The Grenfell inquiry
Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire this week threatened to boycott a public inquiry into the blaze in protest at the appointment of its chairman. Residents claimed that Sir Martin Moore-bick, 70, a retired Court of Appeal judge and commercial law specialist, could not be trusted: he had once ruled in favour of Westminster City Council when it attempted to relocate a tenant 50 miles away, a decision described at the time as “social cleansing of the poor”. Critics also demanded assurances that the inquiry would cover more than just the immediate cause of the fire and the adequacy of safety measures.
The Conservative leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council gave in to mounting pressure and resigned his post. Nick Paget-brown said he had to accept responsibility for the council’s “perceived failings” over the fire, in which at least 80 people were killed. His deputy, Rock FeildingMellen, also stood down.
What the editorials said
Even by its own “flat-footed” standards, this was a bad week for Kensington and Chelsea, said The Independent. After its disastrous mishandling of the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, it chose to exclude the press from its cabinet meeting to discuss the issue. Compounding its folly, it then abandoned the meeting when the High Court ruled that journalists must be admitted. Small wonder that Downing Street apparently leaned on PagetBrown to stand down. But resignations are not enough, said The Guardian. As Labour suggests, commissioners should now be appointed to take over the running of the council. Tory councillors “patently cannot fulfil” their duties.
But if you want the Grenfell Tower inquiry to succeed, lay off the chairman, said The Daily Telegraph. Labour MP David Lammy has publicly attacked the decision to appoint a “white, upper-middle-class man”. Such criticism risks undermining the inquiry even before it starts, and only serves to reinforce public fears of a cover-up. In any case, a judge should be measured by his “expertise”, not by his class or skin colour.
What the commentators said
The council leaders deserve their fate, said Simon Heffer in The Sunday Telegraph. PagetBrown’s attempt to bar the press from last week’s meeting, on the grounds that their presence might prejudice the public inquiry, was “worthy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia”. And as chair of the housing committee, Feilding-mellen was guilty of making dangerous economies: leaked emails reveal that a plan to use fireproof zinc cladding at Grenfell was altered to save just £293,000. Actually, Kensington and Chelsea is, by and large, “a good local authority”, said Simon Jenkins in the London Evening Standard. “Its streets are clean, its rubbish collected.” Its low-rise council estates “are among the best designed and best kept I know”. Nor is it unique in its failure to ensure the safety of tower blocks: 51 other councils used the same cladding, and 41 towers in London have failed fire tests. What was unforgiveable, however, was the appalling response to the tragedy. “The failure was in the nature of its leadership.”
But the wider issue is the gross deficiencies of the regulatory system as a whole, said Jolyon Maugham in The Guardian. The emphasis on value for money encourages council officials to put financial considerations above all others, and to favour lower standards of building inspection. Supervision of outsourced work seems seriously deficient. Moore-bick has let it be known his inquiry will focus largely on “what went wrong on the night”; but if the wider issues aren’t addressed, Grenfell residents should boycott it. It’s not just local authorities that must shoulder the blame, said Nick Ross in the Daily Mail. For 15 years, I’ve led a campaign to have sprinklers fitted as a matter of course in social housing. Despite intensive lobbying, not a single minister from any political party showed an interest: as long as the annual number of fire deaths continued to fall, they saw no reason to. The bald truth, as the Grenfell Tower fire demonstrates, is that we “have to be shocked out of complacency”.
What next?
After meeting survivors of the fire, Moore-bick suggested that the terms of reference of his inquiry be widened, and the Government has hinted that they may be. It has also ordered a task force to take over the Kensington and Chelsea housing department, as well as other council operations.
A police probe is now looking at whether there are grounds to bring charges of corporate manslaughter, or corporate homicide. Once the inquiry has indicated who is responsible for the fire, survivors and relations of the victims may also choose to bring civil claims.