We elected a clown but never imagined the circus which would follow

 

Subject: We elected a clown but never imagined the circus which was to follow

A vote in the House of Commons yesterday defeated a Labour Opposition amendment regarding the urgent modifications to flats which are enclosed with a fire hazard cladding, it was an amendment to get on with implementing the initial findings of the Grenfell Fire  Enquiry. The Tories voted by a majority of well over one hundred and thirty votes to further impede the urgent work required to make the flats safe.

One has to question this Conservative mentality when the day after, that dreadful man the Housing Minister Robert Jenrick came on our screens boasting about the funds his department had made available for 'new housing'. No funds for the flats to have their cladding removed or a fire retardant cladding put in its place but billions to spend on new housing.

There is a differential between the people who buy or rent flats in buildings with multiple occupancy and the ones who buy a new house. The profit on building a brand new housing estate is much higher than building or renovating a block of flats and when the work is remedial work, putting in place a structurally fire safe environment which should have been done initially then its no wonder the Tories and their friends in the construction industry prefer one from the other. The fact that ordinary people who raised the deposit to buy their flat and now can't sell it because of the fire risk is a crime in itself but to oppose the raising of funds to fall into line with the Grenfell Hearing recommendations is a travesty of common justice.

Sadly it's indicative of the laissez faire attitude of monied people today, backed by a government with such a solid majority and an ideologically splintered Opposition, unable to hold them to account  when the voting majority in Parliament has become so overwhelmingly one-sided, it could be argued that parliament itself becomes irrelevant.

Boris and his government have form. They tried reneging parliament during the Brexit debate, attempting to suspend the House and its  procedures to force his Brexit agenda through whilst the House was suspended.  Now he wishes to renege on the very agreement he made with the EU which was signed into law at that time. Is there any depths he won't go to force his way through. He hardly need to bother to consult parliament, in our first past the post system of governance the winner of an election only needs his own parliamentarians to comply and anything he wishes is rubber-stamped by his huge majority.

When we elected a clown but we never imagined the circus which was to follow.