Contempt for families

THE fact that high-rise housing blocks are systematically failing basic fire checks ordered after the Grenfell Tower inferno tells us working people are not valued and successive governments have failed families.

It is damning evidence of years of official indifference that the first 60 of 600 blocks tested were deemed unsafe. And the mistakes continue – in the past few days, insulation wasn’t analysed at the same time as cladding.

We owe it to the victims to get to the bottom of why flammable materials were used on tower blocks, so this never happens again.

It will be inconceivable, when the death toll is 79, if individuals, companies and public bodies do not face manslaughter charges.

This must be a turning point in our politics. This must be the end of the cost-cutting and deregulating ideology that has treated poorer people with criminal contempt. Safe, secure housing is a basic right for everyone.