Grenfell Tower fire was preventable

Official answers as to who and what was responsible will have to wait for the criminal investigation, inquest and inquiry to come. But it does not take an inquiry to expose the shameful truth about Grenfell Tower. These were preventable deaths. We are a rich society that created remedies for diseases once thought incurable and invented the worldwide web. We know how to make housing decent, safe and fireproof and have the money to do so. The negligence that led to dozens of men, women and children, many of them poor, many of them migrants, burning to death must forever be a stain on our conscience.

It falls to our leaders to articulate this sense of shame. Yet the prime minister has failed to demonstrate the compassion and empathy she surely feels in the face of the fury of desperate relatives still missing their loved ones. This matters. It is beyond belief that her response to this tragedy has been to evade even the most general questions about accountability by woodenly recounting lists of government actions. It is becoming untenable for her to claim she is in charge of the nation.

But the woeful response goes way beyond what Theresa May has left unsaid. Even more shocking is what has been left undone by the government and the local council. It took almost 72 hours just to announce the parameters of an aid package for the fire’s victims.

There have been conflicting messages from the government and the council as to whether residents will be rehoused within the borough. Local relief efforts have been spearheaded by faith and community groups and members of the public have responded with generous donations.

It’s impossible to look at the shocking tragedy of Grenfell Tower and not conclude that the lives of those who lived in that tower block have been lost in an unimaginably cruel and unnecessary way. /London, June 18.