@Ghost1951 You said "PCSOs who stood and watched two children in a pond a few feet deep drowning, while OAP fishermen waded in and fished out one of them. The other drowned." The is a LIE. It's not what happened at all. Why do you find it impossible to admit that this is an untruth?
Battery Fires
- Thread starter saneagle
- Start date
Because it isn't.
PCSO's just `stood by'
THE PARENTS of tragic schoolboy Jordon Lyon are demanding to know why two community police officers watched as their son drowned. Brave Jordon, 10, got into difficulties in a pond after rescuing his eight-year-old step-sister Bethany from the water.
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
There is something missing in your brain.
In one piece I read about this, even a senior policeman said the PCSOs were not trained to enter water and should not have done.
I note that once again you fail to engage with my wider point about the Arianna Grande concert bombing, after which emergency workers - specifically a long serving fireman, said he felt ashamed that he and his colleagues had been kept at a location three miles away for a long period - I think about an hour - when they were much needed for evacuating the very wounded children. They were kept there because a senior officer thought it might be dangerous for them to enter the arena. The rest of the emergency services - excepting a small number - I think 3 British Transport Police and one paramedic were frantically trying to deal with the carnage along with lightly wounded bomb victims, while the majority of the police and ambulance workers were corralled elsewhere while senior managers faffed about with acronyms and protocols dealing with management speak.
Manchester Arena attack: Firefighters 'felt shame' at being held back
A crying paramedic asked why crews were not helping at the scene of the bombing, an inquiry hears.
www.bbc.co.uk
What was needed?
Courageous, skilled people like the four that got stuck in, but in very much larger numbers. They should have been got there fast.
Children - bled to death while those we have a right to expect rapid action from, were kept elsewhere by faffing - safety obsessed buffoons. The firemen later turned their backs on a senior officer who had held them back until 2 hours after the explosion.
Read the government report - I dare you. But before you do, you'd better get some of those special glasses that Joseph Smith the inventor of Mormonism used to decode the golden plates he claimed to have been given. In this case you need the ones to decode impenetrable acronyms. The whole report is peppered with nonsensical acronyms and complex police speak which explains EXACTLY why hardly any help arrived there until at least half an hour after the explosion. The only help in that arena came from some transport policeman and a paramedic who heard the explosion and rushed to help. Pretty much everybody who was directed by the command structures of our public services was kept well away by safety and protocol obsessed management.
Manchester Arena Inquiry Volume 2: Emergency Response
Volume 2 of the report of the public inquiry into the attack on the Manchester Arena.
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The repair order held by the shop owner had Hunter Biden's signature on it.
Everything about the laptop has been verified in a US Congressional hearing, where HB was personally questioned. He admitted everything except that his father was involved in his business, even though verified emails seemed to indicate otherwise. You're living in some sort of denial, mate.
I'm not interested in any of your wider points because you are dishonest. Why can't you be honest enough to admit that what you wrote is untrue?Because it isn't.
PCSO's just `stood by'
THE PARENTS of tragic schoolboy Jordon Lyon are demanding to know why two community police officers watched as their son drowned. Brave Jordon, 10, got into difficulties in a pond after rescuing his eight-year-old step-sister Bethany from the water.
There is something missing in your brain.
In one piece I read about this, even a senior policeman said the PCSOs were not trained to enter water and should not have done.
I note that once again you fail to engage with my wider point about the Arianna Grande concert bombing, after which emergency workers - specifically a long serving fireman, said he felt ashamed that he and his colleagues had been kept at a location three miles away for a long period - I think about an hour - when they were much needed for evacuating the very wounded children. They were kept there because a senior officer thought it might be dangerous for them to enter the arena. The rest of the emergency services - excepting a small number - I think 3 British Transport Police and one paramedic were frantically trying to deal with the carnage along with lightly wounded bomb victims, while the majority of the police and ambulance workers were corralled elsewhere while senior managers faffed about with acronyms and protocols dealing with management speak.
Manchester Arena attack: Firefighters 'felt shame' at being held back
A crying paramedic asked why crews were not helping at the scene of the bombing, an inquiry hears.www.bbc.co.uk
What was needed?
Courageous, skilled people like the four that got stuck in, but in very much larger numbers. They should have been got there fast.
Children - bled to death while those we have a right to expect rapid action from, were kept elsewhere by faffing - safety obsessed buffoons. The firemen later turned their backs on a senior officer who had held them back until 2 hours after the explosion.
Read the government report - I dare you. But before you do, you'd better get some of those special glasses that Joseph Smith the inventor of Mormonism used to decode the golden plates he claimed to have been given. In this case you need the ones to decode impenetrable acronyms. The whole report is peppered with nonsensical acronyms and complex police speak which explains EXACTLY why hardly any help arrived there until at least half an hour after the explosion. The only help in that arena came from some transport policeman and a paramedic who heard the explosion and rushed to help. Pretty much everybody who was directed by the command structures of our public services was kept well away by safety and protocol obsessed management.
Manchester Arena Inquiry Volume 2: Emergency Response
Volume 2 of the report of the public inquiry into the attack on the Manchester Arena.www.gov.uk
This is untrue & you should admit that it's untrue "PCSOs who stood and watched two children in a pond a few feet deep drowning, while OAP fishermen waded in and fished out one of them. The other drowned."
The laptop story started when Trump was the president. If they had enough material, they would have charged HB and/or his father for corruption a long time ago. 4 years later, all they found was just a couple of emails from 120,000 and even those two were not smoking guns. For all his crooked deals, HB earned peanuts in comparison to what Trump's son in law made in and out of his job at the white house when Trump was president. Trump promised to empty the DC swamp, he became the swamp. Just wait for the debate on September 10.
Old man Biden was probably already senile and unfit for office at this time. He can't be blamed. He should have been in a care home already. Still - at least he wasn't Donald Trump who was about then boasting about how he liked to grab women's private parts - and all of that is on tape - and you and I have both heard it.The repair order held by the shop owner had Hunter Biden's signature on it.
Everything about the laptop has been verified in a US Congressional hearing, where HB was personally questioned. He admitted everything except that his father was involved in his business, even though verified emails seemed to indicate otherwise. You're living in some sort of denial, mate.
What a mess that country is in and has been in for too long.
I would really recommend the Kate Lamble (from More or Less) radio series "Grenfell: Building a Disaster" after reporting on the inquiry for 6 years
BBC Sounds - Grenfell: Building a Disaster - Available Episodes
Listen to the latest episodes of Grenfell: Building a Disaster on BBC Sounds.
www.bbc.co.uk
"This was a fire that was both foreseeable and preventable.”
“This is a story of corporate deceit, government deregulation and a construction industry engaged in a race to the bottom. It’s a story of missed opportunities, unheeded warnings and the failure of a state to protect its citizens.”
and also the Peter Apps book
It reminded me of another book around capitalism and (lack of) government regulation
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I completely agree that the fire at Grenfell Tower was the result of corporate deceit. The email trail from the manufacturers of the cladding makes it completely clear that the people who were producing and selling the cladding knew full well that it was a fire hazard and that they kept quiet about it, at the same time discussing how badly it would effect their sales if what they knew, became public.I would really recommend the Kate Lamble (from More or Less) radio series "Grenfell: Building a Disaster" after reporting on the inquiry for 6 years
BBC Sounds - Grenfell: Building a Disaster - Available Episodes
Listen to the latest episodes of Grenfell: Building a Disaster on BBC Sounds.
"This was a fire that was both foreseeable and preventable.”
“This is a story of corporate deceit, government deregulation and a construction industry engaged in a race to the bottom. It’s a story of missed opportunities, unheeded warnings and the failure of a state to protect its citizens.”
and also the Peter Apps book
But the manufacturers were not the only ones who knew and kept the problem secret from ministers and the public.
The Building Research Executive were the body responsible for testing and certifying building materials and construction methods which apply to them.
The BRE had been originally set up as a government funded enterprise in the 1920s to do scientific testing of materials and methods of application. It was privatised in 1997, but its remit was the scientific testing and certification of materials and methods of construction and it was contracted by government to perform scientific tests on materials and to certify them if applicable.
This is not a specifically government led disaster. Building regulations depend on expert knowledge and BRE were the contracted experts.
BRE conducted tests on the Arconix type material in 2001. The fire tests failed badly, but the BRE lab did not communicate to government that there were safety / fire related problems.
Worse still, prior to a 2017 meeting, after the Grenfell fire, a civil servant, Brian Martin, responsible for building regulations and safety, not only did not tell ministers what he knew about the fire risk, he emailed people at the BRE to try and shut down concern over an article that had been published in the Times about the known fire risk of the type of material allowed by building regulations.
With such duplicitous and corrupt practice among the civil engineering testing facility, and in the civil service, how can this be a 'Thatcher problem' or a 'deregulation' one. There were 'regulations'. They are strictly observed. You can't get a building certified unless the work meets the regulations. The problem lay in that the regulating body for materials - the BRE KNEW there was a fire risk and they failed to act on what they knew.
Evidence for the above:
BRE manager did not tell government about failed cladding tests in aftermath of Grenfell fire
A trusted source of up-to-date news for social housing professionals – the only place to get comprehensive coverage of all the big topics.
That Peter Apps article is excellent - that's one piece of evidence from a 6 year public enquiry - I would really recommend reading his book to understand the whole thing - there were numerous opportunities to prevent what happened. You rightly highlight the manufacturers of the cladding, but you also need to consider the insulation manufacturers Kingspan and Celotex and how they operated which has been reported on in great length - there is a pattern of behaviour here.
I'll try and answer your questions but there are a lot of interlocking pieces.
Heseltine (under the Thatcher government) started the changes to building regs (but this was continued by succesive governments). Prescriptive rules were replaced by “performance-based” non mandatory guidance. Builders could “self-certify” they were meeting regulations rather than a government or council inspector.
The Building Research Establishment was privatised (as you mentioned) and the manufacturers would pay it to test their products - the manufacturers were the BRE's customers.
Compare the England and Wales "Fire Regs" system with the much stricter Scottish system
Brian Martin was under intense pressure from his political masters and the "deregulation agenda" and his department headcount was progressively cut
www.bdonline.co.uk
Martin had agreed in 2014 to add a ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQ) document to fire safety guidance clarifying that ACM and other combustible materials should not be used in cladding systems above 18m.
The FAQ was never published, and ACM was only explicitly banned by the government in December 2018, a year and a half after the Grenfell fire.
Asked if the FAQ would have needed ministerial approval, Martin said: “Absolutely… It’s a document published by the department. Anything like that is politically cleared.”
I'll try and answer your questions but there are a lot of interlocking pieces.
Heseltine (under the Thatcher government) started the changes to building regs (but this was continued by succesive governments). Prescriptive rules were replaced by “performance-based” non mandatory guidance. Builders could “self-certify” they were meeting regulations rather than a government or council inspector.
The Building Research Establishment was privatised (as you mentioned) and the manufacturers would pay it to test their products - the manufacturers were the BRE's customers.
Compare the England and Wales "Fire Regs" system with the much stricter Scottish system
Brian Martin was under intense pressure from his political masters and the "deregulation agenda" and his department headcount was progressively cut
Grenfell Inquiry: senior civil servant ‘struggles to understand’ why he did not take action on ACM
Brian Martin admits he missed opportunities to prevent major cladding fire
www.bdonline.co.uk
Martin had agreed in 2014 to add a ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQ) document to fire safety guidance clarifying that ACM and other combustible materials should not be used in cladding systems above 18m.
The FAQ was never published, and ACM was only explicitly banned by the government in December 2018, a year and a half after the Grenfell fire.
Asked if the FAQ would have needed ministerial approval, Martin said: “Absolutely… It’s a document published by the department. Anything like that is politically cleared.”
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It is quite monstrous the way manufacturers continued to hawk a dangerous product, and that the Building Research Establishment began to regard the manufacturers of products as a revenue stream they had to pander too.
We are the customers of our MOT Testing stations, but I can't imagine they would pass a defective car on the basis that the customer pays them. There ought never to have been any such attitude as we see here in the BRE, and certainly not in the Civil Service responsible for writing the Building Regulations. When companies come to government authorised bodies to test products of all kinds, they pay for the test, but we expect those authorised bodies to operate to the proper standards and not hide defects because they have become too close to the manufacturers.
I am not at all of the view that government having privatised the testing process caused the corruption of the process. That is just too simplistic. After all, and I know this well from by origins, Dan Smith - the chief executive of Newcastle city council, - Labour and fully in the public sector, was taking bribes, from Poulson the architect, in the 1960s. That kind of public sector corruption has not ONLY been seen in that council.
I also ask - why was it that Martin the civil servant, seems in an email, to have attempted to shut down, or at least discredit the Times article, which pointed out that the dangers of this metalised plastic cladding had been known for at least 15 years? It is as if he wanted to hide the uselessness of his own department, in its response to fire safety of authorised materials - he was of course responsible for building regulations.
The fact that BRE knew, and that Arconix and the other makers knew, does not mean that government ministers of ANY party knew. These vested interests conspired to keep their knowledge away from prying eyes.
This was a massive failure at all turns. We did not only have a Conservative government during the period concerned. We had 13 years of Labour government over the affected period. I only wanted to redress the idea that this was a 'Conservative' problem ONLY - and I am not implying that Labour were any more at fault than the Conservatives were. Highly rewarded people in civil service departments are tasked with finding and employing expertise and advising ministers. I do not believe that ANY ministers of either major party were informed that this cladding, allowed by building regulations, was a fire hazard.
Considering the trouble even a domestic extension will have from building standards people, if it does not in every way meet the regulations, it is astonishing that buildings all over the country have been constructed with a fire hazard product. I also wonder how many of our ordinary homes have had flammable insulation built into them during renovations and extensions. You can still buy panels of what look like polystyrene /metalised insulation for retrofitting and building work. I bet that is combustible and will give off toxic smoke.
We are the customers of our MOT Testing stations, but I can't imagine they would pass a defective car on the basis that the customer pays them. There ought never to have been any such attitude as we see here in the BRE, and certainly not in the Civil Service responsible for writing the Building Regulations. When companies come to government authorised bodies to test products of all kinds, they pay for the test, but we expect those authorised bodies to operate to the proper standards and not hide defects because they have become too close to the manufacturers.
I am not at all of the view that government having privatised the testing process caused the corruption of the process. That is just too simplistic. After all, and I know this well from by origins, Dan Smith - the chief executive of Newcastle city council, - Labour and fully in the public sector, was taking bribes, from Poulson the architect, in the 1960s. That kind of public sector corruption has not ONLY been seen in that council.
I also ask - why was it that Martin the civil servant, seems in an email, to have attempted to shut down, or at least discredit the Times article, which pointed out that the dangers of this metalised plastic cladding had been known for at least 15 years? It is as if he wanted to hide the uselessness of his own department, in its response to fire safety of authorised materials - he was of course responsible for building regulations.
The fact that BRE knew, and that Arconix and the other makers knew, does not mean that government ministers of ANY party knew. These vested interests conspired to keep their knowledge away from prying eyes.
This was a massive failure at all turns. We did not only have a Conservative government during the period concerned. We had 13 years of Labour government over the affected period. I only wanted to redress the idea that this was a 'Conservative' problem ONLY - and I am not implying that Labour were any more at fault than the Conservatives were. Highly rewarded people in civil service departments are tasked with finding and employing expertise and advising ministers. I do not believe that ANY ministers of either major party were informed that this cladding, allowed by building regulations, was a fire hazard.
Considering the trouble even a domestic extension will have from building standards people, if it does not in every way meet the regulations, it is astonishing that buildings all over the country have been constructed with a fire hazard product. I also wonder how many of our ordinary homes have had flammable insulation built into them during renovations and extensions. You can still buy panels of what look like polystyrene /metalised insulation for retrofitting and building work. I bet that is combustible and will give off toxic smoke.
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Bit more on Martin (who has no relevant fire safety or engineering qualifications) from the inquiry reporting
www.insidehousing.co.uk
Official told safety campaigner to ‘show me the bodies’ when warned of tower block fire disaster, inquiry hears
A trusted source of up-to-date news for social housing professionals – the only place to get comprehensive coverage of all the big topics.
If I remember correctly, we discussed this subject a few years back. The product specifications were clear enough. Those panels should not have been used on building taller than (9m?). The builders, architects, building inspectors, insurance companies etc all missed to read properly.
It is quite amazing how badly everyone was let down by this fellow.Bit more on Martin (who has no relevant fire safety or engineering qualifications) from the inquiry reporting
Official told safety campaigner to ‘show me the bodies’ when warned of tower block fire disaster, inquiry hears
A trusted source of up-to-date news for social housing professionals – the only place to get comprehensive coverage of all the big topics.
This passage was particularly astonishing:
"
Mr Martin has no formal fire safety or engineering qualifications. His qualifications amounted to a diploma in building control surveying obtained around 25 years ago.
He had trained as a joiner and carpenter after leaving school, before rising to site manager. Asked if this gave him any fire safety experience, he said: “I would have installed some fire doors.”
Aged 22, he became a building control surveyor, working first for Westminster, Tower Hamlets and Dartford councils, and did review fire strategies for some complex projects, including the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
In 1999, he applied for a job at the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the former national testing centre which had recently been privatised. The BRE had a contract to support the government with a review of Approved Document B and within weeks of starting, Mr Martin was seconded to the department’s offices for two to three days a week to support this work.
Mr Martin would go on to take a permanent role at the department in 2008 as ‘principal construction professional’. This saw him take on primary responsibility for Approved Document B. The inquiry has already heard about many critical warnings regarding the looming danger of a cladding fire which were issued to him in this role.
In November 2017, five months after the Grenfell fire, he was promoted to head of technical policy, leading the team of specialists who oversaw changes to building regulations and guidance."
The last sentence is bizarre.
I don't understand why highly flammable material is allowed to be plastered over any kind of building.
As I understand it - fallible memory maybe - but wasn't Grenfell Tower retrofitted with the cladding and insulation?
Those kinds of buildings were originally designed to isolate fires to particular flats. Their construction is predominantly concrete boxes without flammable materials outside the individual units. As designed the building would have isolated fire to one flat. Outside that flat, even if the door was breached, there was nothing to burn.
It was the retrofitting of plastic windows (originally these kinds of buildings had metal frames and glass not plastic) and then attaching insulation bearing frames with highly combustible cladding, which allowed the fire to spread outside in a structure which was like a chimney, between the original exterior wall and the cladding. This caused the fire to penetrate other flats as the windows were set on fire and breached into the other units.
Yeah - looks really fire retardant.
The tests showed that it failed fire safety requirements.
As I recall, these were missing, or totally ineffective.
The proof of the pudding is in the fact that the whole tower caught fire from a small beginning and in a very short time, a previously fire safe structure became a blazing inferno from top to bottom.
This disaster occurred solely because it was plastered with what amounted to firelighter panels and plastic window frames. The danger of that cladding had been well known to the manufacturers since 2001, and was known by the building standards testing body which was employed by the UK government, though they did not report the problem to government. Their own tests showed it was dangerous.
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