Great advice centre helps the struggling. Needs to raise £40k for itself to stay open

The SKWAWKBOX

Salford Unemployed Resource Centre does a fantastic job providing unemployed people with the support they need and do not get from a Tory government that has long waged war on our poorest and most vulnerable people. It helps people gain skills and the unfairly sanctioned – whose numbers have mushroomed under the Tories – to get their support reinstated. Last year it retrieved over half a million pounds for the people it helps, who regard it as their ‘fourth emergency service’.

It receives slim funding for the work it does and for the first time in three decades, it’s facing a shortfall in its funding that may force it to close.

If you’re in a position to do so, please take a look and consider chipping in a few pounds toward the £40,000 it needs to raise urgently – and then share the link so others can do likewise.

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Muslims to blame for far right extremist terrorism too, confirm far right extremists

And
Let’s Blame Corbyn

SWAN BAKE

Muslims are to blame for terrorism both by Isis and the far right, it has been clarified by the far right.

They are also responsible for future far right terrorism, limited in magnitude only by the imagination of the far right and therefore the most despicable of all, the far right says.

Far right extremist Tommy Robinson, who condemns the “evil ideology” of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot because he thinks it is the Quran, said: “I told you this would happen.

“Again and again I warned that an angry population would do stuff like this, which makes it Muslims’ fault, definitely not mine.

“Just like it’s the fault of Westerners when they fail to heed Isis’ warnings. No, wait. Where’s my book?

Robinson later clarified that Muslims were also responsible for the mortgage fraud he did that time, adding: “But I don’t see them apologising for that.”

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Video: ’42 dead in a single #Grenfell room’. Still think there’s no cover-up?

42 in one room?
No no no
Something is wrong

Time will tell

The SKWAWKBOX

The SKWAWKBOX continues to suffer false accusations of fake news over its report of claims that a government ‘D-notice’ had been issued to withhold press information on the real number of deaths in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. This was never claimed as fact by this blog and once the government got round to answering questions from the SKWAWKBOX about the issue, this blog issued an update.

Based on the information from the government, there was no D-notice – but the government pointedly did not answer the question whether any other form of restriction was in place.

In spite of all that, on Tuesday the Independent became the latest to indulge in lazy or cynical journalism by treating those false accusations as fact. Ah well.

But the idea that the real death figures are being deliberately withheld or obscured persists, with firefighters among others alleging that the government is using changes…

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Video: expert breaks down as he tells of warning of ‘totally avoidable’ #Grenfell fire

Conscientious
And
Compassionate

Two words missing in
Conservative moral code book

The SKWAWKBOX

Any doubt that the terrible – and still grossly understated – death toll in the Grenfell Tower fire was avoidable has been swept away by a bleak and deeply moving video interview by fire protection exp Arnold Tarling.

Mr Tarling breaks down in tears as he explains to an interviewer the warnings that he gave three years ago of major loss of life that would be caused if the type of panels used on Grenfell Tower were not outlawed – and of his reaction when he received a call in the early hours of 14 June to notify him of the blaze:

Another video shows just how flammable the HDPE (high density polyethylene) panels that Mr Tarling refers to are and how reckless the decision to encase a building containing hundreds of people in them. In just over 2 minutes a small fire turns into an uncontrollable blaze:

Mr Tarling is…

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Video: #RBKC chief claims VOLUNTEER efforts to vindicate council #Grenfell

The SKWAWKBOX

On Sunday Nick Paget-Brown, the Tory head of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, spoke to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend programme to attempt to justify his and his council’s performance in the aftermath of the terrible Grenfell Tower tragedy.

It was an object lesson in framing answers to avoid responsibility. Answers that flew in the face of the allegations of victims and their neighbours – and appropriated the efforts of volunteers in the days following the fire in order to dodge criticisms and paint a flattering picture of the council’s actions.

Paget-Brown:

• claimed the volunteer centres spontaneously set up by local people were part of a ‘co-ordinated effort’ involving the council
• claimed that council employees and officers were on site ‘very soon’ after the fire started – when residents and neighbours of the Tower are adamant that no one from the council was there until early evening
• claimed the…

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Heartbreaking video as #Grenfell residents count out their true toll

The SKWAWKBOX

On Sunday, exasperated at the continued failure of the authorities to acknowledge the true scale of the tragedy in their block, Grenfell Tower residents took matters into their own hands – and recorded their grief, anger and loss on video for the world.

If the world is listening.

The video is simple, low-tech and utterly heart-breaking. But we have a human duty to watch, to feel their pain and not to forget or allow the government to dilute our awareness by drip-feeding the number of deaths incrementally when it’s common knowledge that at least one hundred and fifty bodies are already in a makeshift morgue.

There has been no minute’s silence for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, as there was for those of the recent terror attacks – and be assured that it matters keenly to the survivors and their neighbours. So give them a few minutes to…

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“One of #Grenfell’s two escape routes was blocked up because of academy”

The SKWAWKBOX

Residents of the Grenfell Tower area have alleged that one of Grenfell Tower’s two escape routes had been permanently closed after the construction of the Kensington Aldridge Academy. The academy, which opened in the autumn of 2014, is currently closed because of its proximity to the scene of Wednesday’s terrible fire.

Local people told the SKWAWKBOX on Sunday that there were two exits from the block, but that one had been shut up – and that older residents of the Tower may have died because they went to the blocked exit in the confusion of the blaze, instead of the one that remained usable.

The academy’s closeness to Grenfell Tower can be seen in the image below, captured from Google Maps:

Residents of the area also alleged that the academy has the same type of exterior cladding that was used on Grenfell Tower and that the decision to use…

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