:00:00. > :00:00.live in a tolerant, liberal society. And that is why I have chosen to
:00:00. > :00:00.step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. The resignation statement
:00:00. > :00:00.of Tim Farron from being leader of the Liberal Democrats. Now, I look
:00:00. > :00:21.at the papers. Hello and welcome to our look ahead
:00:22. > :00:24.to what the the papers will be With me are the writer
:00:25. > :00:28.and broadcaster Mihir Bose and the former Pensions minister,
:00:29. > :00:29.Baroness Altmann. We start with the only story on
:00:30. > :00:33.tomorrow's pages. the Telegraph carries a haunting
:00:34. > :00:36.photograph of the throwing their children out
:00:37. > :00:40.of windows to save as avoidable, saying that residents
:00:41. > :00:44.had repeatedly raised The Metro warns that dozens
:00:45. > :00:58.of people are feared dead. The Guardian focuses on the warnings
:00:59. > :01:04.from residents who it says were ignored. The Times reports the blaze
:01:05. > :01:07.spread in a mere 15 minutes. And the Mirror carries a photograph of the
:01:08. > :01:15.burning building with a single word, death trap. So, let's begin, this is
:01:16. > :01:18.a deeply deeply distressing story and it is rightly on the front of
:01:19. > :01:22.all of the papers. Shall we start all of the papers. Shall we start
:01:23. > :01:28.with the times with this horribly violent image, disaster in 15
:01:29. > :01:34.minutes. What does it concentrate on? You have also got that inset
:01:35. > :01:40.picture of one of the residents waving help from the window. This is
:01:41. > :01:43.such a tragedy, you cannot help but feel for the victims, their
:01:44. > :01:48.families, their friends, to have been involved in this must have been
:01:49. > :01:54.just absolutely horrendous. Children being thrown from the buildings and
:01:55. > :01:57.one of them was caught, one was thrown from the ninth or tenth
:01:58. > :02:03.floor, others jumped, we do not know whether they survived, it is
:02:04. > :02:05.something that you see in a movie. The towering Inferno or whatever.
:02:06. > :02:11.But this has happened in London. And But this has happened in London. And
:02:12. > :02:15.they were told to stay put. They were told to stay within an hour
:02:16. > :02:22.they would be rescued, though given the wrong advice. Whether it could
:02:23. > :02:27.have been avoided, the safety measures but the actual advice to
:02:28. > :02:36.stay stay put and someone defied that advice and saved himself and
:02:37. > :02:42.his family. The stay put policy it was called. Stay put and dive. They
:02:43. > :02:47.were told it was designed to have rigorous fire safety standards and
:02:48. > :02:51.you would believe that. That is the advice given and you think they know
:02:52. > :02:58.what they are talking about. And we tend to obey rules. And the fire
:02:59. > :03:08.doors was poster last 30 minutes to give them time to arrive. It simply
:03:09. > :03:13.wasn't correct advice. The Guardian again the story dominates its front
:03:14. > :03:17.page with that... And the Guardian has a fair bit on the warnings that
:03:18. > :03:24.were given not just about staying put but warnings going back several
:03:25. > :03:35.years and there was an action group that said last November about this
:03:36. > :03:40.catastrophic event will highlight the incompetence of the landlord.
:03:41. > :03:46.These warnings were ignored. And serious questions need to be raised
:03:47. > :03:51.about what sort of management was there and who ignore these warnings.
:03:52. > :03:56.They raised the points that we would probably immediately think of, there
:03:57. > :03:59.was no sprinkler system, where was the building white fire alarm, there
:04:00. > :04:04.was only one fire escape for the whole floor trying to come in
:04:05. > :04:10.residents trying to go out which is why they had to stay put policy so
:04:11. > :04:18.firemen could get in but then also apparently there were some gas pipes
:04:19. > :04:22.in the escape, in emergency exit. And they're worried about that too.
:04:23. > :04:29.And the fire regulations have not been reviewed for 11 years. What
:04:30. > :04:32.this raises questions is what are the fire safety in the buildings,
:04:33. > :04:37.God forbid anything should happen but we need to ask those questions
:04:38. > :04:41.immediately. This fire spread so quickly, let's not forget, 15
:04:42. > :04:45.minutes, that is not a lot of time. The government says a major review
:04:46. > :04:51.will happen looking at other buildings. The Telegraph, making the
:04:52. > :04:59.point as he said disaster waiting to happen. And the cladding. It says
:05:00. > :05:03.cladding was putting for energy efficiency reasons and the cladding
:05:04. > :05:05.acted like a chimney, there is a gap between the cladding and the walls
:05:06. > :05:12.and that allowed the smoke and fire and that allowed the smoke and fire
:05:13. > :05:17.to spread upwards. And away the cladding was done. It should have
:05:18. > :05:24.protected but it was a conduit for the fire to spread so quickly. For a
:05:25. > :05:28.fighter damage in 15 minutes, something must've happened which
:05:29. > :05:32.quite dreadful. And the London Fire Brigade warned after a fire in a
:05:33. > :05:37.block in Hammersmith last August about the cladding and there was a
:05:38. > :05:42.fire in a skyscraper in Dubai said the fire brigade was all ready
:05:43. > :05:47.concerned about this and all one can say is the government has now said
:05:48. > :05:51.it will urgently review the safety. This is the sort of story that comes
:05:52. > :05:55.out from countries where things are not managed properly, where there is
:05:56. > :06:00.proper control, not a country like ours where we take safety very
:06:01. > :06:06.seriously. Controlled regulation should be looked at. And there are
:06:07. > :06:08.regulations, one thing is fire safety regulations only apply to the
:06:09. > :06:12.common parts not individual flats con they do need to look at that but
:06:13. > :06:17.this is a bigger issue and lessons have to be learnt. I'm sure whoever
:06:18. > :06:21.was involved in the cladding had no idea that there would be a fire risk
:06:22. > :06:26.otherwise it would not have happened. No one would do that if
:06:27. > :06:30.they thought it was. We do not know, it maybe it is not the cladding,
:06:31. > :06:34.maybe something to do with gas pipes, we just don't know. But if
:06:35. > :06:38.residents were warning we need to know what was done and whether they
:06:39. > :06:42.were ignored and said these residents are always going to raise
:06:43. > :06:47.questions needn't bother about it. And they were assured it met the
:06:48. > :06:51.fire safety standards. A quick word, one more story that otherwise would
:06:52. > :07:00.be on the lead story on the front pages in the Financial Times, Tim
:07:01. > :07:05.Farron quits as the Lib Dems. I was quite surprised. Especially the
:07:06. > :07:11.reason he gave, I think his assistant Lord Patrick had resigned
:07:12. > :07:17.citing the issue of Tim Farron's Christian faith and the implications
:07:18. > :07:21.for his belief in gay marriage and Tim Farron has taken what I think
:07:22. > :07:25.you can only describe it as a principled position and said if my
:07:26. > :07:32.faith is getting in a way of me being a political leader then I will
:07:33. > :07:36.choose my face but it is really sad and I would not normally think that
:07:37. > :07:40.we are the kind of country that would not be tolerant of somebody's
:07:41. > :07:46.faith. You cannot be the leader of a political party, that is what he is
:07:47. > :07:51.saying. It is unbelievable. It was an issue in the early stages of the
:07:52. > :07:56.election campaign and he could not get over that. Otherwise the Lib
:07:57. > :08:02.Dems would have done better because they were the representatives of the
:08:03. > :08:10.remainders. We'll be back together at 11:30pm to discuss at greater
:08:11. > :08:15.length. That is it for the papers. We are back at 11:30pm. See them. --
:08:16. > :08:17.see you