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  1. #21
    Senior Member Professional Poster peejaye's Avatar
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    Quote Originally Posted by holzz View Post
    i don't care. i'm happy to pay taxes to house those in need. it's why welfare exists, and why we all pay taxes.
    You're probably in a privileged position not to care judging by your politics! You're lot are trying to scrap welfare despite paying taxes to subsidise it all! While your local council are paying for all this, other public services will suffer!



  2. #22
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    An intriguing consequence of the Grenfell Tower fire, has been the review of cladding on high-rise public housing, with the current estimate of the cost of replacing it and temporarily re-housing the tenants at £600 million. Had Labour won the election, with its generous plans in public spending, the inevitable problem for every government everywhere -the sudden intrusion into their plans of an expensive disaster -man-made or not- could have presented it with a dilemma: how to fund this emergency policy? Given that many people, including me, did not consider the Manifesto commitments to be feasible, this disaster would surely have meant either trimming other budgets, or changing the priorities to give housing precedence over, say, defence -? I would not be surprised if Labour is patting itself on the back for being able to criticise the government and not having to make the financial decisions it would if in power, and that is without holding Labour to account for is own role in maintaining a de-regulated construction sector. But the joys of opposition can quickly become the misery of government, as Theresa May is finding out, and Labour may yet in the next 18 months.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...test-grenfell/



  3. #23
    Senior Member Professional Poster peejaye's Avatar
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    That's easy, just tax the rich another penny on their £££££££££££££££'s to pay for it, they've screwed us all enough out of enough tax!



  4. #24
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    Quote Originally Posted by peejaye View Post
    That's easy, just tax the rich another penny on their £££££££££££££££'s to pay for it, they've screwed us all enough out of enough tax!
    Come on Peejaye you can do better than that. The Gov has just found £1 billion a year for Northern Ireland (a closer look at the details reveals it could amount to £2.5bn over two years) which suggests that when it needs to, yes, governments find the money, but that doesn't change the overall situation, not least when it seems the £1.56 trillion debt or 89.1% of GDP is of no concern to the party of prudence and thrift.
    At some point -perhaps as we drift towards the end of EU negotiations in 2019- this madness will either send us all into the proverbial loony bin, or someone will realise that income tax has to rise, national insurance has to rise, VAT has to rise, excise duties on tobacco and alcohol must rise, and interest rates have to rise- and then you will find out just how unpopular being in government is. Housing will be just another sector of the economy in crisis. Like the man said, 'You ain't seen nothin' yet'.



  5. #25
    Senior Member Professional Poster peejaye's Avatar
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    Interesting times lie ahead Stavros but how did we get in this mess? We both know the answer!



  6. #26
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    Grenfell Tower remains standing, a monument to incompetence and greed, and it doesn't get any better with advance notice of an official report that identifies 'botched refurbishment' of the building as a primary if not the primary cause of the fire

    Gaps around windows, wrongly fitted cavity barriers meant to stop fire, and dozens of missing or faulty door closers were also responsible for helping to spread rather than limit the fire that claimed 71 lives in June 2017, according to details that emerged on Monday.
    and
    Cavity barriers that are meant to expand and seal the gap between the concrete surface of the building and the cladding in the event of fire were of “insufficient size specification”, the Evening Standard reported the experts as concluding.
    They were designed to close a 25mm gap but were installed with a 50mm gap. Some were installed upside down or back to front and the failures “provided a route for fire spread”.
    There were gaps of 15cm between the window frames and concrete columns that were filled by a rubberised membrane, rigid foam insulation and uPVC lightweight plastic panels, the paper reported.
    The report said that “none of the materials used would be capable of providing 30 minutes’ fire resistance” and this allowed “a direct route for fire spread around the window frame into the cavity of the facade … and from the facade back into flats”
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-leaked-report

    It is worth pointing out again that the Thatcher government lifted regulations on building materials in 1987 and (as the report above notes) that even after the Lakanal fire in London in 2009 the Labour Government did not (re-) impose more severe regulations on the construction industry.

    And in the same paper and on the same day another report underlines how Grenfell has exposed a chasm between the dream of owning one's own home and the post-Grenfell reality -a 'much sought after' apartment with a river view over the Thames at Greenwich which was purchased for £450,000 but is now worth £50,000 because the cladding is vulnerable and tenants are being asked to pay for the refurbishment.
    https://www.theguardian.com/society/...style-cladding

    Imagine, if you can, in 2018, a des res apartment in London at £50k but nobody wants to buy it!! Maybe London should issue a compulsory purchase order, pay for the refurbishment and house the city's homeless in New Capital Quay, like they do in Finland.



  7. #27
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    I forgot to add this article on homelessness and the solution they have found in Finland as indicated in the last sentence of my post-

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/...-homelessness/



  8. #28
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    Default Re: Grenfell Tower: the Symbols and the Suffering

    The public inquiry into the immolation of Grenfell Tower that began two weeks ago has ended its first phase, the witness statements of survivors and family members of those who died. This has been a difficult phase as it relates directly the pain and the loss, and the Guardian has produced a welcome dossier of the victims to let us know who they were. It can be found here-

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...nfell-thrasher

    But what is most shameful about this first phase, the most personal phase of the Inquiry is the absence of those who may, through their political office or commercial links, be accountable to the public- thus:

    The housing secretary, James Brokenshire, and the housing minister, Dominic Raab, have been absent and have no plans to attend the inquiry. The same is true of Nick Hurd, the Home Office minister who is the main government contact for survivors and families and friends of the victims.

    Executives from Rydon, the company that refurbished the tower with combustible cladding, are not coming. Neither are those from the cost consultant Artelia, which was involved in “value engineering” by cutting costs. The architects, Studio E, declined to comment on whether it would have anyone in attendance. There was no sign of anyone from the firm in the first days of the commemoration hearings that will continue this week.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ers-at-inquiry



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