Grenfell Towers a Mother's Escape

It was said Grenfell Towers fire began within the first hour after midnight, a fridge on the fourth floor exploded. It was not the fault of the person who owned the fridge though it does depend on the circumstances of this incident. It is the fault of the fire and safety regulations, one comment I heard was the fire had gone from the fourth floor to the 18th floor in eight minutes. Further there was no firealarm system in the building, considering the many millions which had been spent on refurbishment again this is mind boggling. Cosequently cospiracy theories have arrisen the local council of Kensington and Chelsea have been practicing social cleansing. There has to be no doubt such an abhorent thing was happening, though whether it was deliverate is another question, but rather it is a matter of unintended consequences when a local authority begins to attract the wealthy.

There is one story about a mother who escaped Grenfell Towers which is an active expression of how it is necessary to do something. At about 1 a.m. she phoned the police to say her Tower block was on fire, she was worried, the smoke was thick and she feared for the safety of her two sons, both young aabout 10 and 12 years of age. She asked what should she do as her flat was on the twelth floor. The reply was to keep the door closed and stay inside. She took their advice and waited. The fire got worse so she rang the Police again. She asked them if the firebrigade was coming, she said there was fire on her floor she needed firefighters on her floor. Over the next hour and a half she rang them up a total of five times, of which the first four times they advised she stay in her flat, don't move from there it was safest. Then she phoned again and now it was about 2 a.m. the voice on the phone said get out now, if you don't you will die. She was a little taken aback by the urgency of the voice as the Police had not phoned her back to tell her about the change in their advice after all had she known an hour ago it would of been better to have made the attempt then. Perhaps the firebrigade were giving advice to the Police and after a short period of fighting the blaze they recognised nothing could be done. The resident took towels and wet them, she took her boys and went to the front door opening it to thick acrid stinking black smoke. One of her boys said:

"Mummy I don't want to go," her response was,
"If we don't go we will die."

They left their home. There was no description from the mother of how they managed it down the stairs, how that single stairwell was most likely thick with smoke or how she may have passed bodies and firefighters on those stairs. It might of been crowded and awkward to drag her sons out with her. She did it though, she saved her own life and the lives of her sons. The emergency services didn't reach her floor and they failed to phone her back and inform her to get out. It was only her persistent phoning and pestering of the Police she took her own safety into her own hands. Now she says her sons are wary of Police advice, she says they feel like they don't trust them.  It is understandable, in this real incident the organization of the emergency services sounds like it was attrocious. They may have done what they could, but there was a lot they didn't do and I don't understand given they have breathing apparatus why there had not been a group which had climbed those stairs and told all the residents to get out of the tower. Perhaps the fire was an ongoing situation and they continued to take and evaluate information as it came in.

The blame is squarely on the shoulders of Kensington and Chelsea Council. They say all fire safety regulations were met. But as there has been no change to these regulations for at least ten years they were out of date. The tower housed working class and lower class people, the kind of people who are the salt of the earth, the kind who do their best just to make ends meet. Grenfell Tower is in an area full of multiple millionaires, we saw Lilly Allen stating she had never seen an incident where the media were downplaying the number of deaths. At the point of her interview they had 17 confirmed recognised deaths. Lilly said how she had walked up and down the area past firefighters and Police who were saying there will be at least 150 deaths. Why on earth could the media not use such phrases as "expected deaths to reach over 100 persons?" It was as though they were trivialising the extent of this tragedy. At the moment this figure has now gone up to 58.  Additionally the emergency services state it is likely it will take weeks if not months to recover all the bodies and some of them may not be identified. Given the inferno raged for hours some of those bodies turned to complete ash as it had effectively been an incinerator. The building will need to be made safe, the process will be painfully slow. As the days pass more information will come out more stories with sad endings.

The incompetent Teresa May

It seems like Theresa May is being hit by the most unfortunate of circumstances, the kind of events which determine an individual's personality, the kind which are a bare all to the world. So it is. First came the decision to have an election when her poll ratings were stratospheric, not a bad decision some might think however, this led on to the election campaign. During which May was shown to dislike the prospect of a face to face confrontation with the other party leaders, she preferred to say it was the electorate that mattered. Her case would be put to the voters and she would only take questions from the voters. Stating this was a little like dodging a bullet, unsucessfully. This bullet didn't hit her in the head but it did disengage her ear from her head instead. For May's performance on TV was disasterous, she came across as the Maybot, spouting of cliched comments and then there were some embarassing questions to which she physically shrinked in front of the cameras. Where as Corbyn had ascerbic questions and a pan full of flaming fried rice thrown at him, yet he stood his ground particularly on the issue of not wanting to kill millions of people with nuclear weapons. May however wouldn't mind pressing the button providing she also allowed her fellow wealthy people to get in a last fox hunt before the end of the world.

So that counts two events, calling an election and then barely turning up for the campaign. A third bite of this pretty vingery cake was when May decided to get in bed with the Democratic Unionist Party. Who could be termed as a strong if not far right wing faction of the Tories, a party which has endorsements from the such like as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Red Hand Commandos and the Ulster Defence Force. Lets also not forget to mention the DUP are creationists believing creationism should be taught in schools, abortion made illegal, there should be no such
thing as same sex marriage, capital punishment is acceptable, perhaps they'd use capital punishment against the LBGT community if it was considered an appropriate method of making them normal heterosexual again and so have become kingmakers for May. In an obvious quirk of fate where the media had previously chastised Corbyn of perceived terrorist sympathies we now have an actual prime minister who is actually supported by a part of right wing terrorists if not interlectually challenged. Further the agreement with the DUP is not a carte blanche support for every policy May's government will put forward, but rather a selective when they coincidentally agree with the Tories. So May's government have to ensure their policies are right wing enough to get that additional support only an extremist would consider reasonable. Of course by siding with the DUP May has now successfully thrown into the air a question of whether the Good Friday agreement will continue unharmed, for if the IRA start counting their bullets we are all in the shit.

And lets throw a fourth and highly sensitive event she has face planted her poor version of humanity, i.e. the towering inferno of death Glenfell Towers, where at least 30 people have died and with the actual numbers likely to exceed 100 and more. At Glenfell when May visited she did not talk to a single survivor for imagine if she had, the tabloids would of gotten her in an extremely embarressing situation because relatives would of wanted answers and compassion. May spoke to the fire services but could show no humanity to the survivors or residents of this area. When May left a church in the area, she ran out of a side door to shouts of "May's a coward." There is no compassion in May, not for poor or working class people, she comes from the same cloth as many Tories. The one which arrogantly has written through it, "I am better than you." So it is, May has thumped a nail in her own coffin the likes of which can not be removed. The other nails she put in varied from small to medium, the Glenfell Towers one is a big rusty nail and she has not only smashed it in the lid she cut her fingers on it and is now being poisoned. Probably not fast enough for the likes of many.

So after one very arrogant Cameron we now have an equally arrogant and disasterous May, Cameron was the worst PM for the working and poor classes but May has now outstripped him. When will she go? When will this woman be thrown out with the very dirty bath water?

May can't hear the death bells toll

It is an inevitable fact of life, you pays taxes, deal with change and have to die at some time. Hopefully later than sooner, but it doesn't matter because we'll all be eating daisies and those who have gone before us will shortly be met by the living. So it is with Teresa May, she will not be able to survive the next few months, she has now put her lot in with an extreme right wing party in order to stay in power. Her slogan phrase of safe and secure has now bought the most dangerous unstable government ever.  It is a disastrous result for the country.

May's controlling personality has popped out on the public arena like a topless titillating picture of a beautiful 22 year old smiling to horny young men. She was so narrow minded as not to even include her own cabinet on how to compile a manifesto and keep them clued up as to what is happening, the Tories or rather May produced the worst manifesto ever. This was quantified by of all people George Osborne not some raging lefty tea cosy wearing CND supporter. But maybe the worst part of her personality is the inability to actually understand she should step down and pass the buck to another candidate, and there is only one person for the job who also is a woman and who also very nearly lost her own seat, Amber Rudd. Perhaps Rudd would actually talk to her own colleagues. May is a woman who says one thing and then does another, her mind is as weak and changeable as play-doh. First she is not going to hold an election then while out on a walk she changes her mind and does hold one. Of course the hubris came about because at the time she decided the Tories had a 20 point public opinion lead. Except a mere four weeks later the incompetent looking chemistry teacher Corbyn had actually reduced it to such an level were there given perhaps one more week of campaigning he would of done it. Maybe it didn't help there had been terrorist attacks so it was temporarily suspended. There can be no doubt on the subject, this election was called only for the benefit of May not for anyone else. So it is the Tories have lost a number of their very own MPs and have made a pact with the devil DUP. A devil who will ensure every drop of support they give is paid for by May a hundred fold in the concessions she will have to give back.

Come to think of it Ireland may become the ultimate wobbly football in May's new chaotic coalition of support. For the peace accord between loyalists and Sinn Fein and rule of Ireland shows the very first microscopic fracture. The bowl may well be able to hold soup and keep everything together but in the back of the minds of every British person who remembers the days of old and IRA terrorism a chink of concern raises it's head. Were this government to impose a further peace arrangement they would now be a bias party. We shake our head and hope so desperately the IRA are not renewing talks with their fellow extremists and hope they to have got to like peace and relative freedom. And all for the sake of a 61 year old self centred woman, a woman who should not be allowed to hold any power, not even allowed to switch the dishwasher on because we all know she's the type who would throw your clothes in there as well.

At this time even atheists cry out, god fecking help us.