A Towering Inferno of Incompetence

Theodore Dalrymple:

My experience of public-sector housing authorities, when I was a doctor with many patients who lived in public housing, was that they were stone deaf to all justified tenant complaints, unless someone like me made firm representations on the tenants’ behalf. These authorities were unutterably heartless and dishonest, as well as incompetent. They had to be protected from their clients by bulletproof glass.
The horrible fire, however, which is among the most terrifying anyone has ever witnessed, is being used to demand more public expenditure, raised and administered by the same kinds of people who brought such joy to the residents of Grenfell Tower.

10 Replies to “A Towering Inferno of Incompetence”

  1. “The horrible fire, however, which is among the most terrifying anyone has ever witnessed, is being used to demand more public expenditure, raised and administered by the same kinds of people who brought such joy to the residents of Grenfell Tower.”
    Dalrymple nails it right there.

  2. As always, the solution to government-caused problems is more government. Also, taxes.

  3. The wonderful thing about working in a government bureaucracy is, no one is ultimately responsible for any f***ups,no matter how serious.
    Somewhere in the labyrinth,someone decided to use flammable material to insulate the outside of the building,this person is a ghost,ethereal, never to be found or named.
    In this age of information there is no excuse for using this material,the info on any product is so easily available via the internet,so somewhere some cheap son of a bitch decided to save $8500 on a $10 million project.
    They have thousands of these buildings to refurbish,probably using the same or similar material,manufactured under a different name,and when the next one goes up,there will still be no one to be held responsible.
    As a wise man once said,”the most frightening words in the English language are,I’m from the government,I’m here to help”.

  4. As someone said bureaucracy grows exponentially aided by politicians. With their limited experience they proudly report they will solve our problems by opening our wallets including those of our children and even great grand children.

  5. Government creates the problem so government can create the solution. Government proves that a perpetual motion machine is possible.

  6. As they say … “good enough for government work”
    The local borough council owned the building but had devolved its management to a non-profit-making management quasi-company that was, in essence, in the public sector, though it paid its senior staff, in effect local-government civil servants, private-sector-sized salaries.
    Yep … just another “non-profit” quasi-corporation that showers its “executives” with OUTRAGEOUS salaries for doing next to nothing. The ONLY ones who DON’T profit are the end-users of this governmental TAX largesse. Surely, the government will THROW even MORE $$$$$ at mass-housing … most of which will be skimmed off the top … and yet MORE buildings will remain FIRE TRAPS and miserable places to live.

  7. It’s a bureaucracy; OUTCOME DOES NOT MATTER. Only process. Bureaucracies cannot be reformed; only destroyed or avoided. So stop the kvetching; this is what government does. This is what government has always done. This is what government will always do.
    Until you are actually willing to vote for the person who will lay waste to hundreds of thousands of government jobs and end almost all government programs, just STFU.

  8. Grenfell Tower: Proof that khrushchyovkas exist outside of the old USSR territories.

  9. There are two things you can read in the newspaper every day: stories about the incompetence and / or corruption of government, and hysterical calls from the left to have practically every activity in our society turned over to government.

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