Grenfell Tower

He told the hearing the current terms of reference should be broadened to see if race, religion or social class played any part in the disaster.

“We might ask if this was a product of deliberate social cleansing or segregation” or “pure chance and coincidence, pure bad luck for those who die”, he said.

From the Independent

Thanks for posting

yeah, waiting to get it in print and then spend a long train journey getting stuck in

Shouldn't they?

I'd say your race and class might just have an impact on your likelihood of being burned to death in a poorly maintained residential tower block in West London.

The LRB piece is the single most interesting article I've read about Grenfell since it happened. Respect to O'Hagan. It's a long read but a mountain worth climbing.

Agreed - brings a clear-headed insight and needs to be disseminated much more widely.

It's worth digging in to the reaction it has generated. Understandably, defending the council has not been popular. There were also some inaccuracies in the original that seem to have been edited out, i.e. this https://twitter.com/jonsnowC4/status/1003341801456066560

https://twitter.com/lukewbarratt/status/1001763259467354112
This guy goes into a lot of detail on the inaccuracies too.

I have finally read all 40 pages of the O'Hagan story on Grenfell. It is far too long, he is a writer rather than a journalist. However his account of the fire, the people involved and the aftermath is essential reading.

His is critcised for coming down on the side of the council. What he discovered is a story of fake news. From the first night the council was vilified and was being blamed - without evidence or justification. That is why we should all read this story. Dozens of councils have re-clad 306 towers like Grenfell. The fire could have happened in any one of them. The narrative that council workers were not there to help is simply not true. O'Hagan describes how they worked their arses off making the best possible provision for the victims of the fire.

One of O'Hagan's strong targets is Mrs May's government and Sajid Javid the communities minister at the time. Having almost lost power in the election they were in panic mode. They bought into the 'council's fault' narrative and interfered to keep the blame on the council. Of Mrs May's statement to Parliament on 21st June he says "There are three lies in that sentence alone" referring to May's criticism of the council.

On the criticisms of O'Hagan's article, I can't see evidence of editing the online version apart from removing the Coles video. Jon Snow should know better, his complaint is baseless, he is trying to divert attention from justified criticism of Channel 4.

The teacher Melanie Coles is upset that she wasn't interviewed about her own life and experience living and working in the area, that's a shame. She is within her rights to ask for the video of her interview to be removed from the web site but now we cannot judge how important her other criticisms are.

Luke Barrat criticises O'Hagan for not finding information from people who refused to talk to him. O'Hagan is clear on the failure of the whole regulatory process, from top to bottom. His article is not about the technical details of that failure.

Well possibly, such a focus may not help us understand why the fire happened and what could prevent a reoccurrence.

Not really, he seems to be repeating the " activist" methodology that O ' Hagan criticizes. Though a Twitter feed does not strike me as the best means for dealing with factual inaccuracies.

Jon Snow should know better, his complaint is baseless

Daffarn’s days of writing to the council were long gone, and now he did half-hour interviews with Jon Snow on Channel Four News, unchallenged. (Many people liked being asked to provide opinions, but they didn’t want to be asked to provide evidence, and they gently slid away.)

LRB claims I did a series of un-challenging interviews with Eddy Dafarn (sic) (who warned of Grenfell disaster 8 months before it happened) FACT Eddy gave his first ever full length TV interview on C4News on 21st May 2018

It would be good to know what O'Hagan is referring to here. Is JS saying the interviews ED took part in didn't happen? Or that there has only been one interview, the one here?

I felt like some (most?) of the criticism to be nit-picking around the edges that didn't detract significantly from O'Hagan's messages - but then I'd have thought you'd need to be pretty watertight if you wanted take a controversial angle.

I can see how the JS ED interview could be described as 'unchallenging' - it's like a masterclass in leading questions.

It would be good to know what O'Hagan is referring to here. Is JS saying the interviews ED took part in didn't happen? Or that there has only been one interview, the one here?

O'Hagan's disquiet is on the unchallenging attitude to Daffarn's narrative. By focussing anger against the council they may be helping others get off the hook. Those others are the Governments (Tory & Labour) who have dissolved proper regulatory control and the construction and materials industry who have profited from it. Snow doesn't challenge the narrative that the council weren't there on the first night. O'Hagan shows that hundreds of staff were there, at the community centres arranging and paying for emergency accomodation for everyone within 24 hours, they provided transport, cash and equipment. Daffarn's assertions of council asset stripping and squeezing the poor people out are not backed by evidence. Unlike Westminster Council, Kensington had never used housing policy for social cleansing and electoral gerrymandering.

O'Hagan saying about Daffarn

Daffarn’s days of writing to the council were long gone, and now he did half-hour interviews with Jon Snow on Channel Four News

Could have been better expressed, saying something like "he now dealt directly with the media, as in the half-hour interview with Jon Snow on Channel Four News"

O'Hagan's disquiet is on the unchallenging attitude to Daffarn's narrative.

Yes - I understand that. I was interested in what exactly JS was taking issue with in his tweet, something so factually incorrect that it required that 'FACT' nonsense.

Turns out that yes - an interview happened, it was unchallenging - and he can only take issue with the insinuation that there were more than one of them.

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Yea. Closely. And I was wondering what you thought?

I saw a clip of some of his testimony on the news earlier. I know nothing about the details but he came across as a man of honesty and integrity who did the absolute best he could in utterly terrible circumstances. And to have given evidence for 3 days must have been an emotionally exhausting experience.

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Re O’Hagan. I thought it was as good as a piece of long-form journalism about a contentious event that’s subject to a proper investigation could get. If something isn’t being looked into, maybe you give more space to more controversial fringe views, to spark the debate. He did a good job of addressing a few issues that won’t be dealt with by the inquiry - namely the work done by councilworkers who those angry with councillors forget are councilworkers (which reminds me ever so of the ‘oh but you’re a nice EU migrant, we don’t mean you, just that other lot’ that sadly too many people do)

Harrowing and honest testimony from Charles Batterbee today, entirely validating Michael Dowden. Hard to watch him describing the moments as he realises the unthinkable is happening and his training hasn't prepared him for it.

Listening to Batterbee and Dowden humbles me.

It humbles me because I know I couldn't do the jobs that they do, I know that I wouldn't have handled the events of that day as well as they did, and I know that I wouldn't have the courage to speak about it in the way they are doing now.

did you listen to Daniel Brown also?

totally different energy, and had a few great anti-devolution anti-privatisation points. can't wait for the rest of it tomorrow.

sort of related to the inquiry, as it's based on a transcript...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BklTrSWhdqz/

anyone nerdy about engineering, make sure you watch Dr. Barbara Lane's Expert Witness Presentation

:o