WHAT PRICE AUSTERITY?
A nationwide investigation.
It has already been discovered that in cities all around the country (among them Portsmouth (above), the city where Mo and I were born) tower blocks have been cheaply and often illegally clad in the type of panel that disastrously accelerated the Grenfell Tower conflagration. Apparently this has been going on for years.
The news has to fill anyone but the most crooked businessman - or uncaring autocrat - with despair and anger.
Many questions will be asked and, were I charged with an investigation, I would certainly put the following three queries to all the councils involved:
(1) Were the inspectors who failed to immediately recognise this as a danger unqualified or incompetent?
(2) How many jobsworths actually recognised the danger, but wouldn't - or didn't dare - speak up?
And finally, the one to which I might even receive a straight answer:
(3) Did funding cutbacks imposed by Westminster cause your council to relax, shelve or abandon the inspection of new high-rise builds in your area?
I do just wish councils and governments would sometimes disprove my increasingly cynical opinion that they're there for their own good, not for ours. If they stopped playing politics and gave their all to whatever concern they claim to serve, it would be a start. It would be unbelievable, too.
Those who do try locally - mostly decent Independents - are shuttled to the sidelines or, like the worthwhile ex-councillor Jonathan Bacon on the Isle of Wight, voted out by party plonkers at the first opportunity.
Incidentally, the new blue ribbon voted in as MP over here, sought election on the avowal that he was 'standing with Teresa May.'
For how long, I wonder, might that be?
MUSIC.
Non PC listening?
As I write I am listening to a tape recording made at Abbey Road, London in 1962, the year my Leader and I were married.
It is by one of my favourite pianists of all time, John Ogden (above), and he is playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.
Both pianist and conductor were British, white and male.
That may define me, in the eyes of the browsing PC feminist, as 'a racist and misogynist.'
Y'know, I'm far too old to care.
CALL THIS ONE WHAT YOU LIKE.
He is still a bloody head case.
Doesn't matter how mentally stable, or otherwise, he may be proven to be, it appears that the 47 year old father of four (poor little buggers), who ploughed a hired van into innocent Muslims coming from worship at Finsbury Park (one victim dead, ten injured), was a terrorist. The police said so right away, so it's official.
What's in a name?
Call him what you like. A terrorist by whatever name is still a bloody head case.
Imam Mohammed Mahmoud, clearly a good man and true Muslim, prevented furious captors from doing serious damage to him before the police arrived at the scene.
The hate-crazed attacker should be given the longest possible prison sentence.
Mr. Mahmoud should be given an award.
That's my lot for this month.
It has already been discovered that in cities all around the country (among them Portsmouth (above), the city where Mo and I were born) tower blocks have been cheaply and often illegally clad in the type of panel that disastrously accelerated the Grenfell Tower conflagration. Apparently this has been going on for years.
The news has to fill anyone but the most crooked businessman - or uncaring autocrat - with despair and anger.
Many questions will be asked and, were I charged with an investigation, I would certainly put the following three queries to all the councils involved:
(1) Were the inspectors who failed to immediately recognise this as a danger unqualified or incompetent?
(2) How many jobsworths actually recognised the danger, but wouldn't - or didn't dare - speak up?
And finally, the one to which I might even receive a straight answer:
(3) Did funding cutbacks imposed by Westminster cause your council to relax, shelve or abandon the inspection of new high-rise builds in your area?
I do just wish councils and governments would sometimes disprove my increasingly cynical opinion that they're there for their own good, not for ours. If they stopped playing politics and gave their all to whatever concern they claim to serve, it would be a start. It would be unbelievable, too.
Those who do try locally - mostly decent Independents - are shuttled to the sidelines or, like the worthwhile ex-councillor Jonathan Bacon on the Isle of Wight, voted out by party plonkers at the first opportunity.
Incidentally, the new blue ribbon voted in as MP over here, sought election on the avowal that he was 'standing with Teresa May.'
For how long, I wonder, might that be?
MUSIC.
As I write I am listening to a tape recording made at Abbey Road, London in 1962, the year my Leader and I were married.
It is by one of my favourite pianists of all time, John Ogden (above), and he is playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.
Both pianist and conductor were British, white and male.
That may define me, in the eyes of the browsing PC feminist, as 'a racist and misogynist.'
Y'know, I'm far too old to care.
CALL THIS ONE WHAT YOU LIKE.
He is still a bloody head case.
Doesn't matter how mentally stable, or otherwise, he may be proven to be, it appears that the 47 year old father of four (poor little buggers), who ploughed a hired van into innocent Muslims coming from worship at Finsbury Park (one victim dead, ten injured), was a terrorist. The police said so right away, so it's official.
What's in a name?
Call him what you like. A terrorist by whatever name is still a bloody head case.
Imam Mohammed Mahmoud, clearly a good man and true Muslim, prevented furious captors from doing serious damage to him before the police arrived at the scene.
The hate-crazed attacker should be given the longest possible prison sentence.
Mr. Mahmoud should be given an award.
That's my lot for this month.
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