Grenfell Blame Dodging

So far the Grenfell enquiry has heard lots of emotional stories from residents involved in the tragedy, who unsurprisingly were greatly affected. So what the point was, at an enquiry is beyond me. Now we have moved on to the response of the fire service. Personally, I would now be looking at the building and the work that had been done, the basic safety of the building and the responses to complaints from residents.

Then talk to the people completing the work and the materials used, who ordered what materials, who had oversight of that and who signed off on it. Only then would I move on to the emergency services role. But we are where we are, though I hope this is not to set a blame profile in people's minds, to prepare us for a full-on, several coats of whitewash final report.

We have had more emoting, which is a little poor from an emergency service but very much the fashion these days, very au courant. I'm sure it isn't part of a sympathy garnering agenda. The officer in charge and who maintained the standard response to a tall building fire of 'stay put', now much criticised, could not remember ever having any training about what to do in that specific circumstance. A sort of "I'm not to blame, how was I supposed to know" plea.

But then I hear (not from the enquiry -odd surely?) that this same officer had recently visited Grenfell for a fire safety check. In the discussion where I heard this a Fire Brigade Union rep, after giving the obligatory references to the officer being "brave" and "dedicated" which no-one had queried, said that he didn't know about the flammable cladding and the combustible window frames, amongst a list of other things he didn't know.

But the whole point is that he is there to check and to know and then to advise. A pathetic attempt at an excuse, but then, Union.

I was responsible for regulatory matters in setting up a temporary charity ice rink. It was in an old supermarket building that we adapted, so there was a lot to get right. There was a sprinkler system so we had to avoid impeding its operation.

There was netting over the top of the ice pad because hockey was going to be played and we needed to protect the lights from being hit by a puck. The fire safety guys were concerned about this, but I assured them, from my own knowledge and life experience that water would pass through a mesh with like, two inch holes in it. They were not happy though.

We had to get our rink expert to contact the manufacturer of the netting, in Canada to obtain the fire safety tests that the netting had undertaken and passed. I told them I was fairly sure that in the history of history an ice pad had never caught fire, but they just drew breath and said they needed that from an expert.

So, apparently some tiny little community charity ice rink should be held to standards so high they exceed the borders of sanity, but a multi-million pound project on peoples' homes should involve people who don't know much about fire safety, apparently.

I mean we now understand Grenfell had a faulty smoke extraction system, no smoke alarm or detectors inadequate fire doors and even some missing. Then there were the building materials and the way the work was being done. But it is beyond reason to expect an expert in fire safety to notice any of this?

Seventy two people died. When is it going to be important enough that we actually hold people to account, which would put us a good way along towards making sure it doesn't happen again. Because currently there exists a belief that senior and 'important' people (on big salaries, often paid by us) cannot be expected to be held responsible when they mess up. So it does happen again.

If we are starting with the fire service, my question would be why our senior fire officers do not respond to a situation as it presents itself, but follow 'protocols' that were thought up in an office and given to the fire service as a tick box.

You see 'stay put' requires firemen (non gender specific reference) to go into a burning building to rescue people if the fire becomes uncontained by their initial efforts. As was apparent from the outset, the fire was spreading at an unprecedented and unexpected speed. But standard operating instructions were followed as if nothing was unusual.

And by doing that, really brave indeed heroic firemen then go into a raging building to rescue those doing as they had been told. Or, God help us, they are ordered to stay put themselves and watch people die, as their failing senior officers now go on to the health and safety tick box of not putting their officers in danger. Convincing themselves, in the words of Shoesmith (Baby P), that while there had been an unhappy outcome, they could not be to blame because they had ticked all the boxes.

One thing I know: we all deserve better.

Shooting In Annecy

We have heard before of the incompetent approach of the French authorities to crime detection and investigation, but the eight hour delay in rescuing a four year old girl from a scene of carnage is despicable. The press conference clearly shows up the ridiculous nature of the way the French police proceed with their investigations. It seems that to them, the most important thing was the preservation of the scene, so I guess we have to accept that the people were actually dead, because the suggestion would appear to be that they didn't check the occupants of the car too closely.

A self excusing twerp in uniform explained that they 'couldn't' open the doors of the car as they would 'lose forensic details if they did so'. They did at least have the decency to stumble over the rambling explanation of why the little girl wasn't found. Apparently they used a heat camera, but didn't see her, she was 'hidden'.

Where the girl was and her not crying or making herself known to police is unusual, but it was still a combination of misguided policy and a lackadaisical approach to policing that allowed her discovery to be delayed. As we have seen, British police are striving for this level of incompetence and are encouraged by the EU, of course.

Flabbergasted

I have decided that the continuing appearance of a new found level of incompetence amongst the British (well, mainly it seems the public sector British) will attract the sobriquet 'flabbergasted' henceforth. And so it is I am, once again.

We have had a spate of incidents recently, where the emergency services have attended various incidents as sort of official spectators, leaving the victims very much to their own devices, in case safety rules were transgressed. But now we have a new twist. A couple have died after their car was buried under a mud slide. Our heroes in uniform (including the councils Highways department) of fluorescent yellow attended and decided it was a lot of mud, was completely blocking the road, so perhaps the road should be closed.

The genius of these people was not compromised by any thought that the road might have been being used at the time of the mud slide for the purpose for which it was designed; not by a car or, heaven help us, a dog walker. Nope, adhering to the incompetence directive essential to the consistent running of any state service, they checked for adverse outcomes as a result of the event in no way at all and went home for tea.

Not a problem though. Just a couple more deaths due to public sector incompetence. It's not something as outrageous as say, asking public service workers to actually pay for their pensions, like everyone else. It should not dent the image of the saintly people who work in the public sector (an image invented and promoted by, the public sector).

We have an inquiry if a train crashes and kills 50 people, but the NHS kills at least that many every day and we claim it is a health service the world envies (but strangely, no one has copied). I have an idea. Maybe we should require higher standards, you know, in general not just of public sector workers.

Aircraft Carriers

Ha! The UK and aircraft carriers; we are crap, aren't we? In the Seventies we decided we didn't need any of these kind of ships and the Navy pulled a fast one. Unable to get a full Fleet Carrier, they had 'Through Deck Cruisers' designed, which bore a striking resemblance to aircraft carriers, if a little smaller.

So we built them and put Sea Harriers on them. Then we decided to get rid of them before the paint was dry. Of course the Falklands War tipped up and we realised how useful they were, for a war we would 'never fight again'. If one thing characterises the MoD it is their constant development of theories that are 180 degrees wrong. No need for manned aircraft, no need for guns on aircraft, no need for aircraft carriers.....

The Sea Harriers did so well we redesigned them to be much more capable, the last one entering service in 1998. In 2002, a Defence Review said we didn't need them as we wouldn't be fighting 'those kind of wars' again and could rely on 'allies for fleet protection'. Would they be allies like the ones who couldn't quite decide whose side they were on in 1982?

Anyway, it meant the FA2 Sea Harriers were scrapped in 2006, some of which were only 7 years old by then! We only needed the ground attack Harriers of the Air Force until the new JSF and their carriers came into service 'in 2012' (Defence Review 2002). Remind me again how that is going....

Every single public servant, be they politicians, defence chiefs or senior policemen seem to see their jobs in the following fashion; pompous importance, salary, pension. Actually doing anything and ensuring the best work is done by all, at all times doesn't even register on their radar (assuming it has been ordered, delivered and works -none of which can be taken for granted in Britain today).

Do You Know What Government Is For? Because Politicians Don't

I was thinking about what troubles us. We have poorly regulated utility companies. Prices where a monopoly of some sort exists keep going up, taxes keep increasing, we have had a banking crisis, pensions remain unfunded, we cannot have a view on the EU, liberties keep vanishing, the police keep shooting unarmed and often completely innocent people with impunity and much else besides.

Yet what are the government actually doing? Implementing EU directives and slavishly following the Climate Change scam. Think about what is the prevailing motif of the current, coalition administration -the U turn. They have an idea, which they put into practice, then realise it is a bad idea and pull it. Charity tax anyone? When you think back, it was exactly the same with Blair.

These things all have one thing in common. They happen because the people responsible are careless and they are careless because, really, ultimately they are unaccountable. Jack Straw being pursued over 'rendition'? I'm sure some obscure detail will see it go away. The price of corruption required to make this happen probably doesn't rise above a bag of Maltesers.

Blair broke animal health laws whilst PM. No one arrested him, let alone accused him. Police acted in concert committing the crime of killing animals they had no right to. Just to make sure though, Blair used his time machine to make the crime not a crime with retrospective legislation. So although he was knowingly breaking the law at the time, he wasn't because in the future he would make a law that made it legal, at the time it occurred.

We should repeal that law immediately and give Blair a little more of something he dearly loves, a property in the UK. In this case, one with bars on the windows.

There is no current understanding of how climate works, so all the computer models and claims of the Greens is just so much hot air. The evidence they produce has to be biased because they don't understand the mechanism. No one does. But, because they don't examine anything, the government has adopted the cause and been completely converted to this new religion.

Unsightly and useless wind turbines go up, entirely funded by subsidy because they cannot pay for themselves and push up our bills unnecessarily. But because politicians and civil servants shun the traditional working day model of doing some work, during the course of a day no one checks the facts.

It is not just that the government does too much and involves itself where it shouldn't, it is that all of these things are done without concern, without due diligence and without care.

Highmoor Cross Shootings

This incident is a fairly well known one, due to the extreme nature of the incompetence displayed, with its suggestion that we have a grave misunderstanding of what the police are there to do.

Despite the likely familiarity I will give an overview of events. A family barbecue was interrupted by the ex husband of one of the females present, who climbed over a wall into the garden and shot three of the women. Two died, both we understand shot to a degree that they couldn't survive and the third wounded, badly in the stomach.

The man then left. Neighbours attended, attempting to help those shot and called emergency services for help. At this point, something strange happened. The most senior officer, as is usual, at the control centre taking the call was an Inspector, not a terrifically high rank perhaps. He decided that no police should attend the scene. His reasoning appeared to be that it would put police officers in danger, though with no police there, pedestrians and vehicle traffic still passed the location. Consequently his actions were only for the protection of police officers. That was his over-riding concern.

Obviously he was told by the civilians present that the gunman had left, but he chose to ignore this as potentially unreliable information. Eventually it was decided to deploy armed officers, but not to the incident. Those dealing with the injured frantically requested help 50 times, frequently being told by the control centre that they would be there in a few minutes (as they thought police would de dispatched).

As more senior officers arrived to get involved decisions moved on. To establish a time line; the initial reports came in to police at 4:37pm. At 5:41pm armed police actually went into the house and reported that the gunman had gone. Ambulances and paramedics turned up at 6:04pm, (it should be noted though, that at first the paramedics refused to attend as the offender had not been located. They finally agreed when provided with an armed escort).

The 'process' gridlock occurring within the command structure is put down in the IPCC report, to a focus being placed on finding the offender, not dealing with the victims. I'm not sure how a human being could make that decision, as if it was a one or the other choice, let alone a report that accepts it in any way, shape or form.

The report finds that the lack of urgent response was wrong but later states that they are not advocating 'that all firearms incidents are responded to immediately', as this would be 'irresponsible and reckless'. I find this amazing. Police officers should not be ordered to risk their lives, but should be expected to attend, taking care. We may have known the specific threat here, a gunman, but can police attend riots?

Maybe officers should not deal with fights? What if someone produces a previously unseen weapon? Where does the 'caution' inherent in this advice end?

It appears that the priorities for senior officers on hearing of a shooting with multiple victims were; 'finding rendezvous points, briefing senior commanders, obtaining tactical advice and setting up a command suite'. Which leaves you asking yourself 'and these people serve us how?'

The IPCC  report makes a number of recommendations and does say that none of those would work if the culture remained unchanged. This is the only hint that they have any inkling of what actually went wrong; a policy had been drawn up and a culture engendered that was diametrically opposed to the true function of the police. How can police officers ever, ever come to the conclusion that they are merely a bureaucracy and that the public turning to them in times of mortal danger is outrageous and they will not suffer it.

This fundamental misunderstanding of purpose is at the root of most failings in today's police force. The mindset is faulty at its core; the senior officers. This is the maturing generation of 'graduate policing' whereby cadets with Degrees were fast-tracked to senior roles. This has apparently only resulted in an intellectually corrupted police force, one that doesn't understand the simplest concepts of policing. This may be due to the lack of actual police work they have done in their 'career'.

And now we have a review saying this failed process should be more extensive!

Do you know how they decided to send in an armed unit? A plain clothes Detective Sergeant went, on his own initiative and in his own car, direct to the address and reported back on the situation. The report applauds his action saying that this was what should have happened at the outset (though possibly an ARV), which is true and highlights the failure of senior officers, wrapped up in their intellectual approach, as they were. His action though, is exactly the basic desire to do the job, to help people that we want and thought we had established over the decades.

I find myself wondering if the DS had a Degree and if so, what role this played in his decision making. And if he had no Degree, if it mattered. Wisdom is the application of knowledge and knowledge can be acquired through experience as well as reading, sometimes with greater understanding. Knowing the theory doesn't always help when faced with a real situation.

The police have to relearn their role and then rebuild a force that fulfils that role. It may require the dismissal of some officers for whom politics and trade unionism, lectures and libraries are more suited.

On no! It's Snowed!!

so, once again a bit of snow and the country can't cope. Well, actually that is wrong. In a Big Society kind of way, people cope it is Government and companies with monopolies (like railways) who can't. The Police, the Highways Agency, councils and train operating companies and Railtrack) feel that all their responsibility is, is to say 'well surely you can't expect us to cope with this'. The RAC Foundation have bleated on about other countries where the weather is worse, that they know with precision when their bad weather will arrive. I don't know if that is true, but we did get days of warning that severe weather was on the way. Now, it would be fair to not trust anything the Met Office says, but the evidence was always plain with our own senses, as it got very cold.

We can't spend millions more on infrastructure the politicians moan. Then don't; spend the right amount on doing the right things at the right time. For days we had icy roads here without any gritting and I mean on the key roads. Why was that? Then when it snows and we need ploughs, it seems they go missing. Big Society, Public Sector cutbacks? It seems this current little national difficulty proves that the people are stoical and that massive cutbacks in the Public Sector can only save money and do good. It would mean a rump that is keenly focused and not comfortable in its own righteousness and with the sense of entitlement mentioned at the start of the post.

We should look at the countries that do cope and see what we can learn from them, not the navel gazing 'reports' we currently get that clearly (try getting a train today) don't achieve anything.