Apologies if this awful subject is covered elsewhere on here but I only found Vulpes Vulpes’s commendable link to the Just Giving page.
The absolute cause of this tragedy is yet to be known, but we can make some observations. Mine are:
This is an awful event that almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if the residents had been more middle-class, influential and litigious.
Theresa May has responded woefully to this, and is about as far from her original USP of ‘strong and stable’ as it’s possible to be.
Corbyn is shamelessly exploting this event for ‘the cause’. Are you confident the many tower blocks in Labour-run areas are safe Jeremy? Because if you’re not, your recent posturing looks utterly deplorable.
That said, the public seem to be on your side. Just consider though, that Blair and Cameron would have been on the scene in minutes, emoting for all they were worth with the survivors, but I thought we’d moved beyond such superficiality?
Seems not.
Clive says
Theresa May 5 June
“(The election) is about which leader and which team people trust to keep Britain safe. The ability to say the courageous thing and do the difficult thing. To face up to and address great challenges, not to pretend they don’t exist or seek to wish them away. The strength to be straight with people and not just tell them what they want to hear. The ability to get the job done. That is what leadership means to me.”
She has failed to face up to the challenge or be straight with people. See last nights Newsnight interview where she ignored almost every question and just trotted out rehearsed statements. What she said in the election was total BS that she has immediately failed to live up to.
DougieJ says
I agree. As a classical liberal / libertarian I carry no torch for Theresa May. Much of her ‘neo-liberal nightmare’ of a manifesto was in fact borrowed heavily from that noted Ayn Rand devotee Ed Milliband.
Hayekian and Friedmanite ideas are regrettably in retreat across much of the western world. Trump is an arch-protectionist, while crony-capitalism reigns supreme here.
But that said, politicians are not just policy wonks – they are supposed to respond appropriately to nationally significant events, of which this tragedy is undoubtedly one. As such, and despite viewing with distaste the efforts of more media-savvy politicos, she has utterly failed.
Kid Dynamite says
This is it, isn’t it? However cynical we might be about photo opportunities at scenes of tragedy, they happen for a reason, and that is simply that people want it. Surely, surely, someone of May’s political experience must have realised that such an appearance, and even the thinnest veneer of sympathy, was the very least that was expected of her?
Pajp says
Maybe I’m a bit naive, but what would have been wrong with Theresa May replying to Emily Matlis’ question about whether she’d misjudged the public mood with a “yes”, or even a “yes, but….”?
OK, I can see that politicians don’t want to be forever going around admitting they are wrong, but it is hard to see how a “yes, but….” and a bit of contrition could come back to bite her any harder than her current attitude will.
I suppose that it is advice from spin doctors that says that a politician (or, indeed it seems, anybody else who speaks on the media these days) never begins an answer with a “yes” or a “no”. What are they afraid of… that someone will show a clip of an interview with just the question followed by an apparently incriminating/embarrassing or whatever answer of “yes” or “no” and then just chop the clip off there?
All the time while watching the interview with Theresa May on Newsnight last night, I was longing for her just to say “yes”, but – as others have said – she just parroted the lines that she’d been given.
DougieJ says
well at least since Thatcher’s oft misquoted ‘there is no such thing as society‘…
…politicians have had to be extremely careful about what they say, knowing that the slightest misstep can be blown into an entire worldview within minutes.
I’m saying we mebbes need to calm doon…
Pajp says
There is always a danger that a politician’s words may be paraphrased, taken out of context or reinterpreted to cast him or her in a negative light, but Mrs May’s interview on Newsnight was not a surprise to her. She was not door-stepped. In fact, I think Emily Matlis said that the BBC had been contacted by No. 10 and told that Mrs May would either make herself available for an interview or that she wanted to come in and do one.
Whatever the precise circumstances, the ball was in the PM’s court and you would have thought, wouldn’t you, that she or her advisers would have anticipated criticism along the “misjudged the public mood” line (after all, despite “security concerns” around Mrs May, the Queen had been down to visit the Grenfell area) and come up with something that struck the right tone. Whatever they came up with might have been subject to being “spun” against the PM, but she could have tried a bit of empathy along with her understandable (and correct) caution when answering questions about causes and responsibility.
metal mickey says
Coincidentally, Matthew Parris comes to mind twice here…
In his book “Chance Witness”, he says that the “no such thing as society” quote (and its viral spead before “virality” was even a term in this context) was the only time he ever saw Thatcher – usually a paragon of steadfast self-confidence, as we all might guess – angry with herself for allowing her statement to be parsed in that manner…
Then just yesterday in The Times, he recalls how very impressed he was with Theresa May the first time he saw her speaking to a friendly Tory crowd, only to see her totally crumble when thrown a soft-but-negative question… she simply can’t do anything off-script, and her locked-down photo-ops and non-appearance at the debates for the GE campaign suggests he and/or her advisers know it…
chiz says
Everyone I know has become an expert all of a sudden. All we need to do is get large corporations to pay their fair share of tax, and we’ll spend every penny of the extra money on providing safe social housing that’s fit for humans to live in. Every penny, after we’ve sorted out health and education. Housing, health and education, those will be our priorities. And security, obviously, after recent events. Housing, health, education, emergency services, police numbers, intelligence services… and borders and immigration, what with Brexit.
Yes, every penny of the tax we raise from corporations and SMEs will go on housing, health, education, security and borders, prisons and infrastructure. And social care and pensions, goes without saying. Housing, health, edu- well yes, renewable energy and climate change, they’re top of the list with animal welfare, anti-obesity strategies, sickness and employment benefits, international aid, communities, culture, sport, farming, media regulation and the Courts.
There – sorted.
Twang says
Ahem. You forgot renationalising utilities, the post office, trains….
Sitheref2409 says
Or, get all the property owned in the UK to be declared and taxable. Private Eye have been on this for ages – the amount of property that belonging to foreign nationals and through a series of third party organizations is denying the country a significant amount of revenue.
A dirty secret no-one is talking about.
Twang says
It’s bizarre how TM seems to be unable to demonstrate any empathy, never mind realise that she ought to. A bloke I work with used to live in her constituency and said she’s very approachable – she does the shopping etc, and is quite happy to stop and chat.
David Kendal says
I live with someone who has worked for a long time for various companies in construction, including one which specialised in fire proof materials, and I work alongside a number of people in the building profession.
They have obviously talked about this – but the politicians have hardly come into the discussions. I don’t think they would give anybody excuses, but when they’ve talked about this, it’s all about the regulations, how they’re implemented, the detail in contracts, do suppliers do what they’re supposed to, and how you check that. Above all, how to find out the real causes and how to stop how it happening again. That won’t the win the day in any political argument – it’s all about hugs and tears, or the lack of them, at the moment, and angry journalists who called the election wrong and want to move on to something else– but a public enquiry will be on these lines and should make something happen
Vulpes Vulpes says
I’m not sure why this thread has the title it does.
DougieJ says
?
Junglejim says
This is not the time to calm down.
The anger in this instance is totally justified.
This is a disastrous occurance, but it’s not a disaster. A disaster is something such as a storm at sea that claims lives, not something that is/was avoidable.
Sadly, even before all the facts are established & the death toll known, it is clear that the event serves as an indicator of how polarised our society is.
Winners get to live in decent and above all safe accommodation, losers get fucked over & possibly die as a result of having their accommodation administered by a chain of ‘providers’, who in practical terms are permitted to provide the absolute minimum cover while ensuring that a maximum profit is turned. All the while overseen by our fabulous laissez faire government whose own members vote down measures seeking to improve minimum levels of safety.
The knowledge & technology to prevent this abomination from occurring obviously exist. The political will ( i.e. giving a rat’s arse before hand) doesn’t.
The inquiry ( hopefully it will actually be an inquest, as I understand they carry more weight) will establish the whys & wherefores in due course, but the citizens of the borough would be fully justified rampaging through the Town Hall with pitch forks & torches just for revenge – the fact they haven’t is a tribute to the dignity & fortitude of those affected.
Kid Dynamite says
Sometimes I think this has the feeling of a tipping point, something that will get taught in A-Level History a hundred years from now*, just as I learnt about Peterloo. So many issues like deregulation, the neglect of social housing, the abandonment of the poor, gentrification, emergency service cuts and so on ad infinitum / nauseam have come together in one terrible, terrible, event. It could feasibly be the end of an already shaky May, it could scupper Boris’ chances of taking over (I assume we’ve all seen the video of him as Mayor telling a councillor complaining about fire service cuts to ‘get stuffed’?). Interesting times, in the Chinese sense.
*yes, I know.
Twang says
I appreciate the need to level every possible criticism at Theresa May but I’m not aware there’s any evidence to suggest she’s in any way responsible for what happened is she?
Kid Dynamite says
That’s a very….specific reading of my post.
The forces I’m talking about have been creeping ever further into political life for thirty years or more, gaining speed and momentum since 2010. The point about May is that, if she wasn’t standing on the edge of the abyss this time last week, she is now. Considering her election campaign was dogged by talk about distance, arrogance and refusal to engage with the electorate, her response to these awful events has been terribly cackhanded and politically inept.
Black Celebration says
Couldn’t agree more. I had those thoughts too – in future years I think Grenfell Tower will be assessed as the turning point.
Twang says
I didn’t mean the OP specifically, and I agree May’s response has been woeful. But the general desire to make it her fault so the “government in waiting” can step in I find equally cynical. The inquiry should establish where blame lies. I’m sure had TM done a Blair she’d have been equally castigated for that too.
Sitheref2409 says
At the very least, her promotion of Gavin Barwell is going to look…troublesome
Moose the Mooche says
“Utterly deplorable”?- oh dear, I’d better restrain any urge I might have to express regret that this has happened, lest I be accused of virtue-signalling.
DougieJ says
Not sure what your point is Moose.
Corbyn has undoubtedly made political capital out of this event.
My point is, can he say that similar blocks across London and the rest of the country in Labour-run areas are safe?
If he can’t, I stand by my statement that such a posture would be utterly deplorable.
Moose the Mooche says
Quite right, he should have stayed at home.
That would have sent the right “signal”, I’m sure.
Vulpes Vulpes says
This.
Black Celebration says
I think it is possible, just possible, that Corbyn has not given a moment’s thought as to how his reactions are going down politically. It’s also possible that May hasn’t either. My feeling is that her internal message is – I took advice and it was a disaster. She’s not going to have advisers on hand to coach her on how to behave publicly.
I will pile into Tories on matters of policy at the drop of a cloth cap, but I won’t give someone a hard time because they don’t appear to be upset enough. Corbyn has criticised the Government on creating the conditions that caused all this. And he is right.
Twang says
Good post. We will see who is responsible.
DougieJ says
‘creating the conditions that caused all this’ – in one sense I agree. What I think should happen is for there to be a ripping up of the Town & Country Planning Act. That would create a genuine and long overdue shake-up of the housing market in this country which has led to London being almost exclusively a city for the very rich and the very poor.
However, the furore over the so-called dementia tax, which had sensible intentions given demographic trends but which proved politically suicidal, demonstrated that no government in the near future is likely to introduce a policy which will lower house prices, no matter how widely that would be agreed to be a good outcome.
Gary says
“London being almost exclusively a city for the very rich and the very poor.”
I’m a little surprised to read this, Dougie. I have a lot of friends and family who live in London and none of them fall into either of those two categories.
DougieJ says
Well granted it’s an exaggeration but would you not agree that it’s difficult for ‘middling’ people to live in that there London?
The rich will be fine of course, and the poor will live in places that most of us wouldn’t choose, but isn’t it the case that a great number of fair to middling kinds of folks have moved out to the burbs and satellite towns?
Gary says
I don’t know much about it to be honest, as I haven’t spent any time there for many years. Hence my surprise. My family and friends live in places like Walthamstow, Leyton, Ilford and Stoke Newington.
mikethep says
All achingly hip these days, apart from Ilford, possibly. My two ‘middling’ offspring live in Stokey and Leyton, and they seem to manage.
Sitheref2409 says
“She’s not going to have advisers on hand to coach her on how to behave publicly.”
Sorry, but if that’s a known area of deficiency for her, she absolutely. You think Alistair Campbell would have let that happen to Blair? Not a hope in hell.
May strikes me as someone who knows the price of management and fuck-all about the value of leadership.
Junglejim says
Corbyn can hardly fail to benefit politically from this occurance, given the people affected, the location ( & the wealth of the Borough), & his long held political position.
Whether he has ‘exploited’ the situation is something entirely different & I see no evidence to that effect.
This is an inherently political matter. Housing ( & particularly social housing) is by definition.
Corbyn reflects & is articulating a zeitgeist sense that concerning matters such as this it is very much about ‘ the many not the few’. This example has been handed to his ‘side’ on a plate.
Corbyn’s party proposed legislation specifically designed to tighten up housing regulations that would affect places such as Grenfell Tower & the current govt voted it out. They should expect the wrath of the public as a result.
Let’s not forget it is May’s party that presided over Hillsborough & the subsequent cover up, aided & abetted by our charming billionaire owned media & it was the fragrant Dame Shirley Porter of May’s party ( last assumed to be counting her money in Tel Aviv to avoid prosecution in the UK) who DELIBERATELY & systematically had poorer residents moved from the desirable parts of Westminster elsewhere, in order to manipulate the voting register & provide council wards in favour of the wealthy.
In short, they have a form book as long as your arm & do not deserve any wriggle room at this juncture.
A more Machiavellian operator than Corbyn would be playing this like a fiddle, but he isnt.
Bamber says
I lived in Grenfell Tower for a few months in 1990. I was working in Ladbroke Grove at the time. I’d grown up on the ground floor of eight-storey flats in Dublin so being on the 4th or 5th floor of Grenfell Tower felt scarily high. I have no great insights into the causes of this but, what I will say is that the council may think they know who live there but I doubt they’re much beyond 50% accurate in their records. We lived there a few weeks before our “landlord” informed us it was his gran’s flat. He just hadn’t told the council she was dead yet.
It was quite disturbing picking out the orange glowing rectangles where I used to live, watching the southern elevation of the tower in the news footage.
mikethep says
It’s instructive to look back at Aberfan, which nobody has done as far as I can see. There are parallels with Grenfell Point. 144 people died at Aberfan; the final toll at GT could easily exceed that. Both disasters were precipitated, or at least encouraged, by institutional penny-pinching and complacency in the face of warnings and petitions from those most at risk as well as experts. After the event at Aberfan there was a great deal of dodging responsibility and political manoeuvring which was only brought to a halt by the verdict of the official inquiry; no doubt the same will happen with GT, although I hope it’s by inquests.
One thing I found really shocking was the intransigence and obstructiveness of the Charities Commission over how the disaster fund was used (£27m in today’s money). It’s all in Wikipedia.
Lando Cakes says
I’m no fan of Corbyn, however I doubt very much that his reaction was calculated. Rather, I suspect that it was instinctive and genuine. People see that in him, hence his increasing popularity.
I agree that this may come to be seen as a turning point and a change in direction from the course started in 1979 (a change of which the 1997-2010 governments were a precursor).
Rob C says
I agree, Lando.
Sitheref2409 says
Some exemplary reporting here from The NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/world/europe/grenfell-tower-london-fire.html?emc=edit_ta_20170624&nl=top-stories&nlid=48146778&ref=cta