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posted by janrinok on Monday May 28 2018, @10:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the there-is-a-price-to-pay dept.

The World Socialist Web Site reports

As the official Grenfell Tower Inquiry opened, Panorama special Grenfell: Who Is To Blame, with reporting by Richard Bilton of the BBC, offers a devastating indictment of the corporate forces responsible for the June 14, 2017 inferno that claimed 72 lives.

Grenfell Tower was covered in flammable cladding and insulation materials that had never been tested together. Bilton's investigation draws out how companies were denying their responsibility for testing, jeopardising the safety of many thousands living in social and privately-owned housing tower blocks.

Bilton accuses manufacturer Celotex of having "knowingly misled buyers" about the safety and testing history of the insulation material. The formula for the Celotex product that received the safety certificate was different and safer than the product used at Grenfell Tower.

[...] Bilton's starting point is the 2014 refurbishment--which covered Grenfell Tower in highly flammable material--as he seeks to identify those responsible. Architect Andrzej Kuszell's design had created the gaps that allowed the fire to spread. Even given the relaxation of building regulations, says Bilton, it was Kuszell's job to make his plans safe and he failed.

Lead construction company Rydon was paid £8.7 million to refurbish Grenfell Tower between 2014 and 2016, winning the contract by undercutting rival bids. Central to this was cutting costs by using cheaper materials. They failed to fill the gaps at the side of the windows, allowing the fire to spread.

Bilton states that it was Rydon's suggestion to swap non-combustible materials for cheaper, flammable, substitutes. Fire expert Arnold Tarling, describing the fire as "totally avoidable", said the company had opted to use a "highly flammable material that is also highly toxic when burned". This was "utterly wicked", he said.

As the building was to use a new combination of cladding and insulation materials, says Bilton, Rydon were legally responsible for conducting safety tests, and "we don't think they did".

[...] The cladding and insulation materials had never been tested together. The makers of both products knew they were being combined at Grenfell Tower, but did not warn of risks.

Panorama tested both the cladding and the insulation. When the cladding gets hot its plastic centre melts and burns, immediately igniting the highly flammable insulation. Bilton sums it up, "The more you look at what was on Grenfell Tower, the more horrifying it becomes."

When the programme showed footage of fire tests being conducted on the insulation material used at Grenfell, Bilton has to explain that this was the actual rate of fire spread: "It's not sped up." Later we see footage of Grenfell shot by firefighters and their shock at the rapid spread of the fire.

Professor Richard Hull, Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science at the University of Central Lancashire, notes that the fire began on the fourth floor and spread up 24 floors in just 15 minutes.

[...] The rate of fire spread was compounded by the toxic smoke released. This contained hydrogen cyanide, which is 20 times more toxic than carbon monoxide.

Previous: Towering Inferno in London; At least 12 Dead, Dozens More to Hospital
UK: All Building Cladding Samples Tested Failed Fire Safety!


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday May 28 2018, @02:35PM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 28 2018, @02:35PM (#685140) Journal

    This is actually a clear case of "free market". The fact is that the corporations were chasing profits by using cheaper (unsuitable) materials (and being untruthful about it). It does not get any more "free market" than that.

    Sarcasm, right? Greed and fraud aren't the definition of free market. They're greed and fraud.

    The involvement of the managing corporation (local government?) has nothing to do with it, they did not ordered flammable materials to be used.

    And they conveniently didn't look to see if flammable materials were used either despite their inspectors supposedly being tasked with doing that sort of thing.

    Also, the question is if the managing corporation even knew what was going on

    Plausible deniability is always a great thing to have.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Monday May 28 2018, @03:59PM (4 children)

    by Whoever (4524) on Monday May 28 2018, @03:59PM (#685178) Journal

    Sarcasm, right? Greed and fraud aren't the definition of free market. They're greed and fraud.

    Could you stick your nose further up big business's ass?

    Of course greed is part of a free market.

    Fraud: that's what you get when you under-fund the "Violently Imposed Monopoly". Fraud is one of the natural outcomes of government having insufficient resources.

    You blame government, but in this case, lies were told about the material.

    In your world, the next time someone runs you down when you were walking across a crosswalk at the correct time, I'll say it was your fault for not getting out of the way of the car quickly enough.

    Just because the inspectors didn't catch the problem does not excuse the lies and misrepresentations that went into installing the flammable material in the first place.

    People died because of greed an fraud. You show yourself to be a callous simpleton with your response to this.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 28 2018, @06:58PM (2 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 28 2018, @06:58PM (#685271) Journal

      But you were supposed to be arguing that greed and fraud were a part of the free market, not that they were bad.

      I agree with everything you say, but..., OK, here goes.

      Greed is a part of human nature, and therefore it's a part of every human institution. So greed is a part of the free market.
      Fraud is what you get when greed leads you to deceive others to increase your profit. In an unregulated market, many will do so, so fraud is also a part of the free market. Admittedly fraud is also a part of regulated markets, but it is decreased in regulated markets by fear of consequences.

      OTOH, one could argue that since there was fear of consequences, though insufficient to deter the actions, that means that this was not a free market. This, however, does not argue that fraud is not a part of the free market, but only that this instance was not a part of the free market.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @10:08PM (#685323)

        Greed is the nature of -some- humans.
        It is NOT the norm.
        Oliver Stone was holding up Gordon Gekko [google.com] as an example of deviant behavior.
        Among humans, sharing, generosity, unselfishness--even altruism--are more common.

        Our species has weak jaws and small teeth, no claws, and we're really slow.
        If it wasn't for operating as a community, we never would have survived.

        The word for what you are describing is parasite.
        A related word that I often use is Reactionary.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:20AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:20AM (#685400) Journal

          Greed is the nature of -some- humans. It is NOT the norm.

          Delusion and hypocrisy are also in the nature of -all- humans. But it remains unseemly to revel in it.

          Oliver Stone was holding up Gordon Gekko [google.com] as an example of deviant behavior.

          Straw men almost invariably exhibit deviant behavior, else there wouldn't be much point to creating them.

          Among humans, sharing, generosity, unselfishness--even altruism--are more common.

          Saying that doesn't make it so. Let us also keep in mind that even Gordon Gekko was a very cooperative human for selfish reasons. Frequency of the behavior is not an indication of its effectiveness or harm.

          Our species has weak jaws and small teeth, no claws, and we're really slow. If it wasn't for operating as a community, we never would have survived.

          And if it weren't for inheritable, noncooperative states of mind, like greed, you wouldn't be here because someone else would have supplanted your ancestors long ago.

          The word for what you are describing is parasite. A related word that I often use is Reactionary.

          Yet another indication you don't really care what words mean. The words are not related by meaning. They're only related because you choose to use them as insults.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:38AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:38AM (#685410) Journal

      You blame government, but in this case, lies were told about the material.

      The government had the resources to verify the claims. In fact, if the Royal Borough had bothered to monitor and inspect this construction rigorously, the contractor probably wouldn't have used the material, much less lied about it. The construction industry, even in non-capitalist countries, is notorious for this stuff and always has been. A key step is to never take the contractor's word for anything material.

      In addition, we have another huge failing which is being neglected here, namely the absence of an evacuation strategy. There was no way to evacuate the building in the advent of a large fire. It had one staircase which would be wholly inadequate for an evacuation and the standing fire plan was for its residents to shelter in place, should a fire occur. That's relatively tolerable, if you don't have fires that can spread to the entire building quicker than fire departments can respond.