London fire

Facebook and the dm on line this morning are printing a copy of a letter from the senior lawyer at KandC council to residents who had been blogging about the fire risk at Grenfell. The letter told them to take their blog down and is threatening in nature. Of course because of the cuts to legal aid for housing matters, the residents were unable to get legal advice.

No voice, no power, no home, nothing. No stake in our society.

Give me one good reason why they shouldn't be angry.

The extent to which Ministers will fully ignored all warnings over fire risk etc in public housing including presumably schools is becoming painfully obvious.

The trail of culpability leads to the top of the Tory government.

Report in today's Observer

The above alone should be sufficient to bring down this government

The first rule on government is to protect its citizens.

I don't know if anyone saw the interviews with volunteers on Sky News this morning but they left me asking what exactly the authorities have done on the ground? I am sure they are doing things behind in the background but they seem to have just abandoned families.

I wonder why thy didn't make use of the army?

Just read that they have armed police there, though. These people are being treated like criminals. Why?

Good news is that the Syrian refugees are to be reunited with their parents, courtesy of the Home Office, and a change.org petition with 86,000 signatures.

There is a petition started by a solicitor working for the tower to get a full public inquest into the causes of the fire. Please sign if you want one.

On the matter of low-income families being invisible and ignored/overlooked by the rich and powerful, even when they're right under their noses.

I'm reminded of the time Michael Portillo went to Merseyside to make a TV programme where he took on the role of a single mother with young children who worked at Asda .... juggling a low-paid job and childcare for a week.

He was MP for Kensington & Chelsea at the time.

Could the same not happen now as happened in Aberfan, the homeless were given caravans to live in, they were able to live with neighbours and only a mile from their demolished surely there are parks in the area.

www.byline.com/column/22/article/1695

This is an interesting article about the ownership of London fire engines.

One of the reasons that the cladding was put on the tower was because the posh owners next door did not want to see a concrete tower.
Imagine if they had to look at parks full of caravans.
It's just a few streets away from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

Marieleez have you no compassion at all? What if it were your family in that building? Also I find your use of the word 'they' offensive. Why not say the victims? Using the word 'they' implies that you see a division between yourself and others. We are all human beings. If you mean immigrants then why not say so? Your comments disgust me.

Then put caravans in Kensington Gardens , I know from experience people in disasters who are left homeless and are grieving need their neighbours, it worked in Aberfan. Pity the demonstrators who were not victims didn't think more about this than rage over who has big houses , all this is doing is widening a class divided, there will always be wealthy and Jams,

Not evens jams. There are vast quantities of people not managing at all. Kept well hidden, as we are now beginning to realise they have no voice.

Aberfan is not quite like London, though. There are plenty of empty houses in Kensington.

However, look at this.

skwawkbox.org/2017/06/18/kcbc-if-you-accept-temporary-flats-youre-off-rehoming-list-grenfell/

KCBC not getting it, are they?

A builder has taken 20 new flats off the market to offer them free for three months to residents of Grenfell.
They have been told that if they move there, they will not be on the council's rehoming list.
So does that mean they will be homeless again in three months?

Caravans are a good idea, although they need utilities like water and electricity. Not sure how that could work, but there must be experts on hand to advise on how things could be achieved. Careful handling of the situation is crucial though.

I know it's not the same thing, but when Carlisle was flooded, some residents lived in static caravans placed at the side of the house while the clean up went on.

There's such a shortage of social housing in London, so some thinking out of the box is needed. I liked the idea of student accommodation empty for the summer being offered.

But not people being taken off the rehoming list if they accept it.
It just shows the gulf between the council and the residents that they could even contemplate that.

empty houses owned by people or empty houses owned by the council?

There is a shortage of social housing throughout the country, no social housing free in my area, should holiday homes be taken from owners and given to those who need shelter ? No.

Shortage of social housing because the Tories argue that social housing = Labour voters. Charmers aren't they?

Shocked yesterday when talking to neighbour about this terrible fire. She was commenting that most people in the tower block were not British and said that many could probably not speak English. They are all HUMAN BEINGS and our hearts should go out to them. I hope they get the justice they so rightly deserve.

Sortage of social housing in South Wales, is this the reason Merthyr has been labour since the birth of the Labour Party?

An additional problem in London is the shortage of land. There is hardly land available within Greater London for any kind of social housing, whether it be tents or caravans.

London should stop selling off the social housing it already has and make sure its stock is fit for purpose. It's not a question of money, because the London boroughs have some of the lowest council tax rates in the country.

As I mentioned before, the population of Greater London is not significantly higher than it was just after WW2. It's actually lower than it was in 1939. The reason is that it's already about as crowded as it can be.

Unless some kind of radical solutions are introduced, the government can't stop foreign investment and/or confiscate unoccupied property, although it could certainly introduce land value tax, which would discourage some people.

The only viable solutions are to build new towns within commutable distance of work and for the government/boroughs to be responsible for allocation.

Maybe your neighbour made the error of judging the people by the colour of their skin Silver - I know people who did that during the time of the referendum debates etc. Most of those people are British citizens or legal immigrants apart from the fact that as you say they are all human and are needing assistance.

silversurfer That kind of comment is shocking, isn't it? I've seen a number of them across social media.

Sorry, I meant silversurf

Of course the government could stop foreign buyers buying residential property and leaving them empty. Could be some enormous tax to make it not worthwhile for a start. Obviously they don't want to do this as it might mean property prices going down.