It’s so cowardly to blame firefighters

Like Kevin Maguire (Mirror, July 23), I have been so frustrated and, quite frankly, appalled at the treatment of watch manager Michael Dowden at the Grenfell Tower inquiry. It appears there is an attempt to blame the fire service for what happened that night.

While accepting instructions given to people to stay in their homes was wrong, the fire service did not know about the flammable cladding used during renovations.

Also, remember that residents had complained for over two years about the building but were ignored.

We must not allow the brave men and women of the fire brigade to be made scapegoats.

Sandra Walter, South East London

It wasn’t watch commander Mike Dowden who applied cheap cladding to the tower, putting profit before people. The inquiry is targeting the wrong people. All firefighters are heroes – there aren’t many who would walk in their boots. The disdain those in positions of power have towards people in social housing is nothing short of disgusting. With Grenfell, the failure is laid bare: cuts to valued public services, while giving tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations,` costs lives. Time for change.

Gary Martin East London

Why is so much focus being put on the actions of the firefighters at the Grenfell inquiry, instead of on Kensington and Chelsea Council and the contractors who, between them, ordered, supplied and fitted inferior and flammable materials during the refit?

The fire service is no longer involved in checking the safety of multiple occupancy buildings due to cost cutting and so did not know what they were dealing with.

Meanwhile, the London fire service has lost 10 fire stations in the last few years and with them a great many firefighters’ jobs have also been lost. Cost-cutting again.

Marian Hernes, Sutton, Surrey

Kevin Maguire is right to highlight the buck-passing with regards to the Grenfell firefighters. Sorry, but the Tories are to blame for the Grenfell tragedy with their unnecessary austerity campaign against the poor.

Trying to shift the blame for Grenfell on to the firefighters is an under-handed attempt at a cover-up.

Thomas Wiblin Hebburn, North Tyneside

Firefighters do a dangerous job, putting themselves at risk to save others, a job many of us would not be able to do. They see terrible things most of us simply couldn’t cope with. To blame them is outrageous. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the time the procedure was to tell people to stay in their flats in the event of a fire. You can’t blame the man whose fridge caught fire either. Blame the cladding firm and whoever signed off the safety approvals.

Steve Charles, via Facebook

Sprinkler systems in all highrise buildings has been normal fire service advice and recommendation for many years. Successive governments and councils have ignored that advice. Even after this disaster there still doesn’t seem to be a major change in attitudes.

Colin Harding, via Facebook