Grenfell Tower Enquiry - Capitalism Kills

I've been listening to the BBC podcasts from the enquiry and would highly recommend them. You get a proper insight into just how corrupt and twisted the British corporate world is. Money is above all. Sales. Profit. You wouldn't think it would permeate the noble world of architects and major manufacturers and such. People terrified to tell the truth because they'll lose their jobs. Deliberately turning a blind eye to failings and flogging on regardless.

Some shocking examples on there. One marketing manager from the company that sold the panels, plastered a headline on all three pages of his sales leaflets that they were safe for use one high rise buildings. He knew absolutely that was not the case. The panels failed test after test. Their own manager reported back that it had been an inferno. They pulled a stunt where they passed one test once, by lining it with the stuff they use to line furnaces and then, although that test ONLY qualified it for use in the EXACT configuration tested, they pretended that the panels were fine for use any old how.

In a great exchange, the lawyer put it to this Marketing Manager that the leaflets had been "False and Misleading". "Oh no, no, no" he replied, "Not false and misleading, no. Inaccurate perhaps but....". The lawyer almost laughed. He said "OK, let's take it bit by bit for you. You agree the leaflets were inaccurate, yes?", "Oh yes" replied the suit. "So they were wrong, they were false then. And being false, would you agree that anyone who read the false information would have been misled?" "Erm, yes". "So false and misleading then?" "Ummm I suppose, yes". Embarrassing really.

The responsibles varied from seemingly blase types like the above, to truth benders, to forgetful ones who couldn't remember, to those who had no idea what their underlings were doing, to one tearful repentant who I felt a bit sorry for. He had only joined them from university and was very young. When he had raised concerns about the panels they had chastised him for "being negative" about the company. He recognised and realised though that it had been a personal and moral failing of his not to continue it on further, despite the obvious fear of being shown the door.

When an email came through from a national certifier wanting to change wording on an endorsement they'd given based on the rigged test above. the manager responsible took 3 months to respond. He sent an email round the staff telling them to let it "gather dust". Why? So that it wouldn't affect sales. Money y'see. Keep flogging. The sales targets. Bonuses.

Would anyone disagree that it is this capitalist profit skin-a-ha'penny culture that caused Grenfell? Would anyone disagree that everything in life, including building, would be much better if it were designed and implemented with the wellbeing of everyone in mind rather than profits?

 

There is a national discourse that accepts, even promotes poor standards. You’d think that increasing safety would be a good thing, but through their mouthpieces in the media the ruling class have waged a war on health and safety for the last forty years. Health and safety has been subject to decades of unrelenting negative stories. It is always ‘gone mad’, it is always an impediment to liberty and business. It is always something forrin that those Brussels bureaucrats want to foist upon happy go lucky Brits who laugh at life’s challenges unlike cringing Europeans.

We can see why. A culture that despises health and safety will not get in the way of profits.

 

I'll bite.
Yes, alongside the many benefits of capitalism such as the advances in medicine and science, there terrible side-effects in the culture, as you have mentioned. But if your last idealic sentence has any credibility, then you need to come up with an alternative system. As it stands, it could have easily come from the contestants in the old style beauty contests. "I want to end world poverty and all wars!"

I am supposing that you think that some form of socialst/communism would serve the nation better, but I'll think that anyone that has been to socialist/communist Cuba, and in particular Havana would know that they don't have the answer as just about the only modern buildings in the country are hotels, specifically built to bring in the desperately needed western capitalist money. Almost every other building is a crumbling wreck from the legacy left from when capitalism created a booming economy in the city 60 years ago, and which have all been left to crumble under communism, with 10's of thousands of the population living in homes that are literally in danger of collapse. I remember a large Ministry of the Interior building, shared with apartments in something like 2014/15, was destroyed by fire with the roof collapsing on top of everyone The cause of that fire, number of casualties, etc was, as far as I know, kept secret by the authorities.

 

Maybe the companies involved should try the 'Yeah, but Cuba' line at the Enquiry.

You never show any sign of being able to throw capitalism a lifeline, however outrageous its disasters, sweatshop fires, poverty, wars, corruption, financial crashes, violent societies or environmental degradation are.

If people like you stop apologising for these dreadful excesses we might be able to meet in the middle for a well regulated economy that provides and allows for invention.

 

I don't really see this as a side effect of capitalism. It's a side of effect of morally and ethically bankrupt individuals working as a collective, and no one being strong enough to stand up to them.

To me, this line of thinking is just as blinkered as those who insist socialism and communism are evil. None of the excesses and horrors of e.g. Stalin's regime are a necessary part of a communist system; that's just the way that particular regime acted.

So too it is with capitalism: the issue is with what individuals do within the confines of the system to corrupt the process. It's not a problem with capitalism, it's a problem with the people operating within the system. These people will exist no matter which economic system you use. I would argue that means the correct approach is regulation and punishment (including jail time) for those acting improperly, not throwing out the economic system that's being abused.

Those regulations should include strong whistleblower protections, so that people like the young chap Clive described in his first post don't feel like they can't come forward when they spot a problem. The reality is that most people can't afford to lose their job and are only 6 months away from bankruptcy. We need to acknowledge that reality and ensure society adequately protects those calling out the corrupt who are abusing the system.

In the the Grenfell case, for example, those culpable in the "false and misleading" panels should go to prison. Their actions have contributed to many deaths. And such sentences should go as far up the company as possible, ideally to the C-leadership level, rather than being leveled at low-ranking scapegoats.

 

I think you are probably right in your first line, but different systems have different odious behaviours and impulses that need to be identified.

And for each you will find apologists. Communists around the World were making excuses for the Soviet Union while it rolled tanks into Czechoslovakia or denied citizens reasonable liberties. Simarly, we have people who would make excuses for any excess of capitalism and appear utterly blind to its destructiveness, in fact double down and go hard on further deregulation. They are fanatical believers whose ideologies, small state, undeserving poor, benefits corrupt, trickle down etc are as self serving as any member of the Politburo.

Capitalism is the problem if it rewards those corrupt individuals and encourages their recklessness, just as Communism was a problem as practised by people who justify their control of others as being for the greater good.

 

True insofar as the nefarious actions taken go, yes (and the responses/protections required).

I imagine the venn diagram of people who would be willing to undertake said nefarious actions under each economic system would be close to a single circle, though.

 

I'm not sure what post you are referring to, but it certai9nly isn't mine. Must be the voices in your head, maybe?

 

You’ve tried this response a lot recently. You are clearly not stupid, so I can only conclude you have run out of answers.

You defended capitalism by comparing it to communism. I suggested you are avoiding capitalism’s very obvious failures. See, it wasn’t hard.

 

Check again, I did not defend capitalism. As I said, you were not reading my post.

 

Sure you are. You are saying it’s the only way.

 

I've criticised the effects of the excesses of capitalism. I'm asking the question based on what was a purely idealistic statement. Show me another way where there was no capitalism, that has been proved to work sustainably.

 

The government really needs to get its finger out and sort out the flats that are still covered in this stuff -rather than leaving it to residents/owners to take on the construction firms and employ 'fire spotters' to patrol the corridors and check that the building isn't ablaze 24-hours a day - at huge expense. Bloody disgraceful

 

Interesting choice of 'signals' the government can choose to give:

Either: chase the companies for the money to replace the existing cladding on, essentially worthless properties (as present leaseholders are finding).

Or: go for corporate manslaughter charges for all of those responsible for the deaths at Grenfell.

 

Would you not think that the advances in medicine, science and every other field of humanity's progress might have been at least matched, or more likely far exceeded, if research, development, investment and implementation were a collective effort aimed at producing the very best we can for everybody's wellbeing and enjoyment of their time on this planet, rather than the current competitive environment with the aim of further enriching a small elite?

Well, I know that you believe the latter provides the supposed motivation for such discoveries. You have told me that the inventors and developers of new products are inspired mainly by the possibility of becoming very rich and powerful and that if that motivation wasn't present, they would have no reason to get off their sofa and lazing around doing nothing. They wouldn't be interested in doing anything with their brief time on this planet. Acclamation around the world, personal fulfilment, leaving a legacy for humanity and such would count for nothing. Only the attraction of a vastly increased ability to consume goods would serve. That's a fundamental point of disagreement in our view of the world. Perhaps though you might like to look back in history at the great inventors and scientists of the past, read their histories and consider what you think was their motivation in their work. The Curies perhaps, Pasteur or Fleming, Tesla, Berners-Lee. Those who lived and worked and died in very modest circumstances with a complete and obvious lack of regard for personal profit, far outweigh the few profit-driven entrepreneurs who you'd say had made a significant contribution (the odious fraud Edison perhaps and maybe Henry Ford).

Where we do both agree though is that there a terrible "side effects" to capitalism. Hopefully you'd also agree that those side effects generally impact on those of us who get exploited under the system and have little in the way of wealth and power. You also seem to be open to the need to replace the current system.

As for the system I've come up with, which I hope might end poverty and wars, I think I've said previously that it only has two main planks. 1) Abolish the money system 2) Abolish all borders between countries. It can be summed up as "One world, no money". We would then set about doing the work that needs doing (increasingly less with robots and automation etc) in order to produce the things we need to consume and distribute those goods to everyone, so that nobody goes without. Everyone would have a home with water, cooking facilities, enough to eat, sewerage, a school and a doctor. The intricacies of the production and distribution, research and development, administration and so on could be quite easily worked out I believe, but I'm happy to leave that to those who would be inspired to be managers and big chiefs. Who enjoy leading men and seeing their will done. Without the motivation of money to be in such positions, we'd find that those would be the very best and most experienced rather than the hopeless, semi-psychopathic know-nothings who are driven to chase such jobs currently.

I would however be interested to hear your ideas for eliminating the terrible side effect of capitalism or an alternative system you think might work better.

Finally, on to Cuba and as usual we find little agreement on this subject. What you term as capitalism creating a "booming economy" in Havana in the 1950s, was actually a mafia-controlled snakepit full of brothels, bars and casinos, Although some Habaneros lived a very good life and living standards were high, as is true for capitalism everywhere, the disparity with the slums and the poverty of the vast majority in the countryside was vast. That is why the Revolution was received with overwhelming popular joy and why, for example, the Bay of Pigs invaders received zero support from the general population in corresponding uprisings etc.

The overwhelming number of buildings in Havana however, were not constructed during the Mafia boom time from the 1930s through to 1959, but rather from a previous capitalist boom. That was the occupation of the Spanish empire, who made a fortune from sugar cane and the exploitation of African slaves to grow and produce it. Spanish colonial buildings make up almost all of Habana Vieja and Centro Habana and there are some very grand and beautiful examples. Unfortunately they are also a couple of centuries old and exposed to Atlantic hurricanes, regular flooding as a result of sea level rises and most of all a lack of building materials and machinery because of the United States blockade. Despite these problems, Habana Vieja has been beautifully restored, mainly thanks to the efforts of the recently deceased Eusebio Leal. Centro Habana however is a different matter. You are right that the buildings are still in bad condition and that there are collapses. The building in which I lived. called the Focsa Building, was in very bad condition. Only about 1 in 4 of the flats were habitable and there were trees growing in the roof. When there was a hurricane, bits would blow off the building and crash down below. There was only water for 2 hours each day because the pipework was so bad that the building would flood if they left it on for longer. Worst of all, a neighbour from our floor was killed because the cable broke in the lift and it crashed down. Now however the building has been completely restored and repaired and it is an 'Aparthotel' for tourists.

I don't know about the collapse you mentioned, but in our case there was no secrecy. The man in charge of the lifts had disabled some safety device he shouldn't have done. We saw him sitting on the stairs afterwards with his head in his hands. They said he got a prison sentence, but I didn't hear how long. It was reported in the Habana Tribune newspaper on the front page. In the Wikipedia page for the building, the death is even mentioned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCSA_Building.




Focsa Building

 

Of course there are some inventors were altruistic and motivated by factors other than money, but very few inventions actually benefit society without capitalist funding research, manufacture and distribution. And I am sure you know how many areas of scientific research in communist/regimes were stopped in a culture of idea suppression on the basis that they may promote materialism. After all, that is why we have Patent Offices.

And yes, I remember your idealistic view how we can change the world. But as you well know, it would depend on everyone having the same values as yourself, and that is never going to happen as we look across the personalities across the whole of society many of whom wouyld not want to be suppressed all their lives. Many societies have tried to suppress those that won't willingly conform of course, but they have always fail, and with the explosion of communication that even modern day communist/socialist leaders are unable to suppress and therefore non-sustainable, it will always remain purely idealistic.

Re the buildings in Cuba, you know that my argument is not which capitalist "boom" periods produced the buildings we still see dilapidated today. My point is that after 60 odd years, the communist state hasn't repaired or replaced them. And it does not surprise me that where the blame for deaths can be attributed to one man, it was well publicised. And the buildings renovation into an Aparthotel for tourists sort of illustrates my original point, doesn't it?

 

https://www.museumofcommunistterror.com

 

I fail to see why they can't do both. From what I read on a daily basis the people in charge have been so dangerously corrupt that they simply must pay with jail time and the companies involved completely dissolved and assets used to pay towards removal of cladding.

 

It is incredible that people consider the nazis to be the bogeyman of modern history. Communists, at the low end of estimates, have murdered around 60 million people (running into the hundreds of millions at the upper end) over the last 100 years, but you get accused of being a nazi appologist even for putting the two ideologies in the same category.

It appears that the justification for these murders by modern communist fan boys is the idea that it was being done for the good of the people it was murdering.

 

Possibly.

But what an insanely naive belief that, in any circumstance where ultimate power is given to a small group of people, that their human greed (the same greed that drives capitalism) will not lead to a privileged elite enriching themselves at the expense of the majority? And how privileged and enriched would they have to become before other people's well being became a matter of enough importance to worry about?

And what an insanely naive belief that individuals with power will not try to shape the world to their liking, and **** the people subject to their whim, long before deciding that medicine should become a priority.

It's almost as if you believe in the ideology, but you don't believe in history, despite the lessons learned. But I suppose history is anethema to murderous communism, so why should anyone be surprised about that?

In a sylvanian family diarama, communism would work perfectly. In a living breathing world, it must rely on murder and oppression if it is to survive the people's displeasure. So making out that anything relying solely on socialism will be a benevolent and caring regieme, in my opinion, is not just futile, but also a blind alley leading to death and misery. And history would seem to agree with me.

 

Interesting that, like most, you seem to agree that 'communism' (if that's what one world no money is) would work perfectly in theory. What you say about history is of course quite correct, although I don't think anyone has forgotten about the murders in the name of communism under Stalin etc have been forgotten. I've read the Wild Swans book too about the perversion of communism in China and the horrors that brought. Of course it stands out that in both cases, the real true believers and communists who'd made the revolution were the first to be murdered or exiled. It has crossed my mind that if/when socialism becomes a reality here, there's a fair chance that we Kremlins will be denounced as heretical capitalists with landlord tendencies and sent off to the gulag by the same people who hold power and wealth currently, but who have discovered that actually they were fervent communists all the time and so deserve to remain in charge!

So you're right that I do believe in the ideology, but I'm not blind to the history. In fact there are also some positives to take out of the history which I believe show the potential power and possibilities of a co-operative system. For example the advances of both Russia and China in the early years after their revolutions from being rather poor and backward agricultural countries to being advanced world superpowers. Similarly Cuba showed how everyone can be educated and made literate in a very short space of time and that there's no reason or need for anybody to go without health care or education if the right political choices are made.

It seems obvious that the current system of capitalism cannot continue for ever. It was devised at the time of the industrial revolution when workers were needed down mines and in factories on production lines etc. However the times they are a changin' and robots, computers and automation will be doing all the work very soon. Not just blue collar work either - in the pandemic, we've seen how online doctors consultations will work for example. Why would you see a human doctor when a computer one with instant access to all the medical knowledge through history is available. We could more or less eliminate human medical errors. Similarly with airline pilots, train drivers, taxi and delivery drivers, architects, lawyers and just about any other profession. So when the only job left is polishing the robots, what then? How can capitalism continue? It seems clear that choices will need to be made. These choices seem to me to be:-

1. The current rich and powerful declare themselves the 'owners' of the robots and machinery and lock themselves away in some sort of exclusive luxury city just for them, behind big Trump-style walls and security and abandon the rest of us to survive as best we can. A sort of Hunger Games scenario.

2. As 1, but the rich and powerful continue to live among us and rent us use of their robots. I'm not sure how we will manage to pay them for the usage though, since we will have nothing at all they want from us, not even our labour or servitude. Charity? Goodwill? It seems unlikely given their history.

3. We have common public ownership of the robots and machinery, abandon money and borders and everyone lives a full and happy life together eating lotuses or whatever. Freed from the struggle to survive each day, humanity advances by leaps and bounds. We discover all sorts of geniuses who come forward from the large numbers of the world's population who currently live in poverty, have wasted lives and don't get a proper education.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

 

I've caught up with a few more podcasts now and wanted to correct something I said earlier. Those who failed miserably in what they were supposed to do CAN still be prosecuted. They have NOT been given blanket immunity. All that they have been given is the fact that what they say in the enquiry cannot be used as a base for prosecuting them or produced as evidence. My outrage levels went down when I heard the reasons why. Firstly, if they didn't have immunity they wouldn't be open with the enquiry and might refuse to give evidence. Secondly, it helps give the police a good overall picture of what happened and when and where they should be looking when it comes to prosecutions.

I understand the survivors and families group are against the immunity, but I can see why they did it. In fact, they extended it from covering only individuals to covering organisations and companies too. The Kensington & Chelsea Council has declined to be covered by the immunity, which is absolutely the right thing for them to do and for which they deserve congratulations.

Shocking stuff continues to come out of the enquiry, mostly severe ineptness with a dash of corruption mixed in. Lots of blame shifting too. For example:

Exova - (supposed) Fire Consultants

Q. What qualifications do you need to be a fire consultant?
A. None!

The lady who was supposedly the fire consultant was called Clare Barker and she was based in Warrington in Cheshire. Q. Might it have been a good idea for her to go and have a look at the tower before producing her fire safety report? A. Well, in retrospect, yes.

She produced a report that seems to have been entirely shyte. Mainly it seems copied and pasted from a previous fire risk assessment someone had done a few years before. She also used some building plans from the time when the tower was constructed in the 1970s and which were now stored on microfiche. Because of that, the drawings weren't very clear at all. Q. Another reason to have made a personal visit to the site? A. Well in retrospect probably, yes. Her report used the word 'assume' nineteen times. It contained dangerous errors such as saying that the lifts could be taken over and controlled by the fire service, which they couldn't. It contained many important omissions such as whether there was good lighting and signs showing the way to fire exits. Most importantly the report said the renovation would have no adverse affect on fire safety and in particular that over-cladding the exterior would not pose any “particular issues or problems” for fire safety. She gave no consideration to evacuating disabled people or those with mobility problems from their flats in the case of a fire because she believed that government regulations don't make such considerations compulsory and anyway, she thought that “If they did have mobility issues then maybe Grenfell Tower wasn’t the best place for them to live.” She signed off the reports as "“Have reviewed it and it is fine. Cheers Clare" after claiming she spent "a couple of hours" scrutinising it and then dashed off on holiday. She didn't charge this 'couple of hours' time to the project though. She thought the report was just a first draft though and it went completely out of her mind after that. She never thought to ask about it any further when she came back off holiday. Never saw any further documents about it. I haven't got that far yet, but I suppose we'll find out that no further report was ever produced. Everything was not her fault and she thought she'd done a bang up job considering.

Studio E - (supposed) Architects

The half-qualified architect put in charge of the refurbishment had never worked on a high rise building before. Nor had the lead architect in overall charge. In fact nobody at the company had any experience in that field. The lead architect in charge of the project didn't know that there were special rules regarding buildings over 18m high. He wasn't familiar with the phrase "limited combustability". They dismissed residents who raised concerns about fire safety as "trouble makers" and "rebels" and warned Studio E staff not to talk to resident or discuss anything with them. The company "cannot recall" having signed a contract to work on the tower and a copy can't be found. They say “I guess I thought maybe it was, but I don’t know.” They agreed a fee of £174,000 to do the work - just under the cap where it should have been put out to tender by EU procurement laws. An additional six figure sum was then added to their bill once the contract had been granted. They admitted that they wouldn't have won the contract if it had been put out to tender as they had no experience in the field.

Rydon - (supposed) Design and Build Contractor

Nobody at the company had the technical expertise to know whether cladding designs complied with regulations. They were obliged to state if any material in the refurbishment was changed (proposed zinc fireproof panels were changed to the inferno plastic ones) but didn't. Can't say why. They had only a "general understanding" of building regulations, "hadn't read" compliance standards for building envelopes and had "never seen" BRE's document on Fire Performance of External Thermal Insulation for Walls of Multi Storey Buildings. They underquoted for the cost of the refurbishment, suggested the change to plastic filled panels and pocketed £126,000 of the savings by lying to the council about how much was saved. During the work, the residents described the quality of workmanship as 'appalling'. The owners of Rydon took a £5,000,000 dividend out of the company last year to reward them for their fabulous performance.


And so on and so forth. Building Regulations it was agreed, were seen as a target to be achieved rather than a minimum standard. Costs were cut and undercut. Contractors sub-contracted to subcontractors who contracted to more subcontractors. Each taking their little rake off and trying to get things done as cheaply as possible.

If this is what happened at Grenfell and we can all see similar examples of this slap-dash rubbish way of doing things in our everyday lives with an eye always on doing things fast and cheap, it seems reasonable to suppose that this is a general condemnation of how we are living currently. Is this really the best we can do? Might there be some other way we might organise ourselves to do things?

 

I heard a very good interview on the radio with one of the leading experts in AI and robotics a while ago.

Unfortunately I can't remember their name but they echoed what you are saying about the future of jobs.

He was asked what jobs would still require humans. Basically he said arts and craft.

He had no answer to the question who would consume what the robotic/AI based economy produces if the humans have no means of earning an income.

 

It is a shocking example of what can go wrong.

My view, however, is that evolution of the current system through improvement is better than revolution in favour of a previously failed system.

You AI commentary is something that will start to increasingly manifest over the coming decades. But I wouldn't hold out much hope for an effective state run solution, more of a restrained capitalist "demand-led" move away from services and production to leisure, sport and fitness. In extremely simplistic terms, a drift away from what comes under the various government departments covering the manufacturing and service industries towards the activities covered by the Department for Culture Media and Sport.

 

The problem with each scenario is that none of them will be acceptable to everyone. Common public ownership will need governance, and that governance, as always will lead to corruption and murder of the decenting. Ultimately, each of them leads to the need for depopulation, which I believe at some point is going to become a reality, rather than the proletariat becoming the Eloi.

Whether it is managed humanely (education and voluntary abstinance from child bareing) or inhumanely (murder, seggregation and enforced sterilisation) I know not.

My preference would be that for as long as possible we live together peaceably, and use that time to contemplate on the realities and practicalities of life, but I am not optimistic when we have to rely on human nature, good and bad, in every scenario.

Whatever, there will be imperfect humans whose greed will intervene in each of your scenarios. And any scenario that relies on power being wielded to ensure co-operation will soon be corrupted to serve the vision and neuroses of the individuals entrusted with, or who cease that power.

With capitalism, provided there is good and strong regulation, there is more likely to be a balance of power between government, money and the people, because each relies on the other. With Commmunism and pure Socialism, all the power exists within a single body.

The problem with ideologies is that they need to be totalitarian to achieve their goals, and that will always lead to ultimate power, and ultimate corruption.

We need co-operation of ideologies, not individuals, to create an interdependant framework for us to live in. We also need to recognise that imperfection is a fact and not a mortal sin, and mitigate for the possibility of any single person or faction gaining too much power. The American constitution is an example of an attempt to do that. So, as I have said before, New Labour's third way offering Capitalism with a conscience and Socialism without power (that serves the people without leading us) appeared to be the way forward to me. Alas Blair was not the man to deliver it, and he became yet another well intentioned leader to be seduced by his own power and influence.

Humane and voluntary population reduction is part of the answer to your scenarios, and that would be a very difficult thing for capitalism to swallow initially, and for Socialism latterly. But even if there were only two people left in the world, one of them would become more equal than the other.

 

Or option (3) target the HSE/BRE for failure to 'enforce' the 'regulations'.

They were cutting through the burdensome red tape that hinders free enterprise.

The thing is, as 'Safety' in one of my areas of 'expertise': I honestly can't see how someone didn't say "...hang on...". FWIW the gym and accompanying block at Oaklands College (home to SAHC) had a recent cosmetic refurbishment (using, presumably, ACM cladding) and a subsequent "...fire event..." (in the early Spring). The cladding replacement is just finishing up.

 

I think there's an arguable point in what she said there.

One of the first things you're told when living/working in a high rise is that in the event of a fire, you use the stairs, not a lift. The fact that you should never use a lift is drilled into your head.

On that basis, if you have a mobility issue that would prevent you from using the stairs, I think there's a solid case that you should look at somewhere else to live (or the building should ensure that accommodation on the ground floor is reserved for those with mobility issues).

I think there is plenty to criticise her for, but not sure this particular point she made is all that wrong minded. It seems logical that those with mobility issues precluding the use of stairs would be safer not living on the upper floors of high rise buildings.

 

I think this is spot on. UBI is going to become a necessary reality because there will be no jobs left for most of the population.

Some people say this level of automation will never happen; I think they're delusional, because widespread automation is already happening. I work for a manufacturing business, and I get to see robots and cobots doing the work of humans all day every day...and we're talking often complex tasks here.

Self driving cars are already a reality. It will take time for them to be viable in all weather environments, but they're already on the roads today in favourable, non-variable climates. There's a self-driving bus in one southern US state, for example. Self-driving artics have already been successfully tested (they are currently required to have a human driver to take over if something goes wrong) and it's only a matter of time before the career transport driver is dead. The number one employer in the US for white males? Lorry drivers. The fallout from this one area of automation alone is going to be huge.

UBI is simply going to be required once we get to advanced levels of automation, or there is going to be a (likely violent) revolution across every developed nation at a bare minimum.

Some good news is the pending arrival of commercial fusion power, which seems increasingly on the horizon now that we have superconductors at temperatures above liquid nitrogen. France is already working on building one (not commercially viable yet, but it's the first step). Once this nut is cracked you'll be able to power an entire town using a single cup of water, which would be a huge boon for humanity as a whole and certainly well timed going into the automation era.

 

Have you got a link for this Clive?

 

Certainly not in the police.

 

He's not the worst that's come to light in this enquiry. Every week there's something to make your hair curl.

The H&S/fire inspector, for example, made up letters for after his name! He made them look like qualifications, but in fact they were abbreviations for short courses he'd been on. He copied and pasted large chunks of the risk assessment - referring to things like balconies which the tower didn't have and more seriously saying the lifts were 'firefighting' lifts where the brigade could take control - they weren't. Failings on every aspect by almost everyone involved.

Most seriously, the companies flogging the flammable panels had them tested (at Garston BRE coincidentally) and they burned so violently that they had to stop the test in case it burnt the test centre down. It seems the BRE officials then gave them helpful advice on how to get round it. Absolutely shameful. The architects were rubbish, the contractors were rubbish, the manufacturers were rubbish, the council was rubbish, the inspectors were rubbish, the fire brigade command was rubbish. As I say, week after week you hear another fundamental failure.

I'd highly recommend anyone to listen to a few of these BBC podcasts, most especially those of the people who escaped from the fire and those of the relatives of the people who died. It puts the incompetence and failures into proper context.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06kxfh4

 

I was working for Brent Council at the time of Grenfell and six months before the tragedy I attended a meeting with someone at Kensington TMO, whose incompetence played a key part in it. I’ve rarely been so bored. The guy who was showing us the housing management software that we were considering purchasing had the charisma of a wet dishcloth and the area there makes Wembley look a tropical paradise in comparison. The talk was rubbish, and the tea was rubbish.

I got the feeling that the people working there just weren’t very passionate about their jobs (not a good thing when you’re working on behalf of the poor) and this likely played a significant part in this scandalous and entirely avoidable tragedy.

 

Due to threads being merged this post looks completely out of place. I was asking Clive if he had a link regarding what he posted about the "Scouse" fire leader being affected by stress on the night of the fire. I assume that it's omission from this thread means something libelous was posted?

 

To be fair to the FRS (Fire Research Station) which was funded by something called FIRTO (Fire Insurers Research and Training Organisation) was a part of the civil service based in B'wood that actually did what it sad on the tin (and their Guy Fawkes displays were out of this world). Come the 80's and the great CS reforms the FRS gained 'agency status' and moved to the BRE (I always wondered how it managed to fit the 10+ 'Fire Rooms' and labs in Garston) with its more 'business friendly' advisory environment.