the snap general election thread

Moby

The new Labour MP in Kensington and Chelsea stands up for the residents! 'The residents of the Grenfell Tower block have been failed and betrayed by the local council, the new Labour MP for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, has said, expressing fury at the way Kensington and Chelsea treats it social housing tenants. She said residents made homeless by the fire were increasingly concerned that they would be rehoused outside of the borough, in cheaper places far from London such Hastings or Peterborough where the council has tried to rehouse tenants previously. Having campaigned against poor social housing in the borough for decades and documented the poor quality of estate redevelopment schemes, she said: “I can’t help thinking that poor quality materials and construction standards may have played a part in this hideous and unforgivable event.” Dent Coad won the historically Conservative seat for Labour by just 20 votes in the general election, on the back of a campaign that highlighted the need to fight against the council’s gentrification agenda. She said there was a clear link between the council’s determination to redevelop the area, to build new, non-social housing, and the tragedy. “The council want to develop this area full of social housing, and in order to enable that they have prettified a building that they felt was ugly ... The idea that that has led to this horrendous tragedy is just unthinkable.” She believes she won the election for Labour for the first time in the constituency’s history because even Conservative voters were fed up with the way the council treats its poorer residents. “We have a very rich council which spent £26m repaving Exhibition Road for tourists at the same time as it was closing nurseries, pruning youth clubs, closing older people’s lunch clubs, not investing in social care. I found that absolutely sickening. We have very large reserves, of around £300m.” Her concern about building standards for social housing is based on documenting the quality of the recent redevelopment of the Wornington Green estate, where in the past three years she says she has seen ceilings of new houses collapse, plumbing failures, “water leaking through the walls because they hadn’t fitted a waterproof membrane, ceilings collapsing because rain got through the ceiling because the cladding hadn’t been fitted. Their vision for social housing means that they get away with poor construction and we have seen the effect of that elsewhere”. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/unforgivable-local-labour-mp-vents-fury-over-grenfell-tower-fire

chucknorris

steampowered wrote: »

Building regs approval only happens when a property is constructed.

There are also ongoing issues such as whether ongoing inspections have been done and whether buildings have been maintained properly.

For example the fact that the fire alarms did not go off in the tower suggests that the alarms were not checked/maintained. The fact that no sprinklers were installed also raises concerns.

My comments are more focused about how current and future building can be designed safer, it is possible that the maintenance has been lacking, but that isn't what i am commenting on. This isn't just about punishing the council and/or the company in charge of managing the building, it is about making future designs safer.

But which architect is going to design with materials that don't meet building regulations? None is the answer, yet IMO the design standards were not high enough, there is a problem with the building regs, they don't go far enough.

There is currently no requirement for sprinklers, that is exactly what I meant by 'the problem is more fundamental', ditto the 'exact suitability' (i.e. its fire rating) of the external insulation. I think the common parts (certainly the stairwell) of residential buildings over a certain number of storeys should have sprinklers, but the current lack of them isn't due to cut backs. Additionally the cladding specification requirements should be more stringent to further reduce the possibility of fire spread between different dwellings.

Moby

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/former-grenfell-tower-resident-demands-independent-inquiry-into-fire The former chair of the Grenfell Tower residents’ association has said his warnings of the risks of a catastrophic fire were ignored because of a “vacuum of accountability” in the building’s management. David Collins lived in the building between April 2014 and October 2016. He was one of the administrators of the blog that warned extensively of structural dangers in the 24-storey block. He moved out shortly before another member of the association wrote that a serious fire was a real possibility, and likely to be the only thing that would force change. After the devastating blaze that ripped through the building, killing at least 17 people, Collins said a public inquiry – which Theresa May announced on Thursday – was long overdue. “It’s what we asked for 18 months ago,” he told the Guardian. “It’s what we deserve now.”

spikyone

steampowered wrote: »

A big part of the reason why we still have a deficit is that we are experiencing very weak economic growth. Here is a graph of economic growth for the first quarter of this year.

You will note that we are the slowest growing economy anywhere in Europe. Below Greece and Italy. That isn't a good economic record for the Conservatives.

Congratulations on missing every other piece of data in that document, which would have proved you very much wrong. In each of the preceding three quarters, the UK's growth compared to the previous quarter was higher than that of France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, and for two of the three quarters it was higher than that of the US too. Year on year was similar, though Germany's year on year was 0.1% higher for Q2 2016. In all three of the preceding quarters, UK growth was higher than both the EU19 and EU28 averages for both quarter on quarter and year on year.
Had the graph shown year on year data for Q1 2017, again we would have been ahead of all the countries I mention above. So despite everything, our "weak" GDP growth has been better than others have managed.
(all data from the table on page 3)

One quarter does not, in any way, represent the government's "record". We still have a deficit because we started from a position of having a considerably bigger deficit. You can't change that overnight. Even Osborne's timescales for eliminating it were ambitious to the point of being foolhardy and left little scope for adjustment to prevailing circumstances, but his thinking was far more likely to improve the deficit than nationalising everything at the same time as handing increased power to the unions heavily tied to those soon-to-be-nationalised organisations. The true cost of which certainly wasn't considered by Labour's "fully costed" manifesto...

steampowered

spikyone wrote: »

his thinking was far more likely to improve the deficit than nationalising everything at the same time as handing increased power to the unions heavily tied to those soon-to-be-nationalised organisations. The true cost of which certainly wasn't considered by Labour's "fully costed" manifesto...

You've twisted this into much more of a party-political point than I was trying to make.

There's no getting away from the fact that growth has been very low over the past few years (both in the UK and in Europe).

Whether public necessities such as the water supply, or monopolies wholly reliant on selling a product where the price is set by central government such as letter delivery by royal mail, should be in public or private hands is another question entirely ...

bobbymotors

Chrysalis wrote: »

I think I explained my argument wrongly earlier.

In terms of "market failure" in the private rental sector perhaps its better if I put it like this.

The free market is deemed a success if the competition encourages lower prices and higher quality of service, however in the private rental market there is a rush to the top in pricing ala cartel fashion and an obsession with minimum security of tenancy. By this measurement it is clear market failure.

What you fail to see is that over time the market WILL correct itself because markets always do.

And the converse applies to your second paragraph. It's also a success if high demand encourages higher rental prices. What on earth you mean about a rush to the top I have no idea. And there is no cartel. If you wish to rent and somewhere you wish to rent is too dear for you,, either make an offer or live somewhere else.

either way, the current situation in some areas will correct itself - although as of this moment the market is, by definiton, in the correct place anyway: it's an axiom tat until demand falls and / or supply increases then rents will be (historically) high. There is no way around that without either or both of the above happening.

ThinkingOutLoud_2

steampowered wrote: »

There's no getting away from the fact that growth has been very low over the past few years (both in the UK and in Europe).

Just as finding a single quarters number is misrepresentative of a longer term and broader picture, so is it wrong to claim all of Europe is growing slowly.

So for 2015. 10 countries over 3% which is about as high as you want without overheating an economy. UK at 2.5% - so not far behind and 13th of 33!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_member_states_by_GDP_growth

Not surprisingly given Brexit vote and impact - we saw that drop back to 1.8% in 2016 - still ahead of Germany, Netherlands and France for example!
http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp-growth.php

Or using another stat - e.g. Global Competitiveness we are 10th globally or 6th in Europe.


So feel free to knock y/our country, but do so with a balanced view of some longer term stats instead of one quarter of your choice.

Filo25

How this has changed over the last few months

Public opinion towards...

May:
Favourable: 29% (-13)
Unfavourable: 63% (+16)

Corbyn:
Fav: 46% (+10)
Unfav: 46% (-4)

(via @YouGov, 11-12)

GreatApe

chucknorris wrote: »

As far as the design of the building is concerned I don't see how cuts could have contributed TBH, no matter how much you cut, you still have to have to comply with building regs. I think the problem is more fundamental than cuts. Although there may be issues with ongoing maintenance of course.

How do they protect flats from radiant heat through the windows?

Even before this fire its someone that I had thought about. If a flat catches fire you often see a very strong flame coming out of the window and since flats are mostly identical that means just two meters above this flame is the window to the flat above. A strong enough radiant source will ignite anything flammable. Think of a magnifying glass concentrating sunlight to burn things or start a fire.

hallmark

Moby wrote: »

'The residents of the Grenfell Tower block have been failed and betrayed by the local council, the new Labour MP for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, has said

Truly nasty stuff from her. So in the last day we've had:

Corbyn blame the Tory Govt:
"If you deny local authorities the funding they need, then there is a price to be paid."

Emma Dent Coad blame the Council:
"failed and betrayed by the local council"

Lammy blame, presumably, the company that did the work:
"Corporate manslaughter".


Leaving aside for a moment, the fact that their accusations contradict each other comprehensively, where is there a shred of decency among these accusers? Nobody knows anything for a fact yet. At least some of the parties above may be entirely blame-free. We probably all have our own suspicions about what's gone on but for anybody, least of all politicians including the local MP & the leader of the opposition, to be voicing them to the press for a bit of political gain really stomach-turningly repulsive. They do the victims of this incident a massive disservice & they are casually handing the blame for untold deaths to groups that may have done nothing more than follow the guidance & standards they were told to.

In contrast, I've heard several people who are relative experts (firemen, fire experts, firms that do similar cladding work, architects & so on) interviewed since this tragedy & without exception their comments have been along the lines of "it's wrong to speculate", "it's pointless to speculate as there are so many factors involved", "this needs to be fully & properly investigated to find out what went on".