Quote of the day 26th December 2017)

"Modern demagogic movements have proven themselves exceptionally adept at transforming informed frustration at errors of omission into a paranoid belief in deliberate suppression."

 (Nick Cohen, from a Spectator article, "Charlatans succeed by pretending the media always lies.")

Comments

Anonymous said…
Charlatans succeed by pretending they comply with the regulations. Grenfell Tower is a fine example of that.
6:14 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Nick Cohen was talking about one particular type of charlatan, and he was right.

There are two inquiries into what happened at Grenfell Towers, a judicial inquiry chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, which has its' official website at

https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/

And there is also a police investigation into whether anyone did anything criminal which contributed to the fire or to the deaths of the victims, and I understand Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick told the London Assembly that about 200 detectives are working on the investigation, with 400 having been involved at its peak, and specialists from as far away as New York had been consulted.

I would hope that most organisations responsible for large buildings which could conceivably have been affected by any of the issues which may have been a factor in Grenfell Tower will have already checked - we did get a report at Cumbria County Council saying that is being done.

Beyond that I think it is best to keep an open mind on what caused and contributed to Grenfell Tower disaster until those inquiries report.
9:23 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more