Grenfell

There are a lot of disingenuous hangers-on in the Grenfell story, who are trying to use the incident and the victims and their families to further their own political agenda. It's how the Left work, but doesn't make it any less disgusting.

For me, the underlying issue that makes this a scandal, is that this is Britain. I don't care whether some of the victims were illegal sub-letters, or illegal immigrants, or straightforward Londoners, no-one should be let down by this country in that way.

We should have proper rules, properly enforced to maximise the safety of buildings. Apparently, petty corruption is now a thing here and this is what it leads to. Also, when did we agree to neuter our fire brigades? I don't know if Danielle (Dany!) Cotton was just promoted because she is a female, or if other senior officers are just as stupid and unqualified for rank as her and so she fitted in well.

But her decisions on the day and her comments since leave no doubt, she is well paid for a job she cannot do. It is also clear, that her main concern over the Grenfell tragedy is herself and her image. I found her statement to the inquiry simply unbelievable. She is clear and concerned with details about how she turned out for the incident, getting there, not wrenching control from the officer running the incident (magnanimous), but when it comes to the fire and decision making on actual fire brigade matters, she suffers a loss of memory (that she hopes "will come back someday").

There have been complaints from senior fire officers and the Union that even at this distance from the event, the government haven't told them what to do about the 'stay put' policy. Presumably this is because the fire brigades no longer have any input into fire fighting? Cotton in fact, makes a deal of her concern and recognition of the dangers her officers faced.

But she seems to have no concern for the tower's occupants or the safety of her officers as she sticks rigidly to protocols, regardless of what is happening in front of her.

'Stay put' was evolved as a fire strategy as tower blocks were required to adhere to building regulations that each flat would be a fire secure unit. They were basically fire proofed boxes and generally only the flat where a fire starts and perhaps one other are affected. So those occupants get out, everyone else 'stays put' and the Brigade deal with the fire.

At Grenfell, because alterations had been made (and presumably signed off by the council) these cells were no longer effective containment blocks. There is lots of bleating (driven by activists) about the cladding being responsible and with the speed the fire spread up the outside of the building it is clear it was partly to blame.

But the fire also spread rapidly through the internal structure. Why was this? Serious questions exist over exactly what was done and being done to the building. And I agree that to report on the actions of the fire brigade ahead of investigations into the causes and thus the nature of the fire they were facing, is wrongheaded.

But the whining of 'Dany' Cotton about how she wouldn't change anything if she had her time again, or not knowing the protocol needed changing is self-serving cant. She knows, because even I do, that a tower block should not burn like that, therefore something unusual was happening - get the people out and plan how best to fight a large building fire that is out of control.

I don't mean to suggest this would have saved everyone, because the fire escape planning for the building was also predicated on the 'stay put' policy. Stairwells full of smoke and a single route, make it difficult for fire officers to get in passed those escaping, to help others.

I'm sure that an audit of the actions of the fire brigade in accordance with political correctness would find little to fault, but this fact directly led to the inaction of idiot senior officers and the hopeless procedures in place to actually act as an emergency service.

This is the outcome of Left ideology in action and such an ideology rests on a massive bureaucracy, which I'm sure, as I write this, is busily finding ways no part of the Establishment takes the blame for what happened.

Grenfell

It is irrelevant who died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, race, colour, creed, illegal or whatever - it is a stain on the reputation of this country that it happened as it did. There is an anecdote that says that in Italy, to get the water turned on quickly in your new house you must bribe officials, but that in Britain officials don't take bribes, so nothing gets done quickly by bureaucrats.

This lack of corruption in Britain is still largely true, but due to the baleful influence of decades of Left ideological influence, the corruption that does exist led to Grenfell occurring becoming inevitable.

All levels of bureaucracy, councillors, MP's, civil servants, all now feel that they are above the law, if their personal opinion is that they are doing something necessary or good. The most graphic example is probably the MP's expenses scandal. Firstly, it took ages to get published as the press, who speak truth to power, were scared to carry the story for fear of 'reprisals'. When it did break, the shock on the faces of the MP's that anyone could think what they had done as wrong was amazing to behold.

They felt outraged and we see this again with the personal opinions of some MP's who wish to remain within the German empire of the EU, aghast that someone, anyone is allowed to oppose them.

Grenfell of course occurred because the council wanted cheap (not 100% a bad motive) but also decided that their role as overseer of safety could be dispensed with. So flammable material was placed around the tower and internally, fire doors, alarms, detectors, fire containment generally were all sub-standard or absent.

Who was responsible for signing off the fire safety of the building? Who signed off on the fire safety of the cladding? Who sold the panels and who agreed to fit them, knowing they were illegal and not fit for purpose?

The fire service advice to 'stay put' is entirely sound if the right preventative measures are built in as regulations require and the fire service are confident they can control the situation and get to people quickly. Whilst they couldn't know of the perfect storm of fire safety deficiencies inside the building, even on arrival they could see the extent of the fire and the speed with which it was spreading.

The criminal failure of the fire brigade as an organisation was not that 'stay put' existed, but that through years of Left influenced thinking about any nonsense but the business of firefighting, senior officers had no tradition, no experience and seemingly no training to react appropriately to a situation they are presented with, but rather stick to the bureaucratic, tick-box rule book. And so 'stay put' stays while people die.

And the enquiry will try to use detail to make everything seem less black and white and 'whilst this seems...' will be much heard, it will really be tasked with not finding fault, not apportioning blame (unless to a private company, preferably foreign). Because if you find bureaucrats at fault, that they didn't do their jobs properly, then it will move up to their bosses and then their bosses' bosses.

Ultimately members of the elite may find themselves being held to account and we will see the look of total shock and then outbursts of rage such as we have seen over expenses and Brexit (from Remainers)and Sharon Shoesmith. For the elite there must, on no account, be accountability. That would mean working for a living!

Strathclyde Fire And Rescue

Much of the destruction of the fibre and strength of this country has been brought about, quite deliberately by people who have pushed what would be recognised as ideas of the political Left. These people, seeing that Marxism was ignored by many and rejected by most of the populations in the West, decided on another tactic. No longer would their agitation cause the masses, who were desperate for such leadership the Marxists imagined, to rise up, but instead they would join the Establishment.

By becoming teachers they could infect children's minds, always the most vulnerable, with their unaccepted ideas. Then these people would go on to run teacher training institutions to ensure all teaching became of the Left and to run Universities, all the better to catch the idealist but immature students, so willing to become activists. Judges were corrupted and little by little all official thinking, of any stripe accepted many of the basic principles espoused by Marxists.

This is why there is so little difference between politicians today, why the justice system is skewed to favour criminals (it helps to undermine the capitalist system) and so on and so forth. It brought about the virus that is Political Correctness and its pronouncement of the things you 'cannot say', to affect basic thinking and create thought crimes.

Naturally, the corollary of this is the idiotic ideas pursued by our 'authorities' and the lack of courage of our essential services, from police to Army. This has all been apparent and we see many manifestations of its evil affects, but seldom in sharp focus. Today we have news of Strathclyde Fire And Rescue Sevice. Seldom can the people of a region and the Brigades own rank and file have been so poorly served.

We read that a woman fell down a hole and broke her sternum and several ribs, which also caused a punctured lung. Trapped, she was partly immersed in water and cold. It was two hours before her daughter found her and called for help, so the situation was already serious. The Fire Brigade (we shall call them thus, in honour of their noble tradition, rather than recognising their new, trendy titling that is staggeringly inaccurate, in referring to it as a 'service') naturally arrived promptly.

An ordinary fireman was lowered on a rope to see what the situation was below. Enter onto the scene media relations officer Paul Stewart, who arrives just as a paramedic prepares to be lowered down to assist the woman, considering her situation 'time critical'. Stewart becomes aware that he is the most senior officer present and stops all activity, ruling that it is too dangerous according to the 'Fire Services' policies.

Here we have that sharp focus on Left ideology that is often lacking. Stewart has no appreciation of the situation, no care for the suffering, nor in fact the life of the accident victim, he is overwhelmingly concerned with the set of rules that govern his life. There must be no discussion or dissent, there is nothing but the rules to guide us here, he is saying. It is the same mindset that made him 'notice' he was the senior officer.

Not only did another senior officer with the same 'I'm with stupid' badge, back up the initial on the scene idiot, Stewart, but when the woman subsequently died the 'Service' decided it could find no fault with itself and no apology was forthcoming. Indeed, they described the operation as successful as they did actually get the woman out. Dead, but out. She had been there for six hours after the Brigade arrived. A coroner has described her initial injuries as 'survivable'.

Despite his direct responsibility for these life threatening but survivable injuries become life ending, Paul Stewart arrogantly spent his time at the inquest in self-justification, his lack of concern for the victim and her family continuing. His belief was, he assured the court, that there was not a 'time issue' in the rescue. This was something he doubtless 'believed' because he chose to ignore the paramedic as being of no value in the 'rescue'.

The belief of our 'leaders' in Global Warming and the economic destruction they are prepared to enact to 'combat' it, the insults to settled, two parent heterosexual families, the lack of action by senior police officers in the London riots and this event in Strathclyde are all of a piece. Usually the blame is lost in the amorphous mass of actions and reasons bandied about, but here the simple straightforward stupidity of left-liberal ideology is clear. It is designed to undermine our society, to ultimately destroy capitalism, which the people failed to desire despite agitation by Marxist activists, so it must now be forced.

That it kills people is just a part of the revolution, surely you can understand the necessity? Marx preached a lot of tosh about politics whilst requiring others to fund his extravagant lifestyle, so why should his followers not try to gain in the form of senior positions, with large salaries from what they seek to destroy? They are stupid, after all.