The Politics Thread

[Bruce Rioja]

It's occasionally necessary to glance through The Sun

At Mcr airport you are offered complimentary copies of The Times and The Sun. If they've run out of copies of The Times I go to WH Smith and buy either The Telegraph or The I instead. If my only option was to read The Sun I'd just dick about with my phone in preference.

[BWFC_Insane]

Lets be honest, TD just fancied looking at a few semi-naked students! Nowt wrong with that.

[Worthy4England]

Re the Red Top recycling material parchments and to somewhat refute Brother Insaney's sweeping statements that youth rule the intelectual world:

It's occasionally necessary to glance through The Sun and co in order to learn just what our next M.I.5, 6, Intelligence Services and members of parliament and top job candidates are about in their quest for superior knowlege and personal collections of titles, Kruger Rands and invitations to balls etc. ( Come on brother, there aren't too many zimmer-frame lotharios seen quaffing champers in punts on the noble rivers of our seats of learning) . Anyway, here you go:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3863575/p ... -pictures/

Just remind me of the link between this and intellectual capability. Coz I'm missing that bit.

[TANGODANCER]

Re the Red Top recycling material parchments and to somewhat refute Brother Insaney's sweeping statements that youth rule the intelectual world:

It's occasionally necessary to glance through The Sun and co in order to learn just what our next M.I.5, 6, Intelligence Services and members of parliament and top job candidates are about in their quest for superior knowlege and personal collections of titles, Kruger Rands and invitations to balls etc. ( Come on brother, there aren't too many zimmer-frame lotharios seen quaffing champers in punts on the noble rivers of our seats of learning) . Anyway, here you go:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3863575/p ... -pictures/

Just remind me of the link between this and intellectual capability. Coz I'm missing that bit.

No, I'll not bother Worthy. I'll just slink back into my corner. Obviously the laugh emote failed...Sorry.

[Worthy4England]

Oh

[Prufrock]

I honestly don't know why anyone buys the Sun. Last time I "read" it it was filled with "articles" no more than ten words long half of which were either "phwoar", in capitals, or weird synonyms for women's legs (stalks anyone?) Otherwise it's just coupons for caravan holidays and photos of soap "stars" doing their shopping.

Despite my carefully crafted public persona, I try not to look down on people or dismiss them without reason. I find that difficult if they read the sun.

[Worthy4England]

I know there's some way to go yet, but every single tower block tested so far has failed its fire test as I hear it. This clearly crosses councils of both main parties (not sure if Libdems affected yet). How the juddering fcuk did we get to this place?

Just as an aside John McDonalds statements about it being "murder" are tw@ttish. Every block of flats tested in the peoples republic of Salford, failed. So I suppose that'd be "attempted murder"?

[Lord Kangana]

On balance, I think the residents probably would have preferred to have kept their asbestos.

[TANGODANCER]

It's all guess work right now, but it's looking like somebody is going to carry a mighty big can about this. I used to work for a company that made steel containers for offshore use (the offshore industry, by necessity, is one of the most safety conscious entities on the planet) .As such I was involved in all sorts of tests and certification always with a Lloyds Registry inspector on site. One of the most stringent was the required A60 ( relating to one hour) fire test which, at the time was carried out at the Fire Research Centre in Warrington. The lining panels (50 mm of Rockwool fire retardent wool sandwiched between two galvanised steel sheets) we used were made by a Swedish firm and safety was paramount as was the need for all the relevant manufacturers guarantees and certificates. (The Swedes are highly conscienious about such, believe me, as even blasting and painting in this country are carried out to Swedish standards) The furnace test was quite staggering to watch as the tested panel was actually made the fourth wall in a furnace kiln and cemented in. It was never going to fail in one hour as the safety levels would have a built in extra.

The questions seems to be here: A, what was the material specification, and who set it? B Was the material used defined as up to the safety levels of the relevant authority and did it carry the correct test certificates? C. It seems pretty obvious that either cost -cutting and substandard cladding was used becauseof all the relevant other failures to meet the safety specs, so who passed the work off as safe initially and who did the Quality Assurance work? It looks down to either the cladding manufacturers or the people setting the site standards and ordering the material. Either way, it looks like somebody just has to get the super can.

Whatever evolves, the real tragedy is that nothing can bring back the poor victims of it all or console their families.

[Hoboh]

I know there's some way to go yet, but every single tower block tested so far has failed its fire test as I hear it. This clearly crosses councils of both main parties (not sure if Libdems affected yet). How the juddering fcuk did we get to this place?

Just as an aside John McDonalds statements about it being "murder" are tw@ttish. Every block of flats tested in the peoples republic of Salford, failed. So I suppose that'd be "attempted murder"?

Comrade Corbyn and Old McDonald are going to end up looking a right pair of tits if they carry on trying to point score over the fire, it was a monumental cock up on a mega scale by governments and councils of all parties for a few decades.
These towers should have been raised to the ground but population growth put paid to that, now there will be a hefty price to pay and not only in human tragedy.

[Lord Kangana]

The towers were actually quite safe before they were reclad hoboh. They didn't need razing to the ground - that's precisely the argument put forward by the residents, that cosmetic considerations were put before practical safety issues.

[LeverEnd]

The towers were actually quite safe before they were reclad hoboh. They didn't need razing to the ground - that's precisely the argument put forward by the residents, that cosmetic considerations were put before practical safety issues.

Or was it a quick fix to tick some boxes and meet environmental targets on the cheap? Genuine question, I don't know, but it did cross my mind.

[Lord Kangana]

Theres a whole host of them (and very similar) up and down the country. Functionality-wise, they are perfectly adequate for the job they do. And are actually really quite safe. But, as one planner I know calls them, they look like relics from the communist Eastern Bloc. Which was a large part of the motivation for their tart-up.

Given that money hasn't been made available for rebuilding ( it doesn't really matter the motivation, it just hasn't) cladding was seen as the 'low hanging fruit' option to renovate.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

I see we've just spent over 6bn on 2 state of the art aircraft carriers, powered by...Windows XP Not to mention a lack of planes to put on the carrier. Can't wait to see how things go when they take back control

[Worthy4England]

In these dark days of austerity and in the absence of magic money trees, it's comforting to know that there's still the odd billion or so stashed down the back of the sofa and normal folks can still afford to replace orangery doors for a couple of million on the taxpayer, along side the odd £18k train tickets...

I contextualise this against last night's trip to A&E which had 10 ambulance crews backed up for circa 2 hours as Bolton then Wigan A&E declared no further capacity and shut so they diverted to Salford which then ran out of immediate capacity and had RTA's and suspected cardiacs parked on corridors. The wait for 999's to respond went over an hour at one point. Hope everyone has their own defibrillators at home.

But at least we can still shell out for orangery doors and find £1.5bn for 10 votes.

What a fecked up society we have become.

[Little Green Man]

What a fecked up society we have become.

Steady on! The Tories are the 'natural party of government'. They'll surely see us all right in the long run. Until then we'll just have to muddle along with their strong and stable cabinet stuffed full of crackpots and charlatans. And if not, I'm sure The Rapture will be along soon enough and then the bung to the DUP will seem like a good investment when they've put a good word in for the rest of us.

[Lord Kangana]

Under the current circumstances, would we actually be able to meet the criteria to rejoin the EU if we were try now?

[Hoboh]

Under the current circumstances, would we actually be able to meet the criteria to rejoin the EU if we were try now?
[/quote

I would hope not

Latest twist on the fire,

But David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, who lost a friend in the disaster, raised fears of a cover-up.
Asked if he believed the number of dead had not been released due to the potential for civil unrest, he said: "The truth is the media cycle is now beginning to move on to other things, that's the truth.
"And so what people say is that in two, three weeks' time, if you start to reveal the numbers, things have moved on."
Mr Lammy said there was a "gap" between what witnesses and residents had said and what the official figures showed.
"In one flat alone, people say there were up to 40 people gathering, because they gathered in the flat, it was Ramadan," he said

I'm afraid if there was 40 in one flat, someone was seriously taking the piss and you cannot blame the government for that!

[Lord Kangana]

What would be an acceptable maximum number of people that they should accept negligence for hobes? Shall we say 10 in a flat? Clearly, above that number people should understand that it'll be their fault if they die due to someone else's decisions. Perhaps we could enshrine this in law to remove the ambiguity?

[Worthy4England]

^^ Which bit of what you've quoted blames the government?

The main contention is that there were more people in the building than has currently been acknowledged and therefore 76 poor souls estimated as the death toll, is too low.