When the Grenfell Towers burnt down in London we learnt that the reason for the disaster was that the building was clad with polystyrene heat insulation panels. Even simple fools know that this material burns fast and furiously, and there can be no excuse that the building owners, the contractor and the company that sold these panels must have known this facts.
The building housed over 120 households with several hundred people from youngsters, working folk, to the aged all living on low wages, social insurance and pensions. It was a building built and maintained for low income people - reports finnishnews.fi.
After the fire, the Prime Minister decided not to visit the survivors, instead the British queen was the first to turn up with one of her grandsons. She was probably quite sincere in her reasons for visiting these people but just think about what really happened.
The British government has recently approved almost €400 million for the renovation of Buckingham Palace, one of the sites where the queen can live. Renovations, we are told, are necessary because pipes, windows and walls are in such bad shape… just like Grenfell Towers.
Naturally there was a modest outcry from a few 140 000 against such a decision but the government claimed that the income received by the government for the last decade from “the royal estate” was must larger than this renovation cost. The royal estate here means that some of the property owned by the queen like buildings, farms, forests and other businesses bring in an income that automatically gores to the state, just like any tax on ordinary folk.
The queen and her family are probably among the world’s richest in terms of assets and income from these assets. They do not need to own and live in the huge number of properties that are to be found in different parts of the country and abroad, nor do they need to occupy the whole of the palace in London.
Secondly, €400 million for a single building that houses one family is somewhat extravagant when the same government says that it does not have enough money to renovate low income housing properly because “austerity needs to be maintained.”
The reasons for this lunatic economic policy appears to have its roots in the dumbing down of politics – where democracy for the few is based on taking advantage of the masses who fail to understand or who prefer not to understand.
The media kings have their hands in this part of the drama.
Rupert Murdoch controls the newspapers and TV screens alongside the BBC and they all make a lot of money advertising the queen’s spin doctors great soundbites, showing lots of photos of her and her family happily sitting around blazing fires, sitting in their palaces and showing the world how great it is to be British.
After years of being told “God save the queen” and how wonderful they all are, ordinary working folk seem to believe that this family is a good thing and that a visit to survivors is a good thing.
Having handshake from a lady who lives like a queen and then leaves in a Rolls Royce without leaving a penny of support is like pissing in your trousers token warm during a freezing winter.
The popularity of soap operas, reality shows, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram plus all the other such stuff have created a whole new sub-culture that grabs the imagination, the votes and wallets of around half of the population. Populist movements can be defined by these purveyors of thinly sliced information.
Read other news on the city site of Helsinki.
