Theresa May's national government — Conservative party MPs who are also landlords, who scuttled housing safety rules as part of their declared war on "Safety Culture" — found £1B to bribe the terrorist-affiliated Young Earth Creationists at the DUP to join them in coalition, but will not guarantee a single penny in funding to local British councils who are racing to remove the extremely flammable high-rise cladding that made the Grenfell Tower blaze into an unstoppable monster whose death toll may never be fully counted.
Theresa May covered herself in shame on the campaign trail when she told a nurse who complained about seven years of paycuts that left many NHS nurses reliant on food banks to keep from starving that there was no magic money tree, despite the fact that the UK government can borrow at historically low rates, and despite the government previously handing out hundred of billions to the banks that precipitated the financial crisis with reckless lending.
Julie Dore, leader of Sheffield City Council, which is among the authorities to have discovered unsafe cladding, said “starved” councils would be forced to make cuts to other areas, including schooling, if central government did not help with costs.
“Local authorities have been starved of money over the past seven years. Our spending power has decreased,” she said. “There is no way we can afford to reclad our tower blocks. If we have to find that money, it will come from other projects, from investing in the fabric of our schools, capital investment in our infrastructure, the money has to come out of that. And it can’t really be done.
“I say absolutely, categorically that the Government should pay. If they can find £1bn to send to Northern Ireland, that gets more spending per capita than anywhere else, to buy 10 votes, then these people, living in high-rise towers, deserve better.”
Grenfell Tower cladding scandal could cost councils millions after Government says no guarantee of extra funding
[Lucy Pasha-Robinson and Tom Peck/The Independent]
(Image: beaubodor/b3ta)
