Gandhi’s killer is more loveable than his victim: The Father and the Assassin reviewed

Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on 14 June 2017. The abandoned block stands, like a cenotaph, a few minutes’ walk from the social club where the show is presented.

The local council never cared much for Grenfell’s 120 families. Plans to destroy the tower and expand the estate – with higher rents, of course – had long been under discussion. A one-bedroom flat in west London goes for half a million pounds so there were profits galore to be made. ‘A gold mine for the council,’ said one developer, ‘and they don’t even have to dig for gold.’ The block was administered by a TMO, or ‘tenant management organisation’, whose staff were as arrogant as Napoleon and as intelligent as the Tellytubbies. They bullied the residents over matters unrelated to fire safety. New boilers were installed and the TMO insisted that they be sited in hallways, not in kitchens. Residents who objected were threatened with eviction. When the occupants formed a fight-back committee, the TMO complained of ‘defamation and harassment’ and consulted their lawyers. Two Grenfell residents whom the council had threatened with legal action died in the fire.

The cause of the blaze itself is usually ascribed to a wonky fridge-freezer. Which sounds a bit odd. How could an ice-cooler burst into flames and torch a skyscraper? The truth is that electrical surges were commonplace. ‘My computer literally exploded,’ said one resident. The investigation into the dodgy wiring reaches to the heart of the disaster: dilution of responsibility.

Too many bodies were entangled in overlapping webs of authority. An investigation into the electrical surges was conducted by fire experts but they didn’t publish the report.