[Aileen]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/05/police-failure-protect-bijan-ebrahimi-murder-ipcc

Such a shocking and sad case. Institutional racism alive and well in Somerset and Avon police force.

I don't think they're alone unfortunately.

What a touching story re Jermaine Defoe and wee Bradley Lowery.  Puts everything into perspective. 

It does and restores my faith in human nature too.

[boogers]

Getting back to the Grenfell fire, apart from the disgraceful way various governments have treated firefighters which was tragically exposed on Newsnight, and by a former senior fire officer as well - lack of proper equipment, breakdowns in communications, cutbacks in numbers ... the list goes on, including the fact that firemen have never had any training in dealing with a fire like this, presumably because nobody 'in authority' thought that it would ever happen, despite being repeatedly warned by firemen themselves, I came across this article, which is an advert really -

Hm. Did you actually watch it? There's a summary on the BBC news website. There were a number of failings, but none of the seem directly related to government funding.

On numbers, the number of fires have halved since the early nineties, primarily due to safety legislation. Given that, it seems reasonable that we employe fewer firefighters.

So it's OK to provide a luxurious monstrosity like that (and one which I understand very few people, even the filthy rich, want to live in, leaving many of the flats unsold) with the best fire protection around, but not to ensure that tower blocks inhabited by the plebs are equally well protected by using good quality fire-resistant materials?

Building regulations are designed to do just that. Given that all of the cladding samples have failed, there's likely something wrong with the regulations. It's also worth noting that "luxury" properties are covered in the same cladding.

[boogers]

Is anything I've said wrong? Or are you just doing that silly class-war thing again?

[boogers]

If you read the article this building is protected by cables, not cladding.

What do you mean by "protected"? The cables don't protect the whole building from fire, but are simply low flammability so an electrical fire won't spread as quickly. All modern buildings over a certain size contain similar cables.

Given that the fire in London wasn't caused by a fire in the wiring (it was caused by a fridge catching fire), and spread because of cladding, I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be?

[blueberryhill]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/big-tobacco-dirty-war-africa-market        Shocking and shameful but not surprising.

[laundry]

Absolutely despicable, should be considered up there with murder and rape imo. Imagine the pain and emotional torment that could be distilled in victims for the rest of their lives if their face was disfigured or even worse if they were blinded. Along with that most will also suffer with anxiety and agrophobia for the rest of their lives as well.

[Aileen]

Absolutely despicable, should be considered up there with murder and rape imo. Imagine the pain and emotional torment that could be distilled in victims for the rest of their lives if their face was disfigured or even worse if they were blinded. Along with that most will also suffer with anxiety and agrophobia for the rest of their lives as well.

Police say one victim had life-changing injuries, which suggests he could have been blinded.  The whole thing doesn't bear thinking about really particularly as the offenders are just a couple of kids.  God only knows what made them do something as vicious as that.  I don't care what their age is anyway, because people who do this sort of thing should be put behind bars for a very long time for destroying the lives of others.