It does seem weird that in point one they try and make a point about it being run mostly by tenents in the KCTMO and not by the council. They even capitalise tenants. Then seemingly blame them in many other points for the disaster before saying the KCTMO doesn't listen to tenants it the final point. Just disjointed 'facts' to shift blame away from the Tories without any thought into what he's actually trying to say.
It's a co-ordinated campaign of deliberate disinformation, not sure by who (certainly not endorsed by the Conservative Party, though some of their members may be involved). I saw something very similar posted on another forum almost immediately after the fire, which was apparently being disseminated around various right wing websites. It was debunked as mostly lies and distorted half truths. Fake news, basically. Welcome to the "post-truth" world!
The problem is that once someone creates a non-truthful scenario and dresses it up with enough grains of factual evidence that it appears convincing, it's difficult to completely dispel the lie. People still remember things they're told, even though they're lies. This is the new world, although of course it's not new at all.
Not wishing to belittle the Grenfell smear*, but just picking up yesterday's news where I found myself almost agreeing with The Blessed Theresa. She is seeking a political consensus on Brexit (hurrah!) and Jeremy has told her to swivel (boo!). I would hope for grown up politics on Brexit, as a number of us have said. But given the Tories track record on "political cooperation" (ask the former MP for Sheffield) it is understandable that mistrust runs deeply. Shows how toxic our current system has become. * Anyone notice similarities with Hillsborough? Victim blaming; distortions etc etc.
A cross party consensus on Brexit may well emerge, indeed let's hope it does because the issue is too important for it to be decided by tribal loyalty to any official party lines. Theresa May, however, has lost all credibility on the issue and will not be leading any consensus. No deal is better than a bad deal Theresa? Then that's what you get, love. No deal.
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I haven't yet responded to the sender of the email, in the hope that someone more politically savvy would offer a reasoned response, and you have. If you don't mind I will copy and paste this into my reply, to him. In all honesty, I think he only sent it to me because his wife (my sister) had been offended by my suggestion that people that only obtain their news from one source, e.g. a newspaper, without looking at opposite views on the same topic, can be heavily influenced into unquestionably believing the news report. And, in the event of a general election, influenced into voting for the party the newspaper supports. Looks like he has fallen into that group of people.
Weakened mandate so appeal for consensus. She's being the ultimate pragmatist. Strengthened mandate so push home advantage. He's on the attack to exploit her weakness. (We like the pressing game don't we ) This is what you get with a two party democracy. There's rarely a case for supporting your adversary LibDems discovered that 'consensus' was getting the blame for all the bad stuff, never getting credit for any good stuff and loss of popularity even amongst your own supporters for 'selling out on your principles'. This would probably go the same way
I hate not to take the credit but it was a bit of a cut and paste from a credible source giving arguments that can be corroborated. I didn't know the detail but I knew that the message you had received smelled of sh1t, so it had to be sh1t. I didn't even mention the Victim shaming at the beginning (as mentioned by Lambo)
Yeah, that first bit. Made me feel uncomfortable that a member of my family felt it okay to send this to me, when he knows my socialist leanings. I think it shows that it isn't just May feeling the pressure, but her supporters too, that they will circulate such comments that can be disproved by someone who knows where to look. But isn't that the Tory way? Repeat lies often enough until they become truths in the mind of the public?
The problem is Labour and the media jumped on the disaster as a chance to attack the Tories whilst simultaneously banging on about not politicising the disaster. So of course SOME Tories are going to defend Tories and equally Labour and the Tories are coming up with misleading information and easy false correlations about it. The reality is that there was a disaster. A council cheaped out on their prettying up of the flats that they used EU regulations to cover their intent to pretty them up. Doesn't matter if it is Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or the loony rich boy's elite party. They cheaped out and many councils across the country of all colours and tribes have done the same. Local government is not national government. They are quite often on a different page than each other despite running on the same party name. And the other reality is that despite all the "it was them not us" and counter" no it was you lot before us" bollocks that we are hearing the reality is this is not a Tory v Labour issue and much more a haves and have nots issue as always. Councils across the country dominated by councillors that are local or national "haves" make decisions that the have nots have to live with and the "haves" do not live in the same world as the "have nots" no matter their party colour. If this comes down to a battle of "It was Cameron", "No it was Blair", " No it was Thatcher" ad infinitum then you can count the days until the next disaster that occurs after we learn nothing other than "deal with this one problem" because while they will patch up policy on cladding and sprinklers they will not addressother things that eventually will cause a problem. Quite simply this is down to money and negligence. Not a shortage of money because it would have been cheaper to not clad these buildings. The money aspect is quite simply the same as everything that involves state funds and that is those in control of it help out their mates and their circle with preferred partner deals, money handed out for things that can be passed off as necessary or beneficial whether they are or not and whether they are even needed. What I would actually like to see is some accurate reporting devoid of assumptions or some determination to reach an already decided upon conclusion. And I would like all parties and the media to stop saying we shouldn't politicise something when that is what they have done since a few hours of the disaster breaking.
Was Harriet Harman supposed to keep quiet about the enquiry into Lakanal House being buried then? Is stating a fact now "politicising "?
???? This is the way of all of them. They all do this to suit even St Corbyn. Why does it always end up on this forum as "Isn't that the Tory way?" This forum (and lots of the internet) is so blinkered not to see that there is almost no-one in the house or in power that doesn't do this and it isn't "the Tory way" it is "the way of the rich and powerful."
I don't think anybody needed to be quiet about anything but Labour were straight on the attack about "Tory council" before it was found that this is a nationwide problem in councils of several different parties.
Yes Imps - but the Tories always have been and always will be the party of the rich and powerful. Of course the rich and powerful will exert their influence on, & occasionaly completely corrupt, other parties when it suits them, ie when those parties have their hands on the levers of power; but the Conservative and Unionist Party was formed centuries ago by the ruling elite, specifically to protect their interests. That much is a simple matter of historical fact.
I personally believe that several decades of post Thatcherite housing policy in the capital - & yes, that includes the Blair years - could have no more appropriate monument than that burnt out block.
I don;t think that towerblock represents Thatcherite housing policy at all. What it does represent is greed and corruption and no matter who runs the country or who runs the councils where there is money and power there are plenty of lovely people that "went into politics to help people" only helping out those with money. Every policy, without any exception, that is sold as helping the poor always lines the pockets of those who aren't poor. Charity has turned into big business. welfare policy has turned into big business. NGOs are passed off as independent despite their government funding and even NPOs just make sure that as much as possible of the profit they shouldn't make ends up being "spent." To continually bang on about the Tories being the party of the rich because of history is ridiculous. Labour used to be the party of the poor yet now they seem to be the party of the middle class and educated youth. You can use the same argument on the Democrats r.e. slavery if you want to start using that argument. If you and I take our rose tinted glasses off for a minute we would see that Tories and Labour used to be about the balance between trade and people. Different opinions on where that balance is but all the same looking for a balance. This generation of politicians though either ignore trade realities totally or ignore people totally. It has turned into being nothing about change or compromise and quite simply "we will object to everything the other side does." There are never any hands held up if the other side does something you agree with. they did/do it so we will oppose it. The whole lot is just minute by minute soundbite searching and reactionary politics. There is no thought of making hard decisions nor long term vision. policy is toppled by a soundbite. People follow the soundbite along and whole protests are formed off what was just a soundbite. I don;t think many people in this country even know what they are following anymore because the whole of the screen media and print are just rattling off their interpretations of twitter, facebook and memes as if it was fully researched investigation. Real news and investigative journalism is buried on the smaller channels and forgotten in a day because someone on a mission gets sharing a misinformed, misleading or outright lie on twitter and that is the important news. Growing quite tired of it to be honest but it will only get worse because each week it becomes more dominant. TV journalists aren't bothered about the truth. They are bothered about getting that quick hit that will be tweeted out to mean whatever they want it to mean and no interviewer actually asks questions anymore. They make statements and then if the start of the answer isn't what they want to hear they interrupt and redirect constantly. They are all trying to get that Frost-Nixon moment and we learn absolutely nothing other than the interviewer and the interviewee are as bad as each other. And then the public boil it down to "The party of the rich" nonsense. There really aren't enough rich to keep the party of the rich in power. They may find their balance closer to trade than Labour but welfare policies are a modern reality. Politicians of all sides do what they can to help business and reap the rewards. They have no intention of "listening" and compromise. They want to improve the world in their vision, not collaborate and listen. From all sides it is "my way." Amaxzing how often we hear the talk about listening or learning when the reality is Listening = letting you speak and waiting for you to finish making sure the cameras record it. Learning = Changing things so that you don;t get cornered with this problem again. Even now we have this blurred reporting on the cladding. There are calls from many that the tests are not testing properly. They are testing one constituent part of the cladding to see if it burns. Of course it burns. Experts (yes I know we've had enough of them) have said that tests need to be done in the proper manner of the whole piece of cladding in an in-situ setup. What do we "learn" by taking out the filling from each block and seeing if it burns? Not a lot because we probably knew it would burn before it was tested. Does it do the same in situ? We are in danger here of going the same route as always and taking all this cladding down to appease public fears and then replacing it with something else when in many cases it might not even be necessary. Who wins? You can bet your money the government and local council's "preferred partners" will be rubbing their hands and salivating at all the new contracts coming their way recladding tower blocks.
Greed and corruption. That tends to be fostered by overt capitalism, in the UK especially, so the Thatcherite era argument is perfectly valid, seeing as it started soon after she took PM office.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40574754 An aristocrat who wrote an online post offering £5,000 to anyone who ran over businesswoman Gina Miller has been found guilty of two charges of making malicious communications. Rhodri Colwyn Philipps, 50 - the 4th Viscount St Davids - wrote the message four days after Ms Miller won a Brexit legal challenge against the government. He was found guilty of two counts of making malicious communications and acquitted of a third at Westminster Magistrates' Court. One of the counts related to a post regarding Ms Miller, published on Facebook on 7 November 2016, which said: "£5,000 for the first person to 'accidentally' run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant." Philipps, of Knightsbridge, London, described her as a "boat jumper" and added: "If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles." But Philipps denied the allegation that his posts were "racially aggravated" saying that describing Ms Miller as a "boat jumper" and that she should go back to the "steaming jungle" were "statements of fact not a racist comment at all".
There is more greed and corruption in this enlightened world we now live in than even the Thatcher years. Difference is they don;t need to hide it anymore because it has all been legalised. The version of capitalism we now live in is nothing like the capitalism of the eighties. This is a much more rampant version and is protected from all sides as "globalism."
