News items

First the House of Commons. The Commons is finally getting around to thinking about what to do about their house, in imminent danger of falling down, catching fire or worse. But I think that the chances of their opting for a modern legislative chamber, along the lines of more or less everywhere else, is about zero. Still locked in our glorious past and quite failing to understand that the present is not very glorious at all.

Think what an opportunity they missed on that plot, recently vacant, next to the new US embassy at Vauxhall. A new house there could easily have been up and running by now. And the old one could have been sold on to Merlin (reference 1) as an entertainment.

Second the House of Cladding. It seems that there is a block of flats up north, clad in the same sort of cladding as Grenfell Tower.  However, this tower was a private speculation which has been sold on, on leaseholds. The sort of leasehold whereby the leaseholders are responsible for maintenance, internal and external. Rather in the way that the leaseholders of the low rise blocks of flats on my own estate are jointly responsible for the considerable expense of retiling their roofs from time to time. So are these particular leaseholders entitled to any sort of help from the public purse?

It is not clear to me that they are. This was a risk they took on when they bought the leasehold. Maybe they could get some traction from negligence by the speculator - although that must be weakened if the speculator could sustain the claim that this fire risk had not been invented at the time of construction and so was not down to them.

Third the Dorchester. How much lucrative charity trade have they lost by being caught out hosting sex parties for the great and the good?

In which connection I have often wondered about the morals (or perhaps the virtues) of having fancy balls and banquets at such places, while flying under the charity banner. The amount of money passed on to charities was often modest when compared with their costs.

Reference 1: https://merlinentertainments.biz/.