Thread by @Andrewwood17

Trying to understand the governments poor response to fire safety has been difficult, why make such a mess of it?
I think there are a variety of reasons
This article suggests donations are a part of it but I also think perhaps even more importantly are
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theguardian.com/society/2021/j…

conversations that go on behind the scenes from the people that donate money to Ministers etc
It was not the £12k cost of a table that helped decide Robert Jenrick to approve the Westferry Printworks but the conversations that happened at the dinner table between the minister,
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Richard Desmond & his snr mgmt team
We still do not know what was said but I suspect it was a bunch of reasons why Jenrick should encourage more housebuilding + difficulties developers operate under, Minister can you help us, not Minister here is £££ can you fix it for us
The
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result though are skewed decisions, Ministers hear too much from developers (who we need to build more homes) & not enough from residents of their buildings
Another example is look at Conservative Home, almost no articles about cladding etc issues
conservativehome.com/?s=cladding
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Except from two Conservatives that understand the issues well
I think very few other Conservative MP’s really understand the issues (most affected buildings in Labour areas does not help)
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conservativehome.com/platform/2021/…

My own attempt to get an article into Conservative Home on the subject failed
cllrandrewwood.com/news/the-polit…
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So the Conservativs are making mistakes not just because financially incentivised to do so but because of imperfect information, and too much of what they do know comes from developers
This is where media have been so helpful
thetimes.co.uk/article/desper…
Civil service?
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So some of the focus has to be on educating Ministers (but this requires Ministers willing to learn & listen!)
or we need another fatal fire (unfortunately) to drive change
But there are lessons to learn from the NPW fire if only somebody would document & package those lessons
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