Tower Block Disaster - Grenfell

[Bonefishblues]

Did you expect anything different under a Tory Government. All fine words but no action.

Nope.

The inquiry has looked at the role of the LFB and I fear that they may end up being scapegoats and the real causes of the fire, cost cutting, bad management and a disregard for poor people in the borough, glossed over.

That's my fear too.

I do think that the Commissioner (?) was extraordinarily naïve when she said that with hindsight she'd do nothing differently. I think it allowed the whole debate to change focus.

[reohn2]

Did you expect anything different under a Tory Government. All fine words but no action.

Nope.

The inquiry has looked at the role of the LFB and I fear that they may end up being scapegoats and the real causes of the fire, cost cutting, bad management and a disregard for poor people in the borough, glossed over.

That's my fear too.

I do think that the Commissioner (?) was extraordinarily naïve when she said that with hindsight she'd do nothing differently. I think it allowed the whole debate to change focus.

I thought that was the strangest thing.
She seemed to think it it was the best and only course of action,weird.

[Bonefishblues]

Stay put was such a deeply-ingrained mantra in the LFB that it was unthinkable that an evacuation would be ordered, even in the face of what was so obvious to everyone.

I've seen the above opinion in a couple of places in the last few days.

[Oldjohnw]

It seems to me that anyone who in effect says 'we have nothing to learn' instead of 'there are lessons we can learn' is on a hiding to nothing.

[reohn2]

It seems to me that anyone who in effect says 'we have nothing to learn' instead of 'there are lessons we can learn' is on a hiding to nothing.

And a blinkered outlook unable to see even in the obvious aftermath what went wrong,such people aren't fit to hold office.
There is always something to learn.
Add to that unsuitable ineffective equipment to tackle such a blase and a lot of questions need answering.

[Psamathe]

It seems to me that anyone who in effect says 'we have nothing to learn' instead of 'there are lessons we can learn' is on a hiding to nothing.

And a blinkered outlook unable to see even in the obvious aftermath what went wrong,such people aren't fit to hold office.
There is always something to learn.
Add to that unsuitable ineffective equipment to tackle such a blase and a lot of questions need answering.

From the brief excerpts I've seen (on TV news) she was not asked if there was anything to learn, she was asked if she would do anything different (on the night). I see there being an important distinction between the two.

Ian

[Bonefishblues]

It seems to me that anyone who in effect says 'we have nothing to learn' instead of 'there are lessons we can learn' is on a hiding to nothing.

And a blinkered outlook unable to see even in the obvious aftermath what went wrong,such people aren't fit to hold office.
There is always something to learn.
Add to that unsuitable ineffective equipment to tackle such a blase and a lot of questions need answering.

From the brief excerpts I've seen (on TV news) she was not asked if there was anything to learn, she was asked if she would do anything different (on the night). I see there being an important distinction between the two.

Ian

You omitted the 'with the benefit of hindsight' which is significant.

[Psamathe]

And a blinkered outlook unable to see even in the obvious aftermath what went wrong,such people aren't fit to hold office.
There is always something to learn.
Add to that unsuitable ineffective equipment to tackle such a blase and a lot of questions need answering.

From the brief excerpts I've seen (on TV news) she was not asked if there was anything to learn, she was asked if she would do anything different (on the night). I see there being an important distinction between the two.

Ian

You omitted the 'with the benefit of hindsight' which is significant.

I still see the question about being what she would have done differently on the night. Learning, reviewing, changing policy is something you do after the night.

Ian

[reohn2]

Some of her own firefighters ignored orders and saved people who would otherwise have perished.

[Bonefishblues]

From the brief excerpts I've seen (on TV news) she was not asked if there was anything to learn, she was asked if she would do anything different (on the night). I see there being an important distinction between the two.

Ian

You omitted the 'with the benefit of hindsight' which is significant.

I still see the question about being what she would have done differently on the night. Learning, reviewing, changing policy is something you do after the night.

Ian

Might I paraphrase the question to make explicit its subtext:

With the benefit of hindsight when you saw* that the flames were spreading up the outside of the building via flammable cladding and entering the flats would you have ordered evacuation earlier?

No, I wouldn't.

*As was obvious to anyone, not just trained fire professionals.

[Psamathe]

You omitted the 'with the benefit of hindsight' which is significant.

I still see the question about being what she would have done differently on the night. Learning, reviewing, changing policy is something you do after the night.

Ian

Might I paraphrase the question to make explicit its subtext:

With the benefit of hindsight when you saw* that the flames were spreading up the outside of the building via flammable cladding and entering the flats would you have ordered evacuation earlier?

No, I wouldn't.

*As was obvious to anyone, not just trained fire professionals.

A TV excerpt I saw was a different question. But then the criticism was not linked to a specific question.

Ian

[Bonefishblues]

Excerpt from 7 key points of the Enquiry, BBC report:

The "stay put" strategy should have been abandoned sooner
Sir Martin says in the report that LFB failed to revoke the "stay put" advice at a time when the stairs remained passable. Had it done so, "more lives could have been saved".

"The evidence taken as a whole strongly suggests that the "stay put" concept had become an article of faith within the LFB so powerful that to depart from it was to all intents and purposes unthinkable," he wrote.

"The fact that the commissioner [Dany Cotton] was compelled to ask the rhetorical question: 'It's all very well saying, get everybody out, but then how do you get them all out?' emphasises that the LFB had never itself sought to answer that question in its preparations and training and had not equipped itself to carry out a total evacuation of such a building.

"Quite apart from its remarkable insensitivity to the families of the deceased and to those who had escaped from their burning homes with their lives, the commissioner's evidence that she would not change anything about the response of the LFB on the night, even with the benefit of hindsight, only serves to demonstrate that the LFB is an institution at risk of not learning the lessons of the Grenfell Tower fire."

[Ben@Forest]

Did you expect anything different under a Tory Government. All fine words but no action.
The inquiry has looked at the role of the LFB and I fear that they may end up being scapegoats and the real causes of the fire, cost cutting, bad management and a disregard for poor people in the borough, glossed over.

Matt Wrack of the FBU was on R4 last week, l guess he's no friend of the current government but even he referenced issues that go back to the Labour administration from 1997 onwards.

I don't think the LFB will be scapegoated, but the media (and l think us, the general public) have a curious attitude to our military, emergency and health services. We lurch from adulation of heroes then decrying despicable people or practices which have led to injury or death. In fact, like any job, sometimes they do well, sometimes they don't and there are both competent and incompetent people.

I know this because my wife's a long time NHS nurse. There are many good people and practices, but they are not infallible. And neither are firefighters.

[Oldjohnw]

All public servants get this treatment. So we have severe criticism of 'pen pushers: in the NHS. (And who else will arrange the laundry and catering?) If Social workers imtervene they are busy bodies. If they don't they are negligent.

Prison reformers (my former job) are either interfering do-gooders or they should have whistle blown and stopped a tragedy.

But always we could do better.

[reohn2]

FWIW,mistakes will always happen,but when they do trying to claim the didn't is a outright lie.
For the head of the LFB to state that she wouldn't do it any differently when it's so obvious that the 'stay put' strategy failed so catastrophically is an incredible statement.
What she is stating is that should the same thing happen again tomorrow-and let's not forget that there's a distinct possibility due to the government's inaction in making safe similar tower blocks-the LFB would implement the exact same strategy,that is crass in the extreme.

EDIT,what the LFB head is saying is that there is no better strategy than leaving people in tower blocks to die.
Let's also not forget that the LFB has been put in this position by the utter lunacy of the fitting of inflammable cladding and that in itself broke the law.