Off Topic Politics Thread

London fire: Flats acquired for Grenfell Tower survivors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40357280

 

Starting to think May really is a robot. She is saying the same things again

 

Boris on Radio 4. Interviewer tells him "It's not a Two Ronnie sketch. You can't just answer the question before last."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-embarrassing-air-meltdown-10662968

 

I heard the interview live, Boris at his bumbling 'best'. He is truly awful. To say he had a brain drain would be kind. In fact I think it was purely incompetence.

 

Yep, a few places in Southampton have it

 

It is a scandal but why does he say similar? Is it the same as Grenfell or similar? The same cladding but without the cheaper surface is supposedly OK and that would be similar.

 

They were specifically asking us about towers with aluminium composite panels so I would guess they mean that?

 

Listening to it now .

I thought he was no bumbling Bufoon , and was very smart . Not sure now ,unless he is just toying with us ...

 

The Government has been dealt a huge blow as the High Court ruled its benefit cap is unlawful and illegally discriminates against single parents with young children.

Conservative ministers are now likely to be forced to change or scrap one of their flagship welfare policies, which limits the total amount of benefits a household can receive to £23,000 a year in London and £20,000 elsewhere.

The ruling was made in response to a judicial review brought by four lone parent families who said the cap would have a severe and disproportionate impact on them.

200,000 children being made poorer through benefits cap

Ministers had attempted to have the case thrown out but were rejected by the court, which ruled earlier this year that the case must be heard as a matter of urgency. The Government said it was “disappointed” with the latest ruling and will appeal against the decision.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7802286.html

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/reveal...on-call-centre

The Conservative Party contracted a secretive call centre during the election campaign which may have broken data protection and election laws, a Channel 4 News investigation has found.

An undercover reporter working for Channel 4 News secured work at Blue Telecoms, a firm in Neath, South Wales.

...

The investigation has uncovered what appear to be underhand and potentially unlawful practices at the centre, in calls made on behalf of the Conservative Party. These allegations include:

● Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates – banned under election law.

● Political cold calling to prohibited numbers

● Misleading calls claiming to be from an ‘independent market research company’ which does not apparently exist

 

Make no mistake. The bloke IS a bumbling buffoon. You are only being fooled by his elevated position and leg-ups he has enjoyed all his life to get there. The idiot is an opportunist with not a shred of dignity about him. If he did, he'd realise he's not fit to help run a pub, let alone run a country. The dangerous thing about him is that his bumbling insignificance will see him slide into even higher office and he's been promoted way past the point of incompetence already.

 

So it is actually that they are checking 600, not that 600 have the same cladding.

This is a very sketchy thing now. The BBC and other outlets are banging on about this cladding failing fire tests and it being banned which is not true.

From what I have read it is not illegal to clad buildings with this particular variant of cladding as they are trying to suggest. It IS illegal to clad buildings over 18 metres tall with this cladding.

Then we have the attempt to push the austerity angle at this as well. The reality there is it is cheaper not to do it in the first place.

Then another angle is that the focus is on the social housing numbers where there are 4,000 state owned tower blocks in the UK. 600 are under investigation. 11? so far have been confirmed with suspect cladding.

Lots of hospitals like the one in Lincoln are covered in cladding however if they are 3 story buildings then they are under the 18mtr limit for this cladding. I doubt that eases people's concerns though!!!

Take a walk in Lincoln City Centre (or high buildings in view of the city centre) and you will see construction everywhere. Any land that becomes available in the City centre is immediately built on and turned into high rise student flats complete with aesthetically pleasing panelled (cladding?) sides. Any large office block that becomes available is immediately turned int student flats and the outside is clad. The Premier Inn, Holiday Inn, University campus. All clad. The newer shopping complexes are clad.

Where it "seems" someone in the case of Grenfell decided on the cheaper cladding another council that has found their tower blocks clad with the same has said on TV that they had actually bought and paid for the more expensive (and suitable) cladding!!!

This is another can of worms of local and national governments creating business for their pals in big business, giving contracts to their friends and cronies and then their friends and cronies doing whatever they want in the name of profits.

These are high value projects and many of them have been done on the old government favourite of the past 2 decades...............PFI!!!!

What worries me is that one of the 3 tower blocks in Lincoln last year had a fire all the way up one side because of a power failure in the mobile phone masts (plural) power supply!!! If it had been the one that had been clad then it wouldn't just have been a scorched line up the side!! My mate lives on the 13th floor of this one!!:

EDIT: I know I can be a bit of a conspiracy theorist but the article that I linked to the other day and posted a picture of r.e. the block that had this fire up the side................has been removed from the internet?? Strange. Here's a picture of the same tower block same year but earlier and contained to one flat because it has no cladding. If you look on the left picture you can see how many phone masts and antennas are on top of that!!! Brainfry in there. Virgin Broadband is lightening speed in there though:

please log in to view this image

 

So questioning proceedings is unpatriotic?
Didn't realise we were now living in a dictatorship.

 

didn't you?

 

Ohhh Jeremy Corbyn has just been sung out by the full crowd watching Radiohead at Glastonbury....Goodbye Tories at the next election...

 

Hmm. Had a bit of that after the Stone Roses concert at Wembley last weekend!

 

If you haven't watched it before I urge you to try a documentary on historic migration, on the BBC iPlayer, by Ian Hislop, called "Who Should We Let In.?" : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08w2cvq

It just might be a real mind opener.

 

Ha ha ha. You sound like a Liverpool fan... "next time will be our time"

He should have won this time around but it says something about our population and the state of British politics that he didn't.