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My article in the March 2024 edition of Fire Safety Matters:
https://www.flipsnack.com/E59F88BBDC9/fire-safety-matters-mar-2024/full-view.html |
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7th August 2023: Sonia Poulton's "Rise" podcast show.
I appear at 0:49 mins.
https://onevsp.com/watch/WuHb9cZdUQTxZzB
3rd July 2023: Sonia Poulton's "Rise" podcast show.
I appear at 32.30 mins:
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/MuHKgqDSlrZulhy
14th June 2023: Article in the Morning Star by me, hard copy and online, "Fire safety - government is putting industry needs first
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/fire-safety-government-putting-industry-needs-first
26 February 2020: George Monbiot, Guardian, "Toxic Sofas are a Secret Scandal"
Excellent article by George Monbiot, and credit to him for pointing the finger at the fundamental reason we're all being poisoned in our own homes: government collusion with industry. George contacted me about this article and was good enough to let me to check the draft for accuracy. I think he's done a fantastic job of assimilating a huge amount of information in a relatively short amount of time, then coming up with a pithy, challenging on-point article.
31st October 2019: BBC Radio London phoned me to ask if I'd speak on their early breakfast show, hosted by Petrie Hosken. The discussion was focussed on the Grenfell Inquiry's Phase One Report that had been issued the previous day. I spoke for about nine minutes and you can listen to it here. Up to this point, the conversation had mainly been about the Report's criticism of the London Fire Brigade on the night of the fire. However, I had told the BBC beforehand that I would not discuss that; just my concerns about the role the failed Furniture Regulations played in the fire. And that's what I focussed on.
May 2019: Apologies - I have not been keeping this page up to date; press interest has been reflected more on other pages. However, Private Eye have an article in their latest edition, which can be read here.
21st February 2018: Four members of the Grenfell Fire Forum were invited to a meeting at the House of Lords of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fire Safety. All four us spoke, press coverage here.
"How fire-safe is British Furniture?"
BBC 'Newsnight', December 13th 2017
I appeared on this episode of Newsnight which looked at the problems with the Furniture Regs and flame retardants. You can watch it here. Further detail on the Newsnight website here.
Toxic sofas linked to surge in thyroid cancer
Press coverage 9/10 April 2017
I have been working with journalists, Jonathan Leake and Gareth Simkins, and on 9th April 2017, the Sunday Times published this article (pdf file):
The Sunday Times
The article makes the very valid point that a common brominated flame retardant, DecaBDE, is all but banned in Europe but still exists in millions of UK sofas in our homes right now. The Stockholm Convention is set to make the safe disposal of DecaBDE mandatory. This will be an expensive process. The furniture industry has known about this for some years but has not acted, crucially not warning consumers that they are sitting on an established toxic substance. Following this article, the British Furniture Confederation felt obliged to issue a press release. I comment on this on another page on this site: "The Lies of the British Furniture Confederation".
Following the Sunday Times article, I was contacted by a number of other journalists and the following papers ran similar stories:
The Sun
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Express
Two important things that the Sunday Times didn't cover:
1. There are many other flame retardants in our sofas besides DecaBDE. DecaBDE itself was replaced by the FR industry a few years back with a near-identical brominated flame retardant. This now sits in recent furniture and itself will no doubt be banned in time too.
2. The current match test - which is responsible for DecaBDE and other brominated flame retardants being present in our sofas - does not even work in most cases.
BBC 'Newsnight', December 13th 2017
I appeared on this episode of Newsnight which looked at the problems with the Furniture Regs and flame retardants. You can watch it here. Further detail on the Newsnight website here.
Toxic sofas linked to surge in thyroid cancer
Press coverage 9/10 April 2017
I have been working with journalists, Jonathan Leake and Gareth Simkins, and on 9th April 2017, the Sunday Times published this article (pdf file):
The Sunday Times
The article makes the very valid point that a common brominated flame retardant, DecaBDE, is all but banned in Europe but still exists in millions of UK sofas in our homes right now. The Stockholm Convention is set to make the safe disposal of DecaBDE mandatory. This will be an expensive process. The furniture industry has known about this for some years but has not acted, crucially not warning consumers that they are sitting on an established toxic substance. Following this article, the British Furniture Confederation felt obliged to issue a press release. I comment on this on another page on this site: "The Lies of the British Furniture Confederation".
Following the Sunday Times article, I was contacted by a number of other journalists and the following papers ran similar stories:
The Sun
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Express
Two important things that the Sunday Times didn't cover:
1. There are many other flame retardants in our sofas besides DecaBDE. DecaBDE itself was replaced by the FR industry a few years back with a near-identical brominated flame retardant. This now sits in recent furniture and itself will no doubt be banned in time too.
2. The current match test - which is responsible for DecaBDE and other brominated flame retardants being present in our sofas - does not even work in most cases.