Residents: Inquiry judge the least of our worries

FORMER Grenfell residents cast doubt yesterday on claims they want the retired judge leading the inquiry sacked.

Labour MPs, left-wing lawyers and self-appointed pressure groups have claimed fire survivors object to sir Martin MooreBick because he is an out of touch technocrat.

But five who were contacted by the Mail all said their main concern was being rehoused. None said sir Martin was currently an issue for them.

Christabel Castro said: ‘I have had no time to form an opinion because I am desperately trying to get a new home.’

Rita tankarian said the inquiry was the least of her worries while Mouna El Ogbani said she would consider the issue in the future. two others had been unaware of the inquiry. Comment – Page 14

AFTER two weeks holiday abroad, I return to find a country gripped by a kind of mob hysteria, encouraged by a Labour leadership which is shedding every last pretence that it’s not part of the Hard Left.

It is a country in which it is apparently all right for protesters to refer to Tories as ‘scum’ — even though more than 13.6 million of these contemptible people democratically elected the Government four weeks ago.

A country in which all virtue is supposed to exist on the Left, and in which a leading current affairs broadcaster, Jon Snow, can reportedly shout ‘F*** the Tories’ without being required to explain himself, far less resign.

Insinuation

And it must be said that the Government appears dazed and fractious while it impotently watches as prominent Labour figures and garrulous members of Justice4Grenfell make outrageous and offensive statements following the appalling tragedy of the fire.

The latest shocking intervention concerns Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the 70-year- old retired senior judge appointed chairman of the inquiry into its causes. According to his Leftist detractors, he is unsuited to the vital task to which he has been entrusted.

Justice4Grenfell — none of whose key organisers was resident in Grenfell Tower — has written to Theresa May saying it is withdrawing its support for the public inquiry until Sir Martin is removed from his post. His only ‘crime’, it seems, is being white, male and of relatively advanced years.

Now I hold no brief for Sir Martin, of whom I had never heard until a few days ago. I also think it is perfectly in order to criticise senior judges if they overreach themselves. But it cannot be right to demand the resignation of an experienced judge who hasn’t even begun his investigation. He’s clearly intelligent, and knowledgeable in the law of contract. If anyone can untangle the overlapping responsibilities of the 60 firms involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, it’s him.

Sir Martin has also claimed the catastrophe was of a type he was ‘very familiar with as a judge’, having dealt with disasters on sea and land.

Such a person, of course, would never appeal to nihilist revolutionaries. No surprise, then, that this well-mannered and apparently decent judge should not find favour with Justice4Grenfell’s Ismahil Blagrove, who after the fire said: ‘I want there to be a revolution in this country.’

There’s no appeasing such people — nothing that could ever conceivably satisfy Sue Caro, a devoted Corbynista who is also a member of Justice4Grenfell. She recently posted on Twitter the lunatic contention that Adolf Hitler was ‘inspired by U.S. racist laws’, which explains America’s ‘guilty conscience and support for Israel’.

But I can think of no time in our history when democratically elected members of the Labour Party would have joined in with such relish in the denigration of a judge purely on the basis of where he came from. Why, with his well-cut suit and tie, he might almost be a dreaded Tory!

First we had the black Labour MP David Lammy, who I never had down as an extremist. Indeed, he always seemed to me rather sensible. No longer. A few days ago, he said a ‘white upper-middle class man’ shouldn’t have been chosen to head the inquiry. That it was a ‘shame’ a woman or ethnic minority judge could not be found.

The implication is that because Sir Martin happens to be male and white, he is incapable of sympathising with the many non- white victims of the fire and their families. Surely this is narrowminded and patronising.

And bigoted, too. If a white Conservative politician ran down a black judge — saying it was a pity he wasn’t white — there would be an outcry, and rightly so. But it’s evidently allowable to daub racist and class warfare slogans all over a white judge who went to Cambridge.

From Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington, we’ve had the insinuation — widely proclaimed in the street by Tory-hating activists — that a man of Sir Martin’s background can’t entertain normal human feelings.

This is what Miss Dent Coad ( who has never met Sir Martin) said: ‘How anybody like that could have any empathy for what these people have been through, I just don’t understand.’ In truth, the grammar school- educated judge was not especially privileged by birth. But in Miss Dent Coad’s mind he is, and that must make him inhumane and unfeeling. Another instance of class war and Torybashing, though of course he may not be a Tory at all.

Confidence

Perhaps most shocking of all were the remarks of Chris Williamson, the recently appointed shadow fire services minister, who has called on Sir Martin to stand down because he lacks the confidence of residents.

But does he? Mr Williamson admits he hasn’t actually spoken to any of them. The people with whom he has doubtless had innumerable pow-wows are the members of Justice4Grenfell — some, perhaps many, of whom are politically motivated. Whether they speak for the vast majority of the surviving residents may be seriously doubted.

If I had been in any way caught up in the fire, far more if any members of my family had died in it, I would want to know who was responsible for this awful disaster. I would also want the inquiry to make recommendations to avert a similar tragedy.

My bet is this is exactly what most of the residents hope for. In fact, it’s rather more than a bet since five Grenfell survivors contacted by this newspaper yesterday said that the identity of the person running the inquiry was not currently an issue for them.

Survivors must surely want a chairman with experience of sifting huge amounts of evidence (some of it given by representatives of organisations which may have much to hide), and the ability to draw lucid and sympathetic conclusions.

Pressure

There is every reason to believe Sir Martin MooreBick possesses all of these qualities. He was, moreover, selected for this onerous task from dozens of experienced judges by the Lord Chief Justice, who is no fool.

I would be very surprised if Sir Martin were unaffected by all the brickbats being thrown at him. He may be saying to himself that at the age of 70, after a busy and fulfilling life, he has no wish to foist himself on people who don’t want him. The inquiry must look to him like a bed of nails.

Yet I fervently hope he doesn’t stand down. I also trust that our dispirited Government is not contemplating putting pressure on him to resign in response to rabble-rousing by the Left.

Over recent weeks, we have heard the shadow chancellor John McDonnell describe those responsible for the tragedy of Grenfell Tower as murderers, and call on one million people to take to the streets to oust a democratically elected Prime Minister.

And now the Labour Left, though not yet Jeremy Corbyn himself, is agitating to remove a distinguished judge who wishes only to serve the public.

What a divided and unhappy country Britain is at the moment. How full of hate and bile. If Sir Martin is driven out before he has even started, it will be another victory for the stirring mob.