07/07/2017 Newsnight

Grenfell Tower - tonight we have the story of how

the fire fighters - sometimes inadequately

equipped - tried and failed to control the flames.

It's the truth worth retelling that firefighters rushed into harm's way

that terrible night. They were heroes, no question. But was their

kit up to scratch and did it arrive in a timely fashion? Jo

It was the worst fire disaster since the war

and the biggest challenge to the fire fighting profession.

We'll ask what lessons need to be drawn.

Also tonight, a handshake the world has waited to see.

Did the two of them grasp the opportunity to reset

President Putin and I have been discussing various things and I

think it's going very well. We've had some very, very good thoughts.

And is economics too important to be left to the economists?

A new generation of economists is taking on the academic

So much is known about the fire at Grenfell Tower -

Enquiries will undoubtedly focus on the issues now familiar -

the cause of the fire and the cladding which spread it,

the building regulations and inspection regime,

the concerns of the tenants and the inadequate response

of the Kensington Chelsea Council afterwards.

But there is another important area, where the lessons

It's how London Fire Brigade fought the fire.

It was a night of unquestioned bravery, of individuals who risked

everything to rescue those inside and control the flames.

But were they equipped to deal with disaster of that magnitude

Could it have been doused more successfully, for example,

if an aerial platform had been summoned earlier?

Well, Newsnight has uncovered evidence of a series

of failings on the night, that no fire fighters

A warning, there is quite a bit of bad language in this piece.

Inside the tower, it was like a war zone - dark heat, pitch black, toxic

smoke, but in the worse possible circumstances, London's firefighters

did their best. I saw firefighters who I know are extremely fit,

marathon runners... Firefighters have been banned from

speaking to the media. Newsnight has gathered anonymous first-hand

accounts through an intermediary. We've also obtained the incident

mobilisation list, the document which details when every London Fire

Brigade appliance was sent and when it arrived. We have pieced together

a picture of the battle to fight the Grenfell fire and identify the

series of failings that made the desperate task even tougher. 12. 55,

two fire engines from North Kensington fire station get the

call-out. They're on scene in four minutes. Two more fire engines from

Kensington and Hammersmith arrive shortly after. They've been called

to a fridge fire on the fourth floor. What the firefighters on the

inside couldn't see is what was happening on the outside. The

firefighters went to the fire on the fourth floor and they were pretty

confident they'd got on top of it. Then something bad happens,

something weird on their radio. They're hearing it's a four-pump

fire, that means four fire engines. Then it's a ten-pump fire. That's

bad. Then it's a 20-pump fire, that's a catastrophe. They don't get

it because they're on top of the fire. Then they realise the fire is

growing on the outside. Grenfell Tower on fire, fire brigade and

everything. Look. Whoa look. At 1. 15am, five more appliances are

called out from Paddington and Hammersmith. The fire's spreading

up. This footage, shot on a mobile phone, shows the fire hit the

cladding and rage up the side of the tower. Firefighters try to tackle

the blaze from the ground. 1. 19am, 24 minutes after the first crew is

dispatched, the first tall ladder or aerial is assigned to the fire. 1.

19am, 24 minutes after the first crew is dispatched the first high

ladder or aerial, call sign 8213, is assigned to the fire from

Paddington, it arrives at 1. 32am. If anything could have stopped the

fire spreading to the outside, it might have been a high ladder and

pump. So why weren't they sent immediately? The PDA is the

predetermined attendance, that's what the Fire Rescue Service plans

for different locations. Aerial appliances were not on the original

PDA. In this case there was some half hour or so before the aerial

appliance arrived. Whether that would have made a difference is

something that needs to be looked at. I have spoken to aerial

appliance operators in London, who drive and operate those appliances

and attended that incident, who think that having that on the first

attendance might have made a difference, because it allows you to

operate a very powerful water tower from outside the building onto the

building. Are you OK? By the time the high ladary rived, it was too

late. The London Fire Brigade told Newsnight that the PDA has been

changed after Grenfell, so with an aerial appliance and extra fire

engine will attend fires in high rise buildings. Inside, firefighters

were battling the worst fire in Britain since the Second World War.

The stair wells and tower blocks are supposed to be smoke free. In

Grenfell, the stair well was yet another hazard. It was seriously

heavy smoke locked floors... Fighting a fire with toxic smoke,

some of the Grenfell fire retardant, based on cyanide, like deep sea

diving. The firefighters had 23 storeys to climb, but they had to

keep enough air to keep back down again. Very soon, far too soon, they

were running out of air. More than an hour after the first

crews were sent, the mobilisation list shows the fire chiefs on the

ground called in every single extended breathing set in London,

from places like Wandsworth, Islington and Tower Hamlets. In

terms of the compressed air breathing apparatus, the - clearly

more would have been helpful. We have to say this was an

unprecedented fire. So what became clear in this instance is that the

extended duration sets is what was increasingly required and more of

those clearly would have helped. I think that raises questions about

whether there should be a review this afternoon. On the night of the

fire, we're told there was a big problem with water pressure. If

you're a firefighter tackling an inferno, that's not good.

Newsnight understands that the fire brigade asked Thames Water to boost

the pressure. Even after that, we're told, the problems with water

pressure continued. When approached by Newsnight, Thames Water would not

comment directly on whether they were asked by the Fire Service to

boost pressure. But they did issue this statement:

In thick smoke, in raging heat, something else went wrong too.

Firefighters complained their radio communications weren't working

properly. They weren't punching through ten storeys or more of

concrete and there was so much traffic on the air waves they

couldn't understand what was being said. Some of the them weren't just

fighting blind, they were fighting deaf too.

There's always been a problem in high rise buildings that anything

above a certain amount of floors you have a problem with it. We've always

had a problem. When I was in the brigade we had a problem with the

radios or hand held radios and the breathing apparatus radios. I can

imagine the amount of teams putting in, there each team will have been

given a call sign and then you will have had one or two breathing

apparatus control officers trying to manage all the messaging backwards

and forwards. The firefighters spoke of the fire as a war zone, of ways

of attack and retreat. By 4. 30am, crews from every part of London -

youon, Ealing, barking -- Sutton, Ealing, barking, Lewisham are

mobilised. The scale of the response is unprecedented. The highest aerial

platform in Britain is in Surrey. It arrived hours after the fire was

hours out of control. Would that have helped? The machine is at full

stretch here, we're at 61 metres high. Only a few metres off the full

height of Grenfell Tower. The question is: Had one of these

machines or something like it been available from the get go on that

terrible night, would the story of the tragedy of Grenfell fire ended

quite differently? The London Fire Brigade told Newsnight:

The firefighters who had been trained to fight the wrong kind of

tower block fire and at the heart of this was the advice to residents to

stay put until rescued. The controversy over stay put will

continue to rage. But with Grenfell fire's death toll as high as it is,

the policy must surely be reviewed. One of the last residents to be

rescued from Grenfell was at 6. 30am. More than 200 people survived,

but more than 80 people didn't. It's a truth worth retelling that

firefighters rushed into harm's way that terrible night. They were

heroes, no question. But was their kit up to scratch? And did it arrive

in a timely fashion? We won't know the full answers until the public

inquiry. But already, it's safe to say, that those in charge of keeping

the capital safe from fire have serious questions to answer.

There were failures, but London's dark monument also stands testament

to extraordinary bravery against the odds too.

John Sweeney there, who compiled that report

Of course, the fire fighters had not encountered anything

as serious as Grenfell, and it behaved in ways

Let's talk through some of the points raised in that

He was Chief Fire Officer at Mid and West Wales Fire

and Rescue Service for 20 years and also worked in

He also serves as an advisor to MPs on the All Party Parliamentary

Good evening, a quick initial reaction to what we've heard there

and these firefighters' accounts of what they encountered on the night?

Yes, we have to say that what firefighters have said is obviously

very concerning and it always occurs after a major incident. This is very

much a major, major incidents. London Fire Brigade has been in

business since, well, 150 years now. I'm sure that every incident

develops new policies. Their policies that currently exist are

because they are predicated on the fact that a building like Grenfell

Tower is compliant with building regulations and if this was

compliant with the building regulations, then certainly there is

something seriously wrong with the regulations. If it wasn't compliant,

then there's something seriously wrong with the procedures. Let's

look at one or two of the more specific things. An aerial platform,

is it your view on what you've seen that if a platform, particularly a

high one, had been available much earlier that fire could have been

controlled and douses out even with all the cladding and issues we know

about. ? I represented the families of the deceased at Lacknell house

during the inquest. I recommended to the QC leading that investigation

that London Fire Brigade may wish to review its aerial policy on the

basis that the platforms there were within yards of the actual rescue of

people from the balcony and from the flats affected, but just didn't

quite make it. They just didn't quite get to that point. Is it your

view that you should send out an aerial, a high ladder straight away

if you know the fire is in a building that's tall? The initial

predetermined attendance for many fire brigades are that wherever

there's a special risk, they automatically send a vehicle, a

special appliance, like an aerial platform to that special risk. I

hear and I'm not privy to the investigation, of course, the

criminal investigation, and of course, the inquiry, the public

inquiry, will get to the bottom of what policies were in place. But if

we work on the assumption that the policy was not to send an aerial

platform to this it would have been on the basis that they've evaluated

its usage over a period and how many times does it get to work and how

many times is it called out and returned not used? I'm sure that had

something to do with it, but again, until we see the inquiry, and the

results - There were problems with breathing equipment, particularly

the more enduring breathing equipment, one interpretation of

what happened is - they just didn't really know how bad this fire was

going to turn out to be, because it ripped up the side of the building.

The other is that they are just underequipped maybe because there

have been spending cuts, that mean they haven't invested enough in

equipment. Which of those two interpretations would come closer to

your view on what you've seen? London Fire Brigade are one of the

best equipped, if not the best equipped, in the country. I would

not want to criticise any policy of London Fire Brigade, those

firefighters did a marvellous job with the equipment that they had.

Yes, of course, we are hearing from your story that some of the

firefighters have made claims. Those claims will be thoroughly

investigated. But clearly, you can't accept that they have rescue

appliances that carried this additional breathing apparatus,

extended duration sets, they are strategically placed and all of them

were used, so all of the available duration sets in London were

mobilised to this incident and used, as they were, at Lakmal house. Is

the problem ultimately that they did not have plan B? They knew what kind

of fire they could cope with in a tall building, where the fire could

be contained in a couple of apartments and they would get

everyone out after putting it out? Is the problem is, they did not

imagine that you could have a fire like this, or the building

regulations were wrong, they did not have it in the mindset that it could

be that bad? I think the timing of the fire in the early hours, you

heard about the water pressure being low, water companies do reduce

pressure in the evening and later because it saves on leaks to the

mains. I'm not saying that Thames Water did that, but when the fire

brigade asks for an increase pressures, they come. Those

pressures are increased. We will find out if that was the case or

not, I'm sure that will come out in the public enquiry. Whether

firefighters themselves were justified and ought to have

anticipated a contingency plan for such an event, I think that is very

difficult. Not very people -- not many people in this country have

seen a block of flats at that time in the morning on fire like that,

when people are asleep, and seen the consequences. I don't think they

could have been contingency plans, our buildings should be safe in the

first place. All of the firefighting operations are predicated on

firefighters fighting the building from inside, not outside. Obviously,

it is excellent to be able to have an aerial platform ready

strategically placed for such an event. But, in reality, they will be

standing idle for long periods. Rodney King, thank you. We

appreciate that it is much easier in hindsight to make all of these

observations. Thank you. So much has been written

about Trump and Russia, it's hard to believe that

President Trump and Vladamir Putin Now a lot has been written

about Trump and handshakes - the non-shake with Angela Merkel,

the firm grip of Emmanuel Macron - but here is the footage of the one

that really matters - Some commented that Putin cleverly

got Trump to reach out to him. Personally, I'd say

it's pretty uneventful. This was not for the media,

it was filmed only on a mobile. Again, you can probably read

something into it, if you choose to. Well, the two presidents

did actually meet, for longer than expected -

two hours and 20 minutes. Some wondered whether some kind

of major announcement might come out of it: peace in Syria,

a deal on Ukraine. Nothing that dramatic,

so what did emerge? What did come out of it? Well, look.

They did come to an agreement about a ceasefire in southern Syria. The

complexion, US and Russian sources have been getting close to potential

combat there. I guess that is a positive tech. Also, to appoint an

American representative to the Ukraine, the so-called Minsk

process, some forward movement there. They were frank on the fact

that they could not agree on the way ahead with career, there were not

willing to agree on sanctions with North Korea but everyone wanted to

know what happened when President Trump tabled the issue of hacking

and the elections, and what the US intelligence community says is clear

Russian state-sponsored meddling in their election. The Americans say

that they put it out there to start with. The Russian version of what

happened, I think he spotted, that Sergei Lavrov, when telling

reporters about it afterwards, said they assured him that the Russian

leadership had not ordered such a thing. That was a curious form of

words, chiming in with some things that President Putin said, implying

that maybe... Someone else had! Frankly, the American attitude was

pretty much look, can we move on? That was expressed by the Secretary

of State, Rex Tillerson. OK, so Rex Tillerson there in that

recorded clip, saying that we need to think on other things. A lot of

people obviously in the US will be unhappy about that... Let's move on,

sort of thing! In terms of the reset being thought about, anything...? Of

course, he campaigned on this. President Trump comes a look I

promised better relations with Russia. I've got to deliver it. A

lot of people think he is sensitive on how this will be received. This

narrative that he is Putin's pawn is popular among enemies. He doesn't

care what they think. But there is another problem, who actually shares

his objective? Especially on things like sanctions, of rolling them back

and helping President Putin, building the stronger relationship.

Here is the former Secretary of State official, Jeremy Shapiro.

He has no one in his own government who shares his opinion of Russia,

For whatever reason, he did not appoint anybody

he could do that for him and this is why, so frequently, we see him

saying something about Nato, for example,

and the next day one of his

cabinet members comes out and says, pay no attention to what the

President of the United States said - that is not our policy.

Mark, thank you very much. We will follow the G20 summit and everything

more in the next few days. Experts in general have got a bad

rap in the last 18 months. None more so than economists,

who have actually had a bad decade, what with the crash

that wasn't foreseen. And now the knife is well and truly

stuck in to the profession, in a new book written by three young

economists from the University of Manchester, who are proposing

the subject opens its mind But also, the authors propose

that it is altogether too important Politics is increasingly framed

in terms of economics in a way that excludes the public and damages

democratic culture and process. Trying to make democracy more

meaningful will clearly necessitate They call the economic

elite the econocracy, Well, we have one of the authors

here, Joe Earle, and an economist, Diane Coyle, a professor

of economics at the Good evening to you both. Joe, tell

us the basic thrust of the critiquing the book in a few

sentences? Thank you. It is the story of an international student

movement called Rethinking Economics, we have groups in 22

countries across the world and it is essentially ask coming to a

university independently wanted to understand the world and influencing

it, arriving it and feeling that our economics education was not

preparing us to do that, it was not fit for purpose. At the same time,

having friends and families going, what is going on with the financial

crisis? The Eurozone is falling apart, feeling embarrassed... You

had nothing to say about it! Exactly! Diane Coyle, what do you

agree with in the book? Quite a lot of it, the headline you gave was

actually nonsense, you would not take the chemist out of chemistry

that putting people in economics is important, I agree with that. Part

of the problem is that most economists do not do the stuff that

is about financial crises, and austerity, so one. Most of us do

much more small-scale economics which is very different. Is it

perhaps too mathematical? It isn't particularly, it's more numerical,

looking at how markets work, empirical decisions, how people make

decisions. What do you disagree with? Manchester students have been

the Severus in this, and you teach there. What do you disagree with?

What I do disagree with is the idea that all of economics is political.

I think it is a mixture. I think Sun is inherently political, you must

acknowledge that and economists in the past have not been opening

enough about that. But some of it is not. It is much more scientific. You

cannot have a Marxist theory on how students may respond to certain

incentives to go into education or not. There are politics involved in

it but there are also science and numbers involved. So, explain the

point. You do think it is basically politics hidden in a technical

model? It isn't about narrow left and right wing politics, it's about

being taught a particular way of thinking, and so, for example, in

the response that Diane just gave, she was talking on Marxist economics

but also incentives. It's a particular way of looking at the

world and that has a particular view of human nature and a particular

view about markets, and being the right way of organising things.

Also, not... But Diane did not say that the market was the right way of

organising things? But the assumption is that most of what we

look at is markets. Again, a lot of economists today believe that

markets do not work and need to be regulated better. But it is not

studying institutions, for example. I disagree, it studies institutions

a lot. It is about collective decision-making about the use and

allocation of resources and markets are part of that. In the graduate

quarter, in the undergraduate courses, they don't do much about.

You need to get to advanced levels before you begin on that kind of

thing? In mind, they certainly do, I think the curriculum has changed a

lot over the last few years, particularly thanks to people like

Joe. It is important to note that Diane is an exception, she always

comes to debate with us and her course at Manchester is a very...

They will be shocked by the state of economics education. Did you agree

with Michael Gove, when he said that we had enough of expats? There's

quite a bit of that critique there? We are the next generation of

economists, and we believe... Isn't he saying the same thing as you? No,

we believe experts need to change so they are trusted again and listened

to, because Brexit clearly showed that people did not trust economic

models, and predictions. But you don't want them to trust them...? We

want economists to not only communicate better, that is what we

are doing ourselves. We have a website called economy. Oh, which is

all about communicating economics in an accessible way, not just assuming

that people agree but our way of thinking on the economy does not

represent the experience of people in the country -- economy.org. Do

you accept the criticism of economics, that it became too close

minded? It did not have a broad enough range of models? Whatever you

want, it did not somehow...? I think it became close minded a long time

ago and the high watermark of that kind of economics for me was in the

mid-19 80s and 1990s. Understanding the psychology of how people take

decisions and using new methods like randomised control trials and

experiment methods has been happening for 20 years now. I think

the big failing, we let down students, it took too long to change

the curriculum to introduce that. Jo is quite right in saying that when

the crisis happened, undergraduate courses were not equipping people.

You can go to any technical area, people who set the traffic lights

for pedestrians versus cars, there are political decisions built into

everything in society? There is a very big difference, economics is

about our lives and who does what, who gets what. These values are

really important. We are just asking for people, economists, to go out

and listen and really get their shoes dirty. Jo and Diane, thank you

very much indeed. That's it from us tonight,

for this week indeed. Have a good weekend

in the meantime.