Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Those who died at Grenfell Tower were the victims of bad government

Had the Grenfell Tower tragedy befallen one of the millionaire high-rises built along the Thames recently, it would still be a catastrophe that shocked the country and the world. But what makes this disaster so numbing and sickening is to see, in the faces of the dead, some of the most vulnerable people in our society. People who were, in effect, in the care of the state – that is to say, in our collective care. If we pay taxes and vote, we’re part of a system that’s supposed to devote the greatest attention to those in greatest need of government help. And on Tuesday night, dozens of them were killed – through, it seems, near-contemptuous neglect from various layers of government.

Yes, the inquiry must take its course – but that doesn’t give anyone an excuse to dodge questions now. When the inquiry has been completed I suspect we’ll find a simple fact. That the poor and isolated died precisely because they were poor and isolated – and, ergo, voiceless. They had complained, they warned about a major tragedy, they were ignored by a system supposed to be dedicated to them. And I can see why they turned on the media when Jon Snow showed up last night: they had been warning, blogging, begging people to notice that they were the victims of a bad and unresponsive system. But the cameras only turn up when it’s too late.

Those who think this should not be politicised are deluding themselves: you can’t get more political than social housing. The high-rise towers that started to be built in the 1950s had an enviable fire safety record until just a few years ago. One of the great scandals of the post-war years is how this accommodation, that was seen as such a blessing when families like my father’s were first moved into it, decayed so quickly.

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