Grenfell tower: Council adjourns meeting after journalists win legal case to record discussion

This just keeps getting worse and worse. The council are well and truly out of their depth now:

Council adjourns meeting after journalists with legal case

a reply to: stormcell

Guaranteed to turn violent at some point this summer it's almost if the fumbling corruption of the Council is put out for all to see to stoke the flames of anger.

a reply to: southbeach

By refusing a debate, they are admitting liability in typical village council behavior. They wanted to save one million pounds. Now it's going to cost them billions in demolition, reconstruction and compensation payments.

Well, some council meetings discuss confidential legal issues which are not public. Therefore, it's a pointless meeting if these issues cannot be raised for fear of compromising future legal (possibly criminal) investigation.

originally posted by: southbeach
Guaranteed to turn violent at some point this summer

Any violent protester in a council home should be evicted. Any person not a British citizen should be deported.

a reply to: paraphi

This is why we have teleconfrencing from home. No need to debate it in public.

originally posted by: yuppa
No need to debate it in public.

What they need is to investigate. The only debating being done at the moment is emotion and politics. The investigation will identify wrongs and rights, including the council's actions.

It always amazes me that so many people are ready to allow government (local or national) to get away with holding secret meetings. Openness and transparency are the key features of western democracy, and if we start throwing them away we will find it very difficult to get them back again.

Councils do have the power to exclude the press and public. They can pass a motion stating that their discussions are financially sensitive, in which case the public and press will be gently ushered out.

As for the idea that the council's discussion might prejudice legal proceedings, that is a problem for the council. The assumption has to be that the council's meetings are public, and individual councillors should conduct themselves accordingly.

It seems to me that in this particular instance, the council is behaving in a very undemocratic way by trying to evade accountability.

Council meetings aren't cheese and wine parties; they are the processes that ultimately affect people's real lives in the towns and cities that the council serves.

Both the leader and the deputy of the council resigned today. The chief executive of Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation resigned yesterday:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

It's funny how some still blame the fridge owner when it was pretty much inevitable something like this would happen with the garbage material they used to build it. I hope the owners and the contractors get a 10 ton gavel slammed down.