A sensitive start
FROM the moment he was appointed as chairman of the Grenfell Tower inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick has been under attack from the baying Left.
He was deemed ‘too white and too middleclass’ to understand the realities of life in a multicultural urban tower block, called an insensitive ‘ technocrat’ who lacked compassion for the grieving families and branded an establishment stooge.
Less than 24 hours after he was selected, Corbynista MP Emma Dent Coad called for him to be removed and replaced by ‘someone we can trust’ – in other words someone who subscribes to her party’s anti-austerity agenda and blames ‘Tory cuts’ for the Grenfell deaths.
Yet through all the sound and fury, Sir Martin has stuck resolutely to his task. True, it’s early days but he seems to be slowly gaining the respect of those affected by this grotesque tragedy.
Setting aside the first two weeks for victims to tell their harrowing stories proved to be a shrewd move. No-one could fail to be moved by those intensely personal memories and allowing them to be told at length has had a remarkably cathartic effect.
It enabled the real forensic work of the inquiry – identifying how this catastrophe was allowed to happen, who was to blame and ensuring it could never be repeated – to begin yesterday in relative calm, rather than in the atmosphere of confrontation.
Yesterday’s evidence was sobering, and indeed horrifying. But the inquiry must sift through these often distressing facts with cold precision. As a former High Court judge, this has long been Sir Martin’s job. For the sake of the victims and their families, let’s hope he’ll now be allowed to get on and do it. AS a footballer, Gary Lineker was topclass. As a political analyst, he’s a complete dunce. By equating corruption in Russia – a gangster state where oppression and murder are facts of everyday life and most of the wealth is in the hands of oligarchs – and in Britain, he showed a level of ignorance yesterday that was both breathtaking and offensive. Perhaps in future, he should stick to talking about football and advertising crisps?