IN THE 1990s Tory grandee Lord Heseltine declared that his
party would make “a bonfire of red tape” – getting rid of rules and regulations
that hindered maximum profit-making and including health and safety
regulations.
In 2009 Boris Johnson, as mayor of London,
declared that “safety fears” were “making the UK safe for extremely stupid
people”.
And in 2011 the then Prime Minister David
Cameron said: “I will kill off safety culture; we need to realise, collectively,
that we cannot eliminate risk and that some accidents are inevitable.”
On Wednesday morning 14th of
June we saw the terrible consequences of their endeavours as the giant Grenfell
tower block in Kensington became a flaming inferno in a very short time,
because in a cheap cosmetic ‘renovation’ two years ago it had been fitted with
flammable plastic and aluminium cladding. This type of cladding has been
involved in several fatal fires and is now banned in many countries.
The block was owned by the Royal Borough
of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), but control and administration had been
outsourced to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO)
who supposedly manage all social housing in RBKC on the Council’s behalf.
Responsibility for fire safety inspections
was also transferred to KCTMO from the fire brigade as Boris Johnson was making
drastic cuts to the London Fire Service.
Tenants had complained for years, over and
over again, about fire safety issues and dangerous electrical surges that
destroyed some of their appliances. They formed the Grenfell Action Group (GAG)
and ended up being threatened with arrest if they did not stop “harassing” the
council and its agents.
“All our warnings fell on deaf ears
and we predicted that a catastrophe like this was inevitable and just a matter
of time,” they said.
The fire that started it all was a small
one in a kitchen, which the fire brigade dealt with quickly. They were packing
up ready to go when they noticed that the cladding on the outside of the
building had caught alight.
From there it quickly turned into the
worst fire disaster in Britain since the Blitz. No one is certain about the
total number of deaths. The media are giving an estimated number of 79, but
local residents and survivors say that the figure is much higher. Firefighters
were unable to reach the top eight floors of the 24-storey building and
informal estimates of those still missing are in the hundreds.
Since the fire, both the RBKC and KCTMO
have effectively gone into hiding. It has been left to local charities,
churches and mosques to provide emergency accommodation for survivors. Local
residents and retailers rallied round at once providing much-needed bottled
drinking water, food, clothing, toiletries and other necessities for those who
had nothing but their nightwear.
They waited in vain for council officials
to turn up to arrange accommodation and help, until eventually neighbouring
local authorities stepped in to the breach. Kensington and Chelsea is the
richest borough in the country, but it has totally failed its low income
tenants and seems to be paralysed.
The survivors, friends and neighbours
descended on the town hall in a rage rarely seen in Britain to demand justice
for the victims – but rather than come out and meet them the council boarded up
its building and hid.
In the same way, Prime Minister Theresa
May has seemed afraid to meet the angry bereaved. The newly elected Labour MP Emma Dent
Coad and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn visited the scene and were able
to bring some genuine comfort and sympathy to the survivors.
Corbyn has demanded that empty luxury
properties in the borough bought purely as investments should be commandeered
to house those who have lost their homes but May has rejected the idea out of
hand.
The survivors desperately need to be
rehoused within the borough and close together. They have a terrible process to
go through in coming to terms with the tragedy and they will be able to comfort
each other as no outsiders could. Yet they fear the council will use the
opportunity to rehouse them far away, all around the country.
The firefighters too – who had to make
terrible decisions about who to save and who to leave; who gave over their own
breathing apparatus to victims on the verge of death and risked their own lives
– will be haunted for life by the horror and they need help. But the London
Fire Service has cut its counsellors down to just two.
The union Unite has promised to provide
legal assistance for all survivors seeking justice. The union had many members
living in that block.
We must demand that the council and its
agents come out of hiding and face the survivors and the bereaved in court. We
must also demand the Government fund local authorities throughout Britain to
remove that fatal cladding from tower blocks wherever it is in place and fit
sprinklers and fire alarms into all tower blocks.
