London on fire

If you want to know the factual details about the fire and its terrible effects for those who lived in Grenfell Tower, part of a social housing project in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, then find the BBC site. This piece is about the anger the fire is causing.

So far the ex-residents know that many in the building had campaigned about their view that the safety arrangements in the tower were inadequate - including the safety plan for any fires. This campaign was heightened after a 'refit' of the tower, which the outsourced management body, then outsourced to contractors, in 2016. After the refit, complaints about 'open' gas pipes, about alarms, and worries among some residents about the effect of the top to bottom cladding, installed on the surface of the building, all arose. Among the horrors that hundreds of people had to deal with when awoken by the smoke in Grenfell Tower were the signs and safety instructions that told them, in the event of fire, to remain in their flats, while the fire roared up the building in minutes.

They also know that their Tory Council paid a 'management' company to deal with their local social housing. This is a 'normal' procedure now in the UK. There are different political outlooks on why this happens. Tories and Blairites are wedded (sometimes personally) to the 'efficiency', to the lower costs and to the 'dynamic enterprise' of private sector sharks sniffing the blood of the public sector. But all Councils, and Local Authorities in general, are long past having the resources needed to cover even the basic legal activities they are required to carry out via their own resources. Instead they pretend to 'deliver' close monitoring of these once-removed activities to ensure that their legal responsibilities are covered.

Both previous Labour and Tory Governments help them in this generally thankless task. For example, there was a law, now gone, that the Fire Brigade used to have to check all new larger buildings, before they were opened to the public and whenever major renovation was carried out. That was before austerity. The trouble with the Fire Brigade assessments were that they were most pernickety, very thorough and sooo expensive in their recommendations. (Perhaps something to do with often working to stop fire in buildings and save lives? Who knows.) Now 'independent' (private) assessors assess buildings and they draw up a Fire Risk Assessment. The Fire Brigade gets to look over the plan - after the fire. As the assessor is being paid by the management company - and there are many in the market - its probably best not to stir up your Management Company too much.

This trail of moneymaking shit is all perfectly legal, all within 'proper specifications' and the Grenfell Tower Management Company are already saying it. Some of the residents are talking about being victims of a conspiracy to minimise their essential requirements for their own safety. That the fire 'could have been prevented.' If it is true and the regulations were followed (and there are a multitude of recent examples in modern Britain where even the piss-poor regulations were not carried out starting with catastrophe brought about by 2000 top bankers in 2008) then what we have is still a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy of the system.

These are some items from 'Inside Housing' the main journal dealing with Social Housing, in its April 13 edition
A stark warning: the Shepherd's Bush tower block fire
Last year, a fire broke out in a Shepherd’s Bush tower block and spread quickly up the outside of the building...

Flames tore across five floors of the Shepherd’s Court building in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) last August in scenes reminiscent of the Lakanal House tragedy, after a faulty tumble dryer caught fire on the seventh floor...

Documents released to Inside Housing under the Freedom of Information Act this week revealed that an investigation showed panels attached to the outside of the building came apart when burnt, exposing flammable insulation material and plywood to the blaze.

It concluded this “is likely to have assisted the fire in spreading up the outside of the building”, with the London Fire Brigade (LFB) warning H&F and all other London boroughs about use of the panels. No details surrounding the spread of the fire had previously been released.

A spokesperson for the LFB said: “We have written to Hammersmith and Fulham Council and all other London boroughs to inform them of the results and have advised that they review the use of these panels in their buildings and take appropriate action to mitigate the fire risk.”

This is an item from the Independent, 14 June
A report from 2011 warned that almost three-quarters of UK social housing blocks were potentially unsafe in a fire....Carried out when (Tory Minister) Grant Shapps was Housing and Local Government Minister, the 2011 survey revealed that 75 per cent of managers responsible for maintaining social housing buildings were not certain their blocks had undergone a proper fire risk assessment.

Now Teresa May is setting up an Public Enquiry. This is the normal step taken by the authorities when social and political pressure is rising, when all the warnings have all been ignored, a large number have people been killed and a wall of procedure needs to be erected in order to prevent the world from seeing the obvious and acting on it in the here and now.

Many of the residents of Grenfell have said in interviews they are sure that the high buildings that surround them in Kensington and other rich London Boroughs in Central / West London would have all the possible safety features installed to prevent fire from slaughtering their residents.

There is another fire in London. It is the mounting fury for a system decked with self-serving politicians providing legal fortunes to expensive spivs as they wreck the last precious foundations of social services in health, education, housing. People are dieing from this system in hospitals, in care centres and in their own houses. While the mainstream political certainties are failing, the new reality is that alternatives are rising. Nobody needs an Enquiry to tell us the consequences that the people suffer as a result of the years spent defending the rich. And now this wretched parody of a government can be brought down. The anger has somewhere to go and something to build - out of the flames and onto the streets.