Grenfell Tower did not belong to a private landlord but a housing association, how that's run I don't know but the scenes of horror reminded me of the awful consequences of putting things on too long a leash and that austerity measures inflicted on local councils have cut things back well beyond any reasonable level. It's all government policy don't you know.
I've watched for years as public sector enterprises and systems have been sold off to the private sector by all colours of government. It's been labeled as a sensible, money saving thing to do. Look how well Amey and Bear look after our trunk roads, see any potholes or drainage problems? Services are now run by professionals rather than a bunch of lazy civil servants or idle union card waving workers and of course they need to turn a profit, a tidy one at that. It's not about the customers or the clients or even the service, it's just a dirty big business where the shareholders rule and ordinary people are the fodder.
I've seen this first hand in my old life with the MoD, money allegedly saved by contractors coming in and of course "getting it right first time". Yeah, that'll be right. Profit and public service do not go together and much of the time they are downright dangerous things to put together. Will things change? Nope, they'll just rebrand PFI or Prime Contracts under some other label and carry on and, if anyone is likely to get the blame, it won't be the contractor it'll be the "Intelligent Customer" who was left behind to somehow make sense of the mess.
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