Grenfell tower: The beginning of the end for the Tory austerity regime | The Independent
Austerity Policies Caused Grenfell Tower Disaster, Firefighter Says - Huffington Post
A year on, and the Spectator disagrees:
The LRB has exposed Grenfell’s awkward political facts | Coffee House
Enough of the political fury: now for the full facts about Grenfell
The Spectator
9 June 2018
The opening of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is good news. It will now become harder for politicians and campaigners to do as they did in the immediate aftermath of the disaster and exploit it for their own ends.
The 72 who died were not victims of an uncaring government bureaucracy, as some on the right have said. Nor was this about austerity and ‘Tory cuts’. The costs of the renovation which had been completed shortly before the fire worked out at more than £70,000 per flat: money had been spent, and an expensive deathtrap unwittingly created. The company which managed the block, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) was no heartless international corporation but a not-for-profit company set up with the express purpose of bringing management of social housing closer to the people who live in it.
Those who managed the block cannot be called uncaring. They were council tenants and local councillors — including, in the past, Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington. It was, or was supposed to be, exactly the sort of organisation involving local people and unsullied by shareholder’s demands which Jeremy Corbyn often advocates.
But no one is in any doubt that Grenfell was a catastrophic failure, and one of the most shameful episodes of modern British history. Those who died were in the care of the state — that is to say, in our collective care. The evidence heard so far reflects badly on many of the agencies and individuals involved, including councillors, contractors and fire service chiefs. What we have learned echoes many other disasters which have involved the heavy loss of life. The event, and in particular the scale of the casualties, was not the product of one failing but the result of an interaction of many and complex failings.
Enough of the political fury: now for the full facts about Grenfell | The Spectator
The Red Pepper sees it differenlty:
Grenfell Tower and the long crisis of social housing
Council housing arose from the duty of the state to house its people. John Boughton writes that the tragedy Grenfell Tower epitomises decades of dereliction of that duty.
June 13, 2018
Council housing then, social housing now, arose from the duty of the state to house its people well even as the market proved unable or unwilling to do so. Grenfell Tower, at root, epitomises the dereliction of that duty – and the failure of private enterprise remains even as the state has, in recent decades, retreated from its former role. Grenfell has reminded us, in the most powerful way imaginable, how much we need the state. We need its regulation and oversight to protect us from commercially driven agendas which value profit over people. We need its investment to provide the safe, secure and affordable housing for all that the market never will. And we need its idealism – that aspiration to treat all its citizens equitably and decently which lay at the very heart of the council house building programme which improved the lives of many millions of our citizens from the 1890s.
This is an edited extract from ‘Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing’ published by Verso Books.
Grenfell Tower and the long crisis of social housing | Red Pepper
Perhaps the best response is in poetry.
A year ago, Nigerian writer Ben Okri penned an impassioned poem commissioned by FT Weekend, on the fire:Ben Okri reads Grenfell Tower, June, 2017 - Financial Times
A year ago, Sidmouth resident Mike Temple penned this:
The Marks of
Austerity
written
on the occasion of the fire at Grenfell Tower,
with
a finale from Shelley's “The Mask of Anarchy”
While
I lay sleeping safe in bed
I
knew not how the flames had spread
Up
Grenfell Tower – foam, cladding fed
The
raging fire – so many dead.
Next
night I had a black nightmare -
I
dreamt the Tories didn't care.
I
journeyed back in recent times
And
I dreamt it all in rhymes.
I
saw Austerity on the way -
It had a face like Mrs May.
So
very “strong and stable” she,
Yet
couldn't face much scrutiny.
The
Daily Mail, Express and Sun
Had
told us all the deal was done:
The
“strong and stable” May would be
The
one to make “Our Country free”.
I
saw the “ghastly masquerade”
Of
all the cuts the Tories made:
“Cut
building costs, de-regulate,
Cut
services and cut the State.”
When
bankers got us in a mess
The
Tories cut the NHS,
With
drastic cuts to Education
To
harm the future of the Nation.
Cuts
for the poor, for Social Care -
The
Councils had no cash to spare.
Austerity,
the Skeleton,
“Bowed
and grinned to everyone”,
Said:
“You must pay to pay the debt”
(The
fatcats would get fatter yet).
The
mantra was to “privatise”
(To
help their friends). They told us lies.
Hypocrisy,
like Cam'ron, May,
(“One-nation”
Tories, so they'd say)
Two
smirking ghosts, so slick and sly,
Astride
two crocodiles rode by.
Lo,
Boris, on his battlebus* -
The
Tory Fool - fooled some of us:
Cash
from EU for NHS?
Now
Brexit talks are in a mess.
Along
with these a motley crew,
Hunt,
Fox and Gove and Fallon, too.
Grim
Poverty came in their train -
Victorian
times had come again:
More
homeless people sleeping rough;
Disabled
folk got less than “enough”;
Zero
hours, cut benefits
Left
many folk beside their wits.
Some
nurses, who deserve our thanks,
On
their low pay went to food banks.
The
gap between the rich and poor
Grew
ever wider than before.
The
planning laws served market greed
(Few
houses built for social need)
And
house prices - they reached the sky
So
average-earners couldn't buy.
Those
on low income and the poor
Found
the cost of rent much more,
All
because the Government
Built
so few homes for social rent.
Councils,
starved of cash, did sell
Public
assets, parks as well,
And
the Construction Industry,
All-powerful,
downplayed safety:
“Cut
building costs, de-regulate;
Reduce
the power of the State.”
Tory
landlords, of one will,
Voted
down a housing bill*
To
make rented accommodation
Fit
for human habitation.
Our
Nation holds its head in shame
But
who do you think is to blame?
To
what extent did those in power
Cause
the fire at Grenfell Tower?
But
hear the words of Percy Shelley
On
Peterloo*, fire in his belly;
His
words ring out, a clarion call
To
caring humans, one and all:
“Men
of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes
of unwritten story,
Nurslings
of one mighty Mother,
Hopes
of Her, and one another...
Rise
like Lions after slumber
In
unvanquishable number;
Shake
your chains to earth like dew
Which
in sleep had fall'n on you -
Ye
are many – they are few.”
Footnotes: Boris Johnson and Michael Gove
claimed on their battlebus that £350 million a week would come from the EU to fund the NHS
In 2016 70 Tory
MP landlords voted against the bill to make rented housing fit for human
habitation
The massacre in
1819 by government cavalry in St Peter's Fields, Manchester where a crowd of
60,000 to 80,000 gathered to demand reform of
parliamentary representation
After Grenfell Tower Fire, U.K. Asks: Has Deregulation Gone Too Far? - The New York Times
After Grenfell, regulation must not be a dirty word - The Conversation
The Year the Grenfell Tower Fire Revealed the Lie That Londoners Tell Themselves | The New Yorker
Anger Spreads Over a Divided Society After Grenfell Tower Fire - Bloomberg
Grenfell Tower disaster, a symbol of broken Britain – POLITICO
And a bizarre international connection, according to the Times:
Company behind Grenfell YouTube film has links to Kremlin | News | The Times
Russian TV wanted to stir class unrest after Grenfell | News | The Times
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment