.

[MakemineVanilla]

19 minutes ago, Raver50032 said:

Oh, don't get me wrong... I have no axe to grind with the kid at all. I fully get the anger and the need for answers. But what on earth can Mr Khan actually say to the kid to answer him? He can't promise the earth, because he doesn't have the power to do that. All he can do is show empathy and demand his own answers. That may, or may not wash with a 7 year old. Watching it live, it kind of felt like a stunt and totally not his fault at all.

The problem with angry people caught up in all of this is their misguided 'lashings out.' I guess it makes for 'good TV' huh? One guy with earphones in earlier today, live on Sky TV heckling Andrea Leadsom just couldn't take the answers being given. All he could do was mutter and shake his head in disbelief. What was he expecting her (the leader of the House Of Commons) to do or say so soon after an incident, other than re-iterate fact and show empathy? I also kind of got the impression that the Police Chief doing the press briefing was being heckled by the crowd for not committing to estimating the death toll. Good on him, in a position of authority like that and managing incidents (done a fair bit of that myself in my time), you are taught to stick to fact. Reporting and speculating anything else provokes trouble elsewhere, whether it be locals on the warpath for a scapegoat or the media lapping it all up to fill 24 hours of news coverage.

We never saw anything like this after Manchester or London Bridge. I wonder why that is?  

It seems to show the power of the media to promote anger or damp it down.

The BBC seemed to be struggling to find enough angry people to give them what they want, this lunchtime. They could only find the grief-stricken.

I get the impression that certain political elements would really like a summer of riots to promote their own agenda and give them evidence of the divided society they claim is the source all wrongs.

 

 

[blandy]

4 hours ago, peterms said:

Actually, requisitioning those large local properties deliberately left empty by absentee investors is the obvious thing to do.

At first glance it is. It's also the emotionally appealing and "moral" thing to do, for all sorts of good reasons. It's also another unrealistic Corbyn "ideal".

If the law actually allowed properties to be requisitioned immediately, then fair enough. But it doesn't. Which means that (unfortunately) requisitioning houses and flats etc. is illegal. The council and government have no power to do it. So Corbyn voicing it is perhaps understandable as an emotional response, but he knows it's not legally possible, so.....Mind you saying "we need to change the law to enable councils to requisition empty properties in certain emergency situations" which is more coherent, doesn't have the same political impact.

He could have gone down a line of appealing to people with empty property / rooms in the area to help out, to show altruism and generosity to the people, while mentioning that the law currently prevents forced requisitioning and that he thinks that needs to change.

His response as a human has (again) showed up T.May, but his response as someone who could perhaps propose ways to help make things better is no different to the tories lacklustre efforts. But really that's all a sideshow to the absolute state of things that ever allowed such a horror to occur.

 

[blandy]

53 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Everyone with a political interest seems to have their preferred target.

But it seems likely that when the whole thing is unravelled it will turn out to be a convoluted bureaucratic chain of oversights converging on a series of chance events.

They do, though I wonder if the Rags in question have a "political" interest or a sort of monetary and ideological angle, really.

I reckon people will go to prison for this disaster. I struggle to see how everything can be above board and in order. Negligence has to come into it, at least, surely? And probably criminal negligence or worse.

[BOF]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I reckon people will go to prison for this disaster. I struggle to see how everything can be above board and in order. Negligence has to come into it, at least, surely? And probably criminal negligence or worse.

I'd be surprised but heartened.  It's more likely that the bad guy will become the systems, the legislation, basically everything that keeps individuals out of prison.  If someone does go down then it'll be a fall guy peripherally involved and with nothing like the power or authority required to make this all happen, or to prevent it, for that matter.

[snowychap]

 

[itdoesntmatterwhatthissay]

1 hour ago, Xela said:

There clearly is an issue with rich overseas investors 'landbanking' in London  and it should be looked at through the proper channels and legislation and if agreed, measures put in place going forward. What you can't do is just take peoples legally owned property now just to score some political brownie points. 

It really is. And I can't imagine proposals such as doubling council tax would make enough of a difference in central London.

[MakemineVanilla]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

They do, though I wonder if the Rags in question have a "political" interest or a sort of monetary and ideological angle, really.

I reckon people will go to prison for this disaster. I struggle to see how everything can be above board and in order. Negligence has to come into it, at least, surely? And probably criminal negligence or worse.

People forget that the media is business and possibly a cynical business like no other.

The building and administration of public housing is known to be an incompetent business and has form when it comes to corruption (John Poulson et al).

Unfortunately bureaucracies are very good at ensuring that the buck stops elsewhere.

I wonder if Chilcot is busy?

[peterms]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

If the law actually allowed properties to be requisitioned immediately, then fair enough. But it doesn't. Which means that (unfortunately) requisitioning houses and flats etc. is illegal. The council and government have no power to do it. So Corbyn voicing it is perhaps understandable as an emotional response, but he knows it's not legally possible, so.....Mind you saying "we need to change the law to enable councils to requisition empty properties in certain emergency situations" which is more coherent, doesn't have the same political impact.

No, that's how he might explain it in introducing emergency legislation.  In setting out a clear and simple policy goal for public consumption, it's better to state it simply, as he has done.

As for doing it, we already have empty dwelling management orders.  Perhaps it would be simpler to amend the timescales set out there, than introduce new legislation - I don't know.  That legal framework already includes reasonable exceptions, like not applying to property which is the home of someone admitted to a care home, for example, so might be a good basis to start from.

There are practical problems to do with the government not managing to arrange for parliament to get back to business because they are stitching up a deal with the odious DUP, which introduces some delay.

But as a simple proposition that the property rights of absentee owners come a long way behind the immediate needs of the victims of this tragedy, I can't fault it.  In terms of putting it into practice, if there is the political will, then a way will be found.

[Dr_Pangloss]

I definitely sympathise with the requisition idea, it's disgusting that predominantly foreign 'investors' are able to launder their cash in London properties, without ever living in them, whilst scores of people are rendered homeless due to this horrific event.