It’s a bit late to start caring
May has presided over a government culture that puts profit before a safe home for Britain’s poorest She and 311 Tory MPs blocked a new law forcing landlords to ensure property is fit for human habitation
THERESA May visited the site of the Grenfell Tower inferno yesterday and promised a full public inquiry.
Critics said it was too little, too late from the Tories after seven
FURIOUS MPs yesterday branded Grenfell Tower “a man-made disaster” and demanded that the culprits face justice.
As the official death toll rose to 17, with fears it could top 100, Prime Minister Theresa May bowed to pressure and announced a full public inquiry to be led by a senior judge.
But the move did little to cool growing outrage over the horrific deaths of so many families in the council flats.
Labour MP Mary Creagh said: “We’ve been talking about this as though it’s an act of God but it wasn’t some natural disaster. “It was a man-made disaster.” Her colleague David Lammy, who has a close friend among the missing, described the inferno as “corporate manslaughter”.
He pointed the finger at Tory-run Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council and called for people to be held to account. He said: “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way. We should call it what it is. It is corporate manslaughter.
“There should be arrests made. It is an outrage.”
Lammy’s friend Khadija Saye, 24, and her mother Mary Mendy have been missing since the fire.
MPs demanded answers from the council, and the arms-length housing agency who ran the flats, about why residents’ repeated demands for better fire safety had been ignored.
And they slammed the Tories for failing to act for seven years on a report calling for new safety measures after a lethal 2009 fire at another London block.
Ministers have denied “sitting on” the report on the Lakanal House fire, where six people died, but nothing has been done about its findings.
Experts believe there could be some similarities between the Lakanal House tragedy and what happened at Grenfell Tower. Both were renovated before going up in flames.
May announced the public inquiry after visiting the scene, where she spoke to fire service commanders but did not meet local people.
She said: “The way this fire spread was rapid, ferocious, unexpected. So it is right that, in addition to the immediate fire report and any potential police investigation, we have a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of this.”
Downing Street said a senior judge would be appointed soon to lead it.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and London mayor Sadiq Khan also visited the scene. They spoke to residents.
Corbyn returned to Westminster and
said: “I feel very, very angry. The residents are angry. Their concerns were not responded to.
“Hard questions have to be answered. Something, be it regulations or something else, has failed.”
Eddie Daffarn of the Grenfell Action Group warned in a blog last year that the tower was a fire risk and a “catastrophic event” waiting to happen. He escaped death in the blaze by seconds.
He said yesterday: “We knew this could happen but it didn’t have to. We wrote about this, the authorities read it and chose to do nothing, and people have paid with their lives.”
Scotland Yard’s Homicide and Major Crime Command are leading police inquiries at Grenfell Tower, as they always do in major disasters. Specialist officers will try to identify the dead using fingerprints, DNA and dental records.
Eleven bodies have so far been counted in the flats but cannot be recovered safely.
Six bodies were found outside. They are believed to be people who jumped, or children whose parents threw them from the flames to try to save them.
Police Commander Stuart Cundy fears there are many more victims. He said: “I hope it is not triple figures but I can’t be drawn on the numbers.”
He fears some residents born outside the UK may never be formally identified because they did not have dental or DNA records here.
The horrific task of recovering all the dead could take weeks or months.
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cundy said “a good half ” of the tower had yet to be searched in detail and “a large amount of building work” would be required inside to make it safe enough for her officers to work.
“The upper floors will be more challenging,” she added. “They will need some additional shoring up.”
For now, the fire brigade are sending sniffer dogs into the tower to find corpses. Cundy said: “They are much lighter than people and can cover a greater area in a very short time.
“I anticipate we will be on the scene here for many days to come, working to ensure we do the best for the people who are waiting for news of their loved ones.”
Thirty people injured in the fire remained in hospital and 15 were fighting for life. All have been reunited with their families.
The Fire Brigades Union called for more counselling services for their members to help them cope with what they faced during the blaze.