The Grenfell Tower fire
At least 79 people have now been listed as dead or presumed dead as a result of the inferno that ravaged Grenfell Tower last week. Britain’s worst fire disaster in decades is thought to have been started by a faulty fridge in a fourth-floor flat of the social housing block. The blaze rapidly engulfed the 24-storey building, trapping residents inside.
The emergency services were praised for their reaction, but there was widespread anger and several protests over the lack of support from the authorities ( see page 22). Responsibility for the relief effort was taken from Kensington and Chelsea Council – much criticised for failing to distribute aid and ensure homeless families were rehoused locally – and given to a task force led by chief executives from councils across London. Theresa May was vilified for failing to meet victims on her first visit to the site, and booed and heckled on a subsequent one. The PM pledged £5,500 in relief funds to each family who had lost their home, and announced a public inquiry. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for empty properties in the area to be requisitioned as emergency accommodation.
What the editorials said
“The horrific images of people signalling for help at the windows of the blazing Grenfell Tower will remain imprinted on our collective memory long after the demolition of its charred remains,” said The Observer. How shameful that this could have happened. We live in a wealthy society that knows how to make buildings fireproof and has the money to do so. Yet we left these residents vulnerable. This looks like “May’s ‘Hurricane Katrina’ moment”, said The Guardian. Like that disaster, which stained the presidency of George W. Bush, it has exposed how the concerns of the poor go ignored, and shown up Theresa May’s inadequate leadership.
Horrors on this scale have been “mercifully rare” in the UK since the 1980s, said The Times. Officials have a lot to answer for. They must explain why Grenfell’s residents were advised, disastrously, to stay in their flats rather than flee, and why officials ignored repeated warnings about the building. The public inquiry into the fire must be carried out quickly and lead to action. It should be modelled on the Taylor inquiry into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, which produced a preliminary report within three months and led to the swift reconfiguration of most of the UK’S football grounds.
What the commentators said
Many of the failings that helped produce this tragedy are already clear, said Janice Turner in The Times. “And, by God, it looks bad for the Conservatives.” We know that Kensington and Chelsea borough, one of the richest in the land, ignored residents’ pleas “that their home was a firetrap”. We know that the former housing minister Gavin Barwell, “just appointed – with grim timing – as May’s chief of staff”, sat on a review of fire regulations, promised after the 2009 Lakanal House tragedy. And we know ministers ignored the Lakanal coroner’s advice that sprinklers be installed in old towers. The Government’s attitude was that public safety could reasonably be “left to the free market”. So much for that idea. Grenfell Tower, said Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, is “a big, ugly, smoking symbol of the Tories’ callous lies”.
Critics have been too quick to blame austerity and deregulation for this disaster, said Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph. We still don’t know for sure what caused the inferno, but the early signs are that it wasn’t the result of binning rules so much as of failing to update them. As for the idea that the council was penny-pinching, its recent refurbishment of Grenfell cost more than £70,000 per flat, which is considerably more than some other comparable renovations. What is clear is that individuals somewhere along the line made “negligent, corrupt or incompetent decisions”. We must hold them accountable – and the best way to do that is by calmly scrutinising the evidence, “not by engaging in a febrile, ideological war of words”.
People’s rage about this fire is understandable, said Sam Leith in the London Evening Standard, but it has taken on a slightly “ugly” edge. While it might feel right, morally, that the vacant houses of wealthy property investors should be seized for the benefit of the homeless, such arbitrary action would take us into tricky territory. “We need to change the laws, not break them.” The far-left is exploiting the sense of outrage over this fire, said Fraser Nelson in The Spectator, by holding protests and calling for the Tories to be ousted. “Corbyn’s allies are ready; the Conservatives are not. As one of the protesters said, it’s going to be a long summer.”