The state failures that led to the Grenfell Tower fire

This month, five years after the Grenfell Tower fire and four years after the inquiry began, ministers will finally be called to account for the government’s failure to prevent the awful fire.

Four former Conservative ministers and one Liberal Democrat will be cross examined – with the inquiry focusing on the years following the Lakanal House fire, which killed six in south London in 2009.

But the evidence heard in recent weeks – from former civil servants and representatives of organisations which advise government on fire safety – has already exposed what looks and sounds like a monstrous abdication of the state’s duty to protect the lives of its citizens.

The story which has emerged begins in 1991 with a fire at Knowsley Heights, a tower block in Merseyside. Knowsley had been clad with a system not unlike the one later used on Grenfell Tower under a government pilot scheme to test the emerging technology as a solution to the rising problem of damp and cold in the country’s aging housing stock.