Deeper malaise
There has been a lot of criticism of the way in which Kensington and Chelsea’s trueblue council has run the borough for the benefit of the wealthy people whose votes keep it in power while implementing cuts on the area of the borough, including Grenfell Tower, with fatal results.
The Conservative leader and deputy leader were right to resign last week after their attempts to hold a council meeting in secret, in defiance of a High Court ruling that council meetings must be public. How else can the people know what is done by their elected representatives? Did these arrogant Conservatives believe that they were above the law?
Following revelations that the cladding of Grenfell Tower was replaced by cheaper material to save £300,000 on the instructions of one of them, while £1.5 million was allocated for opera in the rich end of the borough, it’s not surprising they wanted to hold the council meeting in secret.
But Kensington and Chelsea, of course, is only a microcosm of the way the whole country is run. While cancer patients wait longer for their treatment to start due to NHS cuts and doctors warn that people will die as a result, money is handed out as tax cuts for bankers.
While Theresa May cut police by 20,000 to save money, putting the public at risk from terrorism, corporations have been allowed to dodge paying the tax which would have funded more police officers.
The need for fundamental change goes much wider than one dysfunctional London borough. Voters who elected a dozen Conservative MPS in Scotland at the recent election need to think long and hard about what they are voting for next time round.
PHIL TATE Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh The news that all the cladding panels tested recently have failed fire tests is yet another exercise in futile information management, designed to demonstrate that somebody is doing something.
The truth appears to be that the panels have not been tested at all. They have been broken down into their component parts and the rigid insulating foam cores have been exposed to fire.
Everyone with a basic knowledge of construction (indeed, anyone with a shred of common sense) knows that products should be tested “whole”, in the form in which they are intended to be used.
I assume that if these experts were asked to test the electrical wiring in a building they would strip the plastic sheath from the flex, get a shock, and say the product has failed.
That is, in effect, what they have done with the cladding panels. Utterly pointless. One wonders who, in a position of authority and power, thought this was a worthwhile exercise. GRAHAM M MCLEOD
Muirs, Kinross