Mogg

I apologise if I’m wrong, I thought she was.

annie isn’t a Labour Party member, are you annie?

Please will you all leave Annie alone and concentrate on proper discussion.
Annie isn’t right wing, she’s a Labour Party member, but in case you’ve forgotten Yehbutnobut, people are actually allowed to hold right wing views, and left wing, and centre of right or left. It’s called democracy.

Anniebach You brought up Aberfan because you wanted to make a comment on Dany Cotton's pension.

So

I’m sure you think do.

How silly, not trusting Corbyn doesn’t make one right wing

From what I’ve read on other threads, yes. Clearly.

My right wing views ? ?

* Rees Mogg is being reviled by some on this thread for his comments.*

and quite rightly! Harking back to the dreadful tragedy that was Aberfan and using it to support your right-wing views is distasteful.

Rees Mogg is being reviled by some on this thread for his comments.

grandad43 has said on this thread the people of Aberfan could be partly to blame for the deaths in that disaster , this is acceptable?

I only brought up the disaster because like Grenfell there were
warnings.

JRM made an unthinking comment. I’m sorry but are you all telling me that you’ve never said anything without thinking and then regretting it?

JRM tends to make numerous unthinking comments, all of which appear to be designed to demonstrate his superiority of thought. Of course I've said things I've regretted, but I'm not in a public office with years of media and PR training and experience. I also don't hold the view that it's common sense to ignore the guidance from the experts - and given the nature of the interview I'd expect someone in his position to choose his words very carefully, something which he seems to manage just fine when he's sneering at the opposition.

Petra and Ooopsminty, caring posts.

There is a very interesting article about the Grenfell disaster in The Spectator this week.

The author points out that while the direct cause of the Grenfell tragedy was the problems with the cladding and evacuating procedures. Behind that lay systemic failures in the Building Regulations that enabled builders and specifiers to use those materials, which, I would remind you, have been used on expensive private flatdevelopments as well as public ownership blocks, with no guidance from Building Regulations at all.

He quotes detailed regulations about the proper height for a doorbell, as distinct from fridge or cooker points, but in the 2 volumes on fire regulations, all it says about evacuating people is simultaneous evacuation of flats is unlikely to be necessary because of compartementalisation and on the thermoplastic materials used in the cladding it simply says ^ No guidance for European fire tests performance is currently available

The question must be asked if the Building Regulations, which run to thousands of pages can stipulate in minute detail where you put lights switches and door bells, why were they so offhand and unthinking when dealing with evacuation procedures and how could they be allowed to dismiss giving instructions for the use of materials now found to be so fire prone, because there weren't any regulations available. Why on earth didn't they commission some.

Anyone who as ever had an erxtension built will know how pettifogging Buildings Inspectors can be over minute action.

It is a case of Parkinson's Law in action. A committee will spend all afternoon arguing over where to site the bicycle shed and pass the new polluting plant on the nod (in the original book it is the nuclear reactor, but times have changed).

People will argue forever about what they know and pass the item they do not understand on the nod because no-one wants to admit their ignorance. This is what has happened with the building regulations and this is the root cause of the Grenfell disaster.

I didn’t come back on here last night, it was getting too acrimonious. I’ve just had a quick look this morning.

Grenfell was a terrible disaster, we are all agreed. JRM made an unthinking comment. I’m sorry but are you all telling me that you’ve never said anything without thinking and then regretting it? Despite what some would have us believe, JRM is a human being just like the rest of us. And he has good and bad points and character just like the rest of us.

Thank you Annie for your comment about Grandad. I just wondered what his actual qualifications are. Still not sure.

Gonegirl and Doodle wrote caring posts about Annie. Others not so.

Annie lived through the Aberfan disaster. She is bound to remember. I remember and I was only a child. When disasters such as Grenfell and Aberfan occur, of course people remember and want to know what happened, and that it can never happen again.

Thank you Grandad. The person whose talk I went to see years ago was called Barry Turner, who apparently wrote a book called "The Failure of Foresight". Local people did know about the dangers. One person even realised on the morning of the disaster that something was going to happen and told his supervisor, who decided it wasn't urgent. It was a reflection of a lack of responsibility for health and safety. Poor communication was also mentioned. Apparently two people with senior jobs didn't talk to each other because they had a personal dislike for each other. One of the messages was that loads of small clues weren't considered as a whole. The Summerland fire tragedy was also mentioned.

With Grenfell, the same excuses couldn't be made because we now have much tighter regulations, but it seems they weren't followed.

Hopefully, the report will not only give the survivors and relatives of those killed some small sense of closure, but also be a lesson that "red tape" isn't just a paper exercise to keep auditors and the rest happy.

Anyway, back to Rees-Mogg and Andrew Bridgen and their tactless comments ...

anniebach, Growstuff is correct in stating that at the time of the Aberfan disaster persons employed at the mine had shown concern at regard to the tipping of the mine spoil on that hillside. Growstuff is also correct in stating that at that time there was no legislative structure in place that ensured that such concerns had to be investigated at any level of management either local or national.

However, with the introduction of the Health & Safety & Work Act in 1974 that legislation ensured that such concerns must be fully investigated by management. In such cases as where no incident has yet occurred (by example, Aberfan prior to the disaster), a full risk assessment must be carried out by competent and trained persons and if the lower numerical parameters of that assessment are not met then risk reduction measures must be implemented or the operation or planned operation cease.

Therefore anniebach, as stated Growstuff is perfectly correct in what was stated in his/her above posts.

In regard to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, it may well be that changes to the legislation in regard to the safety certification of products used in the Building industry (manufacturers self-certification) may have made the risk assessments carried out for the cladding of the building not worth the paper they were written on.

However, the above is prejudging the outcome of the second stage of the inquiry, but evidence presented to the inquiry so far would seem to point in the direction of the above.

I don't know but certainly negligence and bad practice was involved in at least some of them. In the Summerland fire there was an issue of highly flammable materials used.

The warnings in both cases should have been heeded, I think that goes without saying. Grenfell is recent, is being investigated now and the findings will have great relevance to the many hundreds of thousands of people living in high rise flats.

Where there warnings of dangers before the disasters you list
Eleothan ?

Just saying "with respect" before a comment doesn't make it respectful.

There have been dozens of major disasters since the 60's including the Isle of Man Summerland fire (1973), Bradford City stadium fire (1985), Hillsborough (1989), Paddington train crash (1999), Ibrox football stadium crush (1971), King's Cross fire (1987), and many more, including several colliery disasters - all involving large numbers of fatalities and serious injuries. I expect many people, who are old enough to remember these tragedies, now have no clear recollection - or no recollection at all - of them.

Perhaps you'd like to provide links for all of them Oopsminty - or is there some sort of hierarchy of tragedy?

We were actually talking about Grenfell.

growstuff with respect you are speaking nonsense

With regard to Aberfan, there had been many complaints about the slag heaps. Letters written and all ignored.

This article explains all

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-150d11df-c541-44a9-9332-560a19828c47

To suggest that people should forget is crass.

Also the very popular show, The Crown, has an entire episode about the tragedy.

It should never be forgotten and now a new generation will learn of the horror

www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/the-crown-aberfan-episode-review-17204343

OK I tried, I'm out.

Anniebach Some locals did have knowledge that the tips were slipping. From memory, it was something to do with water seeping into them. Those people might not have had family and friends directly affected, but they did know about the dangers and some of them said nothing because the procedures weren't in place. That (I believe) is the point Grandad is making. Regular statutory inspections with a crystal clear reporting system could (and probably would) have prevented the disaster. As it was, the people with direct knowledge didn't feel empowered to report their concerns.

Lessons should have been learnt about the reporting of concerns. It's not the first time people have said after the event "Well, we knew it was dangerous" (or something similar). Hopefully, the second report into the Grenfell Tower will investigate how much people knew and whether they acted. I'm not going to speculate.

Meanwhile, back to Rees-Mogg. I can only assume that he positively makes an effort to appear as someone superior, who has no reason to care anything at all about his "inferiors". I don't believe he's stupid and he must know the impression he gives. If he cared about it, he would be careful about what he says. The fact that he isn't speaks volumes … IMO.

grapefruitpip
When someone has been personally involved in such an awful tragedy such as Aberfan it's their tragedy and by that very fact it's their right to talk/ write about it for as long as they wish.

Nobody but nobody has the right to tell them to let go and move on