The Great Tower Block Fire Tragedy of London

[Rugeley Villa]

3 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Why not? If the owners have no actual plans to use them, if they have been vacant for years just sitting there while the owner uses them as a financial tool instead of letting them or living there? If they will be recompensed after perhaps?

With permission from the owner first.

[Ingram85]

35 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

With permission from the owner first.

From owners that have twisted and abused the market in the first place. Those that have been born into financial security and old money, the oligarchs and sheiks? The bankers? The 'elite'?. Those able to acquire these lucrative properties in the first place without actually having to work for the money to buy them? Those who use loopholes in laws to get ahead all the time? 

From those types of people, yes. **** them. A tower block that can hold 400-600 people has just burned down with the majority of those inside burned to a crisp, the rest are homeless. Their temporary needs are greater I'm afraid.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Ingram85

[Rugeley Villa]

Just now, Ingram85 said:

From owners that have abused the market and have been born into financial security and old money, the oligarchs and sheiks? The bankers? Those able to acquire these lucrative properties in the first place?

From those types of people, yes. **** them.

I understand your view but you just cannot go round handing over other people's property. Victimising the rich because they are rich. There are plenty of other alternatives for now and we all know we need more affordable housing for people.

[colhint]

4 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Why not? If the owners have no actual plans to use them, if they have been vacant for years just sitting there while the owner uses them as a financial tool instead of letting them or living there? If they will be recompensed after perhaps?

I have said this a few times in the last half hour or so

Sadiq Khan commissioned a report only last year which said the vast majority of investments were buy to let, so people are already living in them, there is almost no evidence of luxury properties being left empty. Not my stats but Sadiq Khan's 

secondly it's against Article 1 of ECHR . ECHR has to change before you can legally do what you are proposing.

[peterms]

The contrast between the respinse to floods and this fire is quite instructive.

It's helpful that the BBC interview drew attention to it, but they should explore it further.

Floods can be presented as a natural disaster.  Most people won't know about the effect that EU policy, government policy, subsidies for grubbing up hedges, monoculture, grouse moors, and in general letting landowners do what they want and subsidising them to do so, has on flooding.  It just looks like nature out of control.

With this fire, though, it is immediately very obvious that human agency is at fault.

This is why the people responsible are hiding.

Local authorities have disaster response plans,  involving logistics, communications, provision of essential services, everything you would expect.  Where was the response?  Why didn't it kick in?  Where were the senior staff, the local controllers?

Governments have the power to draft in massive amounts of help from trained staff, provide food, shelter and all the rest.

Obviously they could easily cope with evacuating 120 flats - and if they cant, we should be deeply, deeply concerned.

The failure to respond adequately cannot be explained by surprise, or scale, or anything else.  They seem to have frozen, and to have failed to implement the most basic plans which their staff will have been trained in.

Why is that?

I suspect that at least part of the answer is guilt.  They know this is not a natural disaster.  It stems from their actions in deregulating, handing off responsibility, cutting resources, accepting second best for social housing tenants,  and basically not really caring very much.  And they know they will be held to account.

[Awol]

Just now, Ingram85 said:

From owners that have abused the market and have been born into financial security and old money, the oligarchs and sheiks? The bankers? Those able to acquire these lucrative properties in the first place?

From those types of people, yes. **** them.

Who decides what 'type' of people the law will no longer apply to?

I totally get that people are upset, rightly so. I also find it really worrying that some of those people allow their emotions to over rule the fundamental legal principles that underpin our society.

 

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, Awol said:

It's not about public sympathy mate, it's about the law of the land. If and when politicians start suggesting that obeying the law is discretionary very big red alarm bells should be ringing. 

Missed the first sentence?

[Ingram85]

2 minutes ago, colhint said:

I have said this a few times in the last half hour or so

Sadiq Khan commissioned a report only last year which said the vast majority of investments were buy to let, so people are already living in them, there is almost no evidence of luxury properties being left empty. Not my stats but Sadiq Khan's 

secondly it's against Article 1 of ECHR . ECHR has to change before you can legally do what you are proposing.

Well obviously those don't count towards the number of vacant properties then do they.

[peterms]

12 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

It's not ideal I know but they own them and they have paid a lot of money for them. Why should the rich be dealt a bad hand because of dodgy buildings and not enough homes.

Well, possibly because they are the ones who build dodgy buildings (for others to live in, not themselves, obviously), and create housing shortages through landbanking and funding corrupt political parties who sell public housing and don't replace it?

[Ingram85]

2 minutes ago, Awol said:

Who decides what 'type' of people the law will no longer apply to?

I totally get that people are upset, rightly so. I also find it really worrying that some of those people allow their emotions to over rule the fundamental legal principles that underpin our society.

 

So that outweighs giving a newly found homeless family who nearly died, have had neighbours or friends die in this tragedy a roof over their heads for a few nights in otherwise unused property until actual accommodation can be found? No wonder we are **** as a society. 

[Awol]

5 minutes ago, peterms said:

The contrast between the respinse to floods and this fire is quite instructive.

It's helpful that the BBC interview drew attention to it, but they should explore it further.

Floods can be presented as a natural disaster.  Most people won't know about the effect that EU policy, government policy, subsidies for grubbing up hedges, monoculture, grouse moors, and in general letting landowners do what they want and subsidising them to do so, has on flooding.  It just looks like nature out of control.

With this fire, though, it is immediately very obvious that human agency is at fault.

This is why the people responsible are hiding.

Local authorities have disaster response plans,  involving logistics, communications, provision of essential services, everything you would expect.  Where was the response?  Why didn't it kick in?  Where were the senior staff, the local controllers?

Governments have the power to draft in massive amounts of help from trained staff, provide food, shelter and all the rest.

Obviously they could easily cope with evacuating 120 flats - and if they cant, we should be deeply, deeply concerned.

The failure to respond adequately cannot be explained by surprise, or scale, or anything else.  They seem to have frozen, and to have failed to implement the most basic plans which their staff will have been trained in.

Why is that?

I suspect that at least part of the answer is guilt.  They know this is not a natural disaster.  It stems from their actions in deregulating, handing off responsibility, cutting resources, accepting second best for social housing tenants,  and basically not really caring very much.  And they know they will be held to account.

All of that is true, the authorities have f'ed up and are way behind the ball. It appears they are now trying to catch up and I hope if people are guilty of negligence they are hung out to dry.

But you still can't go around confiscating people's legal property on a whim. 

[peterms]

8 minutes ago, colhint said:

, there is almost no evidence of luxury properties being left empty.

The Independent

 found otherwise, and the anecdotal visual evidence of whole blocks with barely a light on at night supports that.

Quote

Last night the former residents of Grenfell Tower lay crowded together on mix-and-match donated blankets and cushions, staring at the rafters of the sports centre in which they tried to slept. A stone’s throw away, 1,399 properties sat in silence; darkness fell over large airy rooms, their blinds unopened for months. These homes – if that’s what you charitably want to call them – are investment “nest eggs” worth £664m, and they are empty. None of them have been opened up to the displaced residents of the Grenfell Tower fire.

 

[peterms]

3 minutes ago, Awol said:

All of that is true, the authorities have f'ed up and are way behind the ball. It appears they are now trying to catch up and I hope if people are guilty of negligence they are hung out to dry.

But you still can't go around confiscating people's legal property on a whim. 

I would dispute "whim".

It's a long term policy.

I would also place high up the list all those whose estates were originally stolen from the rest of us.  The legal title they have is corrupt - their ancestors stole common land by violence and they should lose it without compensation.  Who would disagree with that?

[Dr_Pangloss]

May was utterly pathetic in that Newsnight interview, another car crash.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Dr_Pangloss

[Awol]

16 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

So that outweighs giving a newly found homeless family who nearly died, have had neighbours or friends die in this tragedy a roof over their heads for a few nights in otherwise unused property until actual accommodation can be found? No wonder we are **** as a society. 

Put them in hotels, don't steal people's property. It's not complicated.

[PaulC]

23 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I understand your view but you just cannot go round handing over other people's property. Victimising the rich because they are rich. There are plenty of other alternatives for now and we all know we need more affordable housing for people.

You haven't got to hand it over. You can just force them to let it and the council foot the cost

[PaulC]

Just now, Awol said:

Put them in hotels, don't steal people's property. It's not complicated.

did she not say rehouse them within 3 weeks. 

[Awol]

3 minutes ago, PaulC said:

did she not say rehouse them within 3 weeks. 

I don't know what she said, how's that relevant to the argument about not stealing private property? 

[PaulC]

You said stick them in hotels. 

[peterms]

6 minutes ago, Awol said:

Put them in hotels, don't steal people's property. It's not complicated.

More complicated than you realise, perhaps.

I was involved with managing the temporary housing of homeless families in London years ago, when it was easier.  It was hard then, it's harder now.

And you should drop this thing about "stealing".  We have every right to determine how people will use their property.  We don't allow them to install neon signs; why is it seen as a greater intrusion to say they will not keep housing empty for speculative gain, while bereaved families sleep on floors?

Time to get real about this stuff.