There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
From Grenfell to Versailles: the cosy club where corporate killers meet ministers
SOLOMON HUGHES exposes how executives behind lethal cladding have pocketed £302 million since the tragedy, as Labour frontbenchers continue to schmooze at luxury conferences funded and organised by implicated firms
The Grenfell Memorial Wall in west London, September 3, 2024
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
HOW was the Grenfell fire allowed to happen? The seven-year inquiry considered this question in great detail. But if you look at what has happened to some of those involved since the fire, it is pretty obvious.
This June, the Times published a useful investigation by its journalist Martina Lees, who has done a lot of investigative work on building safety. Lees looked at the fate of bosses of the firms implicated in Grenfell, after the fire.
“Bosses of Arconic, Kingspan and Saint-Gobain — which manufactured parts of the west London tower’s lethal flammable cladding system — have received a total of £302.3 million since 72 people died in the disaster seven years ago.”
As Lees says: “All three manufacturers had made fire-safety claims about their panels that turned out to be false.”
Let’s look at one of these bosses. Pierre-Andre de Chalendar was the long-standing chief executive of French construction firm Saint-Gobain. He is now the chair of the company.
Lees found: “Since the fire, Saint-Gobain has paid its chief executive Pierre-Andre de Chalendar £11.7m.”
St Gobain’s British subsidiaries, Celotex and St Gobain UK, made most of the flammable Grenfell insulation. St Gobain bought Celotex in 2013. Evidence at the Grenfell inquiry shows St Gobain pressured Celotex to increase profits by selling insulation for higher buildings.
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Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES
