Tuesday 29 October 2019

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.