Sunday People

Uptight May a towering flop

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I’M delighted Britain’s last Dambuster, George “Johnny” Johnson, 96, has got the MBE – although thousands who petitioned for him to be Knighted feel it’s a snub. But modest Johnny doesn’t think he deserved to be a Sir, because he’s “lucky” to have lived so long. I met Johnny 70 years after the fateful night he aimed a BarnesWall­is bouncing bomb on the German Sorpe dam. “The memories are still so vivid,” he told me. “I was in the right crew, in the right place at the right time and I feel honoured to have taken part. “But surviving when so many didn’t come back was pretty shattering. There was an awful lot of loss – on both sides. “When I went back to Germany years later I fully THE acrida stench of death still lingers around Grenfell Tower. It suffusessu­f every fibre of the discarded nightcloth­esnightclo and towels that folk clamped to their fac faces as they fled from hell It impregnate­simp the covers of phones on which desperated relatives heard loved ones pleading for help... then falling silent. And i it clings to the throats of all who stare at that charred tomb in the sky, gaspinggas­pin at the magnitude of loss. TheresaTh May must have tasted it too,too in her 15 minute pit stop. It will have oozed from every porepor of those heroic firefighte­rs whowh ran into the inferno. AndA I’m sure she felt choked, becausebe a visceral reaction is theth only possible response to thisth man-made disaster. A throat-tightening fury. A sickenings­i sense of injustice. A desirede to do something. Like the hundreds who rushedru to the estate with food and clothingcl and, more importantl­y, with empathye and humanity. They brought shoulders to cry on, earse to listen and arms to hug. But our Prime Minister failed the shocked and grieving victims. Because she was unable to look them in the eye and show she cared. Perhaps her advisers really did think it best for her to stay “strong and stable” in Downing Street. Perhaps they feared she’d be lynched – as the personific­ation of uncaring authority rather than being personally responsibl­e.

But I think Mrs May kept away because she is so awkward with ordinary people that she appears shockingly aloof.

I watched her “chatting” to families at a No10 reception, and it was excruciati­ng. Our 91-year-old Queen puts her to shame.

She’s learned the hard way that a grieving public need their leaders to reflect their own feelings at a time of national tragedy.

After Diana’s death 20 years ago HM was lambasted for remaining at Balmoral with her grieving grandsons.

People power brought her back to London to mourn with them.

For the first time in her reign she felt she’d lost touch with her subjects – so she changed.

She still struggles to “emote” like William or Harry, but she asks to meet people when they need her, to show the NATION cares.

Mrs May’s face-saving visits on Friday came too late. The £5million fund for survivors is too little – and angry residents whose safety warnings have been ignored for years see it as blood money.

They smelt political arsecoveri­ng in the air around Grenfell Tower this week.

And that poisonous stench will linger until the day Theresa May resigns.

 ??  ?? DISASTER: Grenfell
DISASTER: Grenfell

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