Is Corbyn right about "requisitioning" property from the rich?

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that is hard to predict with specificity, but is certain to happen once among every few thousand flats/apartments. An electric appliance shorts out; a pet knocks a candle over; a still-smoldering cigarette gets thrown into a trash can full of paper. Urban fire departments probably get those calls weekly, if not daily.

Last December, there was a "10 alarm" fire not far from me in a close-built, residential section of the city. It was the sort of fire that, in previous centuries, would have burned down half the city, but today was contained in part by fire-resistant siding on neighboring houses.

 

[Synobun]

I realize that the poor construction wasn't the direct cause for the fire itself, but poor construction exacerbated the severity greatly. A building with truly modern standards shouldn't have been engulfed to that extent. You can't eliminate fires entirely but you can certainly minimize risk factor.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I realize that the poor construction wasn't the direct cause for the fire itself, but poor construction exacerbated the severity greatly. A building with truly modern standards shouldn't have been engulfed to that extent. You can't eliminate fires entirely but you can certainly minimize risk factor.

Exactly. Small fires are almost a guarantee. I forgot to mention, the 10-alarm fire pictured above was started when someone threw a full ashtray into a dumpster full of construction material.

 

[Hrothbern]

containing a fire is pretty much key
And insurance companies are well aware of that
In insurance to business, they do inspections as well, including inspections on the lower lines of defense
and if you have deviations they report including a timed to-do list

And I know that if the money involved is not convenient at that time for the company they seek the negotiation limit of postpone<->switching to another,
but that last line of defense is including soft and hard penalties.

I find it rather strange that so little is in the media on the responsible insurance company
If I would be mayor I would like to see the reports of the last years.

This link is what I found, but that is only speculating about the money
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2017/06/22/455440.htm

 

[Yeekim]

Where do you draw the line for responsibility in such matters? If I steal $100 million and buy my wife a $10 million bungalow on Maui that she then owns, is she not party to my crime?

If the bungalow was bought with stolen money, it would obviously be forfeit and if your wife can be proven to have known of illicit origin of that money, she would be guilty of money laundering.
At least over here.
I'm surprised this is even a question tbh.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that is hard to predict with specificity, but is certain to happen once among every few thousand flats/apartments. An electric appliance shorts out; a pet knocks a candle over; a still-smoldering cigarette gets thrown into a trash can full of paper. Urban fire departments probably get those calls weekly, if not daily.

The building I'm in now allows smoking in the suites and on the balconies, as well as balcony barbecues (depending on approval from management; that's something that needs to be specifically mentioned in the lease).

It's not good enough for my peace of mind. People throw cigarette butts off their balconies, instead of disposing of them properly, and one of them blew onto my balcony. If I'd been someone who had a balcony full of flower pots or wooden patio furniture, a fire could have started.

Management said they couldn't do anything unless I could prove who threw the butt... well, how am I supposed to do that? They wouldn't even send out reminder notices for people not to throw butts off the balcony.

So when the fire department did its annual inspection a couple of weeks later (testing the alarms and smoke detectors), I mentioned this. They were pleased to hear that I don't keep stuff on my balcony, don't smoke, don't have a barbecue, and even though I do have candles and matches, they're for emergency use only... if the flashlight batteries all die and I don't have any other recourse to have light.

At least now I'm on the ground floor and don't have to worry about the elevator cutting out (it does when the fire alarm goes off), and I've got a far better chance of getting both myself and the cat out. Previously I had to leave the cats behind during alarms since it was hard enough getting myself down the stairs, never mind stuffing two cats into carriers and bringing them along while trying to balance with canes.

I realize that the poor construction wasn't the direct cause for the fire itself, but poor construction exacerbated the severity greatly. A building with truly modern standards shouldn't have been engulfed to that extent. You can't eliminate fires entirely but you can certainly minimize risk factor.

Granted, but I did want to bring up the actual cause of the fire itself. The cladding didn't cause the fire, but it did make the difference in making that building a death trap.

 

[EnglishEdward]

containing a fire is pretty much key
And insurance companies are well aware of that
In insurance to business, they do inspections as well, including inspections on the lower lines of defense
and if you have deviations they report including a timed to-do list

And I know that if the money involved is not convenient at that time for the company they seek the negotiation limit of postpone<->switching to another,
but that last line of defense is including soft and hard penalties.

I find it rather strange that so little is in the media on the responsible insurance company
If I would be mayor I would like to see the reports of the last years.

This link is what I found, but that is only speculating about the money
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2017/06/22/455440.htm

Sadly the UK has bought into the myths of contracting out, tick boxes and self
certification so that the elected official or senior public servant can show a paper
trail of lies ostensibly proving that they have done their job and are not responsible.

 

[Hrothbern]

Sadly the UK has bought into the myths of contracting out, tick boxes and self
certification so that the elected official or senior public servant can show a paper
trail of lies ostensibly proving that they have done their job and are not responsible.

that does not work... not with such risks
sad indeed
I hope Labour picks that up after the robbers are gone.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well, perhaps replacing the sheathing on 50+ buildings will rejuvenate efforts to hold someone accountable.

 

[Ajidica]

Well, perhaps replacing the sheathing on 50+ buildings will rejuvenate efforts to hold someone accountable.

Perhaps they should make David "Dodgy Dave" Hameron pay for it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Cool video;

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, perhaps replacing the sheathing on 50+ buildings will rejuvenate efforts to hold someone accountable.

Not to mention making sure that people in apartment buildings aren't issued the fridges that should have been recalled.

There's so much emphasis on the cladding. That isn't what caused the fire. It's what escalated it, but it's not the original cause.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Small fires happen regularly in big buildings. They are contained buy good construction and safety infrastructure like sprinklers. The tragedy here was that the inappropriate sheathing enhanced the fire and destroyed the building quickly. People do stupid stuff with their small appliances all the time. A sparking toaster or misused oven usually won't burn down a modern high rise. Once the fire spread to the outside walls, the sheathing allowed it move quickly all around and up, bypassing any interior firewalls.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Small fires happen regularly in big buildings. They are contained buy good construction and safety infrastructure like sprinklers. The tragedy here was that the inappropriate sheathing enhanced the fire and destroyed the building quickly. People do stupid stuff with their small appliances all the time. A sparking toaster or misused oven usually won't burn down a modern high rise. Once the fire spread to the outside walls, the sheathing allowed it move quickly all around and up, bypassing any interior firewalls.

You're missing my point. The reports didn't say anyone misused the fridge freezer. Some appliances overheat or short out or malfunction in other ways just because something went wrong, not because someone didn't operate it properly. I don't even know how a person could misuse a freezer, unless they had the controls set improperly or had it crammed too full of food. This sounds like an appliance that had a technical issue, should have been recalled but wasn't, and unfortunately a fire was the result. I fully concede that the cladding was responsible for the fire's spreading as it did, trapping the people, but it was not the cause of the fire.

 

[Hrothbern]

Another criminal act in this is I think the company or companies selling the cladding material to all the constructors that "improved" those buildings.

Such a purchase is not a Bol.com purchase,
More likely is a salesperson of the cladding firm having a meeting on site with a constructor/owner, discussing details and a price.

Would such a salesperson not know about the regulation that the flammable cladding was only allowed to use up to so many meters height ???

 

[Birdjaguar]

Here is more on the company that makes the cladding. They stopped selling the product.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/AP31ba947570c74670960d59f175d04abb

 

[W|M]

You're missing my point. The reports didn't say anyone misused the fridge freezer. Some appliances overheat or short out or malfunction in other ways just because something went wrong, not because someone didn't operate it properly. I don't even know how a person could misuse a freezer, unless they had the controls set improperly or had it crammed too full of food.

If you have the back of a fridge too close to a wall, it overheats a lot easier

This sounds like an appliance that had a technical issue, should have been recalled but wasn't, and unfortunately a fire was the result. I fully concede that the cladding was responsible for the fire's spreading as it did, trapping the people, but it was not the cause of the fire.

It didn't cause the fire, but it did cause the tragedy. Saying that it isn't the cause of the fire is like saying that aggressive nationalism and militarism didn't cause the First World War - While the immediate, short-term cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, without the prevailing atmosphere in Europe at the time, his assassination wouldn't have come close to causing the conflagration it did.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If you have the back of a fridge too close to a wall, it overheats a lot easier

Do you know how tiny most apartment kitchens are nowadays? The one I have now is even smaller than the one I had previously - the staff here told me this suite is exactly the same size as my previous one, but that's obviously BS. There's nowhere else for the fridge to go, and if I pulled it out from the wall I wouldn't even be able to open it.

It didn't cause the fire, but it did cause the tragedy. Saying that it isn't the cause of the fire is like saying that aggressive nationalism and militarism didn't cause the First World War - While the immediate, short-term cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, without the prevailing atmosphere in Europe at the time, his assassination wouldn't have come close to causing the conflagration it did.

World War I is irrelevant to this discussion.

The fridge caused the fire. The cladding escalated the fire. Both contributed to the injuries and deaths, and all the companies involved bear some of the responsibility. I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.

 

[W|M]

Do you know how tiny most apartment kitchens are nowadays? The one I have now is even smaller than the one I had previously - the staff here told me this suite is exactly the same size as my previous one, but that's obviously BS. There's nowhere else for the fridge to go, and if I pulled it out from the wall I wouldn't even be able to open it.

That doesn't detract from the point that the fridges being closer to the wall is a fire hazard, it just emphasises the point that the fault of there being an unnecessary fire hazard in lots of apartments is of the landlords

World War I is irrelevant to this discussion.

The fridge caused the fire. The cladding escalated the fire. Both contributed to the injuries and deaths, and all the companies involved bear some of the responsibility. I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.

All the companies involved do have to face consequences, yes, and it looks like you're actually in agreement with everyone else in the thread otherwise

 

[Silurian]

The failure of 120 of the 120 panels from buildings now tested, at time of posting, show that there has been widespread "bending" of the building regulations

From BBC

""The first thing to know is that local officials no longer run all building inspections. England has a so-called "Approved Inspector" regime. Contractors must no longer wait for a local authority official to check their work. Instead, they may hire people to check their construction processes meet the required standards. There is no single regulator - or arm of government - directly upholding standards.

Second, the most important requirement in the building regulations is to build a safe building. So long as you do that, the fine print of the rules does not much matter too much. That is why, when inspectors sign off sites, they do not feel the need to work directly from the government's own guidelines. And the guidelines set out by government are rather old, and cannot specify everything in all circumstances.

That has left a gap into which esteemed sector bodies have stepped. Their umbrella organisation - the Building Control Alliance (BCA) - has issued advice about how to get a building signed off as compliant without using the type of materials specified in the government guidelines.""

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40418266