Vocal Voices

The first of two inquiries has now reported and, as expected, the London Fire Brigade has been heavily criticised. Unfortunately there has not been enough separation between the actions of management, the funding, the call centre and the actual fire fighters, on the groud, with their hoses, going in and saving people's lives. They have all been lumped together.

The only criticism I can find of the fire fighters is that they went with the "stay put" advice, but that was part of their rules, their standard operating procedures, something they had trained for. Unfortunately somebody in seniority at the scene should have realised that it was the wrong thing to be doing and ordered an evacuation.

We did plenty of fire drills in the RAF using hoses and the proper extinguisher for different fires and the order was that if the fire was winning you left everything and got out by the safest exit asap. Whenever I am in hotels the first thing I do after dumping my bags is go round and find fire points and emergency exits. I also try to be in a room on the lower floors. There is no rule on earth that would keep me in a burning building.

I am also with Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union, who says the two inquiries are arse about face. Getting to the cause of the fire and then looking at the materials used, the manufacturers, the licences, the installers and Westminster council's procedures should be the priority. There are still hundreds of buildings with thousands of occupants up and down the country in limbo still wondering about what to do.

I agree with him too. But any logical inquiry would have to look at who thought it would be a good idea to bolt inflammable material to the outside of a tower block and one feels that there are people in high places who would like that issue to be kicked into the long grass for as long as possible.
One thing I will say is that I want to put my head in my hands when I look at Dani Cotton. She does not, to put it politely, seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
She is one of a kind that I met too often in the public sector.
Management who say that the policy is never wrong, but the implementation of that policy can be wrong. Ergo they the management (of which Dani Cotton is one) can't be wrong.
In this instance she will stick by "her firemen" as she invariably describes them, but it's still true. She wasn't wrong, so there.
The avoidance of responsibility in this case is going to be interesting. The guilty parties will be identified but getting them punished will be like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

cromwell wrote:I agree with him too. But any logical inquiry would have to look at who thought it would be a good idea to bolt inflammable material to the outside of a tower block and one feels that there are people in high places who would like that issue to be kicked into the long grass for as long as possible.

Yes. The logical place to start would be at the very first meeting when cladding was proposed as a solution to a problem, and what, how and when that problem was defined. We need to name those people, we need to know what their qualifications and expertise with such problems were, and we also need to know their positions within the agencies involved.

The residents of the block had been complaining for over two years about the maintenance and refurbishment of the block. They had complained of the use of cheap materials and of workmen "cutting corners" and that nothing was being done to address their concerns.

Somebody, somewhere, was in charge of all of this and they needed to be outed before having a pop at the fire fighters.

Workingman wrote:Yes. The logical place to start would be at the very first meeting when cladding was proposed as a solution to a problem, and what, how and when that problem was defined. We need to name those people, we need to know what their qualifications and expertise with such problems were, and we also need to know their positions within the agencies involved.

We do, but I won't be holding my breath because it's been years since the fire and we're still no nearer knowing; and imo that's not accidental.