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| GUARDIAN JOURNO CLEARS PAGET-BROWN |
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| A MAN OF HONOUR |
Why?
Because she knew him to be a rare thing in the dirty world of politics.. deep down decent and a man of probity.
The Dame will be buying O' Hagan's new book, THE TOWER
If Paget-Brown had a weakness it was that he lacked that prerequisite in politics of being an adept dissembler.
All decent people should wish Paget-Brown well.
He has been very badly treated.
Interestingly, O'Hagan fingers Tony Blair ....
As a human being NPB may be a nice person. But he stood at the helm of a ship that annihilated services that supported vulnerable communities under the banner of austerity, whilst they hoarded millions of pounds, moved millions of pounds from frontline services into corporate services, sold off schools, libraries, did little to develop social housing whilst gathering 'incentives' from developers. He also stood by officers within the council whose culture of working with local residents was appalling, they were literally unaccountable and built their own ivory towers. NPB's 'Ask Nick' roadshows turned into carefully laundered sessions to deny the truth of a disintegrating Borough. What is sad is that a Borough that once prided itself on good services for the community stopped caring because of arrogance.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with this comment. He had time to do many things, he just chose not to do so. He was well aware of what was going on, perhaps he even benefited, directly or not, from it. He is guilty by 'ASSOCIATION'. He should face rigorous investigation.
DeleteI attended one of the very first "Ask Nick" events, asked a very simple question about planning and received a completely bullshit answer in response. It was clear that the Council had no intention of owning up to the mess they had created and that NPB was happily swimming up a river in Egypt.
Deletelast time i looked, the dame was berating PrickHead for constraining democracy by marginalising committees, cutting down the window for debate and restricting decision making to a small cabal of (incidentally) white men. paget brown did have a certain fondness for the colourful chavs of north ken ( a bit like gordon in khartoum) but if 72 innocent people are burnt to death in a building you have redesigned as a crematorium on your watch, it's off with your jolly old head.
DeleteDid NPB champion the Holland Park Opera Funding?
DeleteSadly, out of his depth, poor NPB at his own Ask Nick events, depended upon Cllr Hargreaves to bark and push away awkward questions.
You may be right but those were the 'inheritances' from Cockell. Nick had very little little time to put things right. In any case, this is about his non role in the Grenfell tragedy.
ReplyDeleteMy sensation is that the Council were lax in managing the tenants at Grenfell. People were living there who should not have been and there are cases of original tenants sub-sub-sub letting and living back in their home countries on the rental profits.
The number of illegal sub-lets in the building does not change the fact that the Council and TMO chose to install flammable cladding, chose to ignore residents concerns and complaints about fire safety in the building, chose to ignore similar concerns and complaints from the Notting Dale Ward Councillors, and sided with the TMO and Robert Black in particular rather than with its own residents and Councillors at every possible opportunity.
DeleteThe number of illegal sub-lets is likely to be so small as to be inconsequential. Other Resident Associations on Council properties report any illegal sub-lets they are aware of to the Council (formerly the TMO) and the numbers involved are miniscule; one or two a year on estates with hundreds of properties, well below 1%.
DeleteThe illegal sub-let story is little more than a diversion trotted out by those with a particular agenda that bears little relation to reality.
In practice the actual blight the RAs on Council estates are facing are not the small number of illegal sub-lets they might have to deal with but the "perfectly legal" short term lets organised through the likes of Airbnb. Will the Council choose to do anything about those we wonder?
@12:07. Probably not. Because short term lets through Airbnb are "entrepreneurial".
DeleteNorth of the Borough should be fused with H&F
ReplyDeleteHe did go on the telly saying the residents had refused sprinklers as they wanted the refurb finished. Sorry Nick. It's a no.
ReplyDeleteThe residents apparently also asked for Zinc cladding, which is not combustible, rather than the cheaper Aluminium cladding that was actually installed. That fact appears to have been overlooked by O'Hagan as well.
DeleteDon't you know? It was all the fault of the powerless residents rather those who had it within their power at the Council and TMO to do the right thing and CHOSE not to. And are all clearly so morally bankrupt that they cannot accept any responsibility for the disaster they created and are relying on the likes of this O'Hagan puff piece to rewrite history in their favour.
DeleteThey have the nerve to lie on camera, NPB, Black et al. as if nothing substantial has happened. I very much doubt if any of them bothered to watch the Public Inquiry. Devoid of human emotion, tears they shed (if any) are all part of the acting. It's all a panto except that Grenfell is/was a real life, not a drama.
DeleteAnd the Captain of the titanic was a great sailor right. it wasn't his fault , it was the iceberg . Off to shady pines for you Nick.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was the iceberg....so?
DeletePerps/criminals alway deflect their fault at others. Never own up to their failure or decision.
DeleteNick also oversaw the waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds on a petty neighbour dispute on behalf of a well-connected resident - see Private Eye Issue 1455 and Lily Allen on Twitter
ReplyDelete“AStONisHinG #rbkc #grenfell”
NPB is back in the current issue of Private Eye. It appears his post-Grenfell initiatives have been poorly thought through. What a surprise!
DeleteDame,
ReplyDeleteSave your money. The article is online. Those who had read it have been far from impressed. It's a great piece of narrative but short on factual accuracy. It contains errors which even a simple bit of fact checking should have flagged up. The author either did a very poor job checking facts or simply didn't care whether any of what he wrote was actually accurate. It seems that all he cared about was his "narrative". And if the goal of the exercise was to try and redeem the Council and in particular certain Councillors who seem unable to take responsibility for their own decisions then it is easy to imagine why that might be.
Notably the view from the other Local Authorities who had to pick up the pieces from RBK&C a year ago is that RBK&C were sh*te. And that is, sadly, a fact. And one that the author of this article has wilfully ignored.
We are residents living in the immediate local area of Grenfell and agree with the comments above. We also have direct experience in dealing with the TMO and RBKC's neglect of social housing and the residents living in it.
DeleteWe are hearing from many unhappy people in our community about this and will post a suitable response on our blog at the weekend.
In the meantime, here is a link to the full online copy of Mr O'Hagan's piece (written from his home in Primrose Hill) so all can read it without paying this despicable man a penny:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n11/andrew-ohagan/the-tower
Anyone looking for actual facts rather than a "great narrative" would be well advised to read some of the articles published by Inside Housing. For example:
ReplyDeletehttps://social.shorthand.com/insidehousing/32LVIu5Itu/grenfell-the-paper-trail
Lovely piece. Paints the Council in an entirely accurate light.
DeleteO'Hagan should be congratulated on his wonderful piece of literary fiction and nominated for the Booker Prize.
ReplyDeleteHe's been nominated twice....how about you, mister?
DeleteHe should stick to writing fiction then, because he's clearly not very good at any kind of journalism that requires factual accuracy.
DeleteSadly very few journalists appear to have retained or ever acquired that particular skill so perhaps it's not surprising that a piece containing dozens if not hundreds of factual errors can pass itself off as investigative journalism without anyone batting an eyelid.
O'Hagan has written a piece for a very particular audience - those that, like himself, simply seek reassurance that their own and what they hold dear - Nick, Rock, the Council - have done no wrong rather than anything approaching the objective truth.
ReplyDeleteThe end result is an article that is long on social niceties - words and words on how Rock met his other half, which can serve no purpose other than to try and humanise him - but short on any real technical detail and accuracy. O'Hagan like most modern journalists simply does not "do" technical detail, it is quite simply beyond him as it is beyond much of his profession, and the quality of his fact checking has now been revealed to be positively atrocious as well.
Very well written - but full of lies, half truths and tendentious analysis. The truth will -we hope - come out at the Inquiry and this apologia will be truly discredited. Mr O'Hagan didn't even bother to speak to most of the residents who could have put him right. Was this produced deliberately at the start of the public inquiry in a desperate attempt to influence it?
ReplyDelete