Grenfell tower

Thursday

Susan Hill

Diary – 6 July 2017

A trip to the supermarché at the beginning of our French month yielded many of the necessary things one also buys at home, but even washing powder acquires romance when sporting a French label, and the fresh fish, meat, veg and wine sections are far bigger than ours, with mountains of lettuce and seven different varieties of tomato. The Carrefour bookshelves also yielded Tintin books which are, like Asterix, best read in French. I bought Tintin et L’Ile Noir, Tintin et La Crabe au Pinces D’or, and my favourite, Tintin et Les Bijoux de Castefiore. The French is simple, the drawings are masterpieces, subtle, witty, full of style and character.

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Why are some on the Left claiming a ‘bonfire on red tape’ led to Grenfell Tower?

Now that Labour councils have been shown to be as much up to their eyeballs in the tower block cladding scandal as Conservatives ones the Left has subtly shifted onto a different target: the ‘neoliberalist’ war on red tape. Writing in the Guardian today, George Monbiot accuses the Government’s Red Tape Initiative – set up to consider which regulations might be reformed once Britain is freed from having to abide by EU directives – of plotting to downgrade building regulations, so as to put the poor at risk while big business increases profits. ‘Red tape,’ he asserts for good measure, is a ‘disparaging term for public protections’.     Let’s leave aside the

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 29 June 2017

Sharon and Tracy MP Darren Jones, the new Labour MP for Bristol North West, says he is proud to be the first person called Darren ever to be elected to Parliament. Other MPs whose first names have been subject to snobbish derision from some quarters: Gary Streeter CON Gavin Newlands SNP Gavin Robinson DUP Gavin Williamson CON Keith Simpson CON Kevan Jones LAB Sir Kevin Barron LAB Kevin Foster CON Kevin Hollinrake CON Lee Rowley CON Michelle Donelan CON Michelle Gildernew SINN FEIN Sharon Hodgson LAB Tracy Brabin LAB Tracey Crouch CON Proletariyurts Jeremy Corbyn told a Glastonbury crowd, ‘Nothing was given from above by the elites and the powerful.

The Spectator

Letters | 29 June 2017

The Tory quagmire Sir: While the media has been preoccupied in divining what went wrong with the Conservatives’ appalling election result, Fraser Nelson (‘What are the Tories for?’, 24 June) neatly perceives some of the more obvious causes. Quite what possessed seemingly intelligent people to come up with so many half-baked ideas that found their way into a poorly thought-through manifesto is beyond comprehension. To witness the volte-faces was truly nauseating and not worthy of a party with such a long and distinguished record in government. The quagmire Mrs May finds herself in bodes poorly for both Brexit and a host of pressing domestic issues. The Tory party have an enviable economic

Wednesday

Tom Goodenough

The wait for answers over Grenfell Tower goes on

The death toll from Grenfell Tower has now risen to 80, with police saying it could be next year before the true number of those who died is finally confirmed. This uncertainty isn’t for a lack of effort on the part of the emergency services; it’s clear that the search and recovery operation is underway in earnest but that conditions inside what’s left of the block are, inevitably, hampering efforts. In the words of Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, the police officer leading the investigation, a scene of ‘utter devastation’ greets rescuers making their way precariously through the remains of the tower block. Yet while the police are right to be

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Theresa May diverts Grenfell blame onto Tony Blair

It was the first PMQs since Mrs May crawled triumphantly back into Downing Street after her humiliating victory in the general election. She has brilliantly disposed of her cumbersome Commons majority – always a drawback to a statesman – and replaced it with a thrillingly unstable parliament and a government characterised by its ruthless indecision and single-minded hesitancy. The genius of Mrs May is to keep her gift for politics so fully concealed that it appears to be non-existent. And the historic alliance she has forged with her despised colleagues in the DUP looks set to endure for a hundred years. Or maybe days. The high-rise crisis dominated the session.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

The clamour for answers over Grenfell Tower is growing fast

Why is it taking the government so long to give even a ballpark figure of the number of people who are missing, presumed dead, in the Grenfell Tower fire? The streets around the disaster site are littered not just with appeals to find missing relatives and friends but also with posters alleging a cover-up and that the true number of dead is much higher than the official figure of 79. Most accept that the destruction caused by the fire makes it extremely difficult to identify many of those who were killed in it. But what is causing frustration among survivors and desperate friends and family is an apparent refusal to

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Every London council faces the challenges of Grenfell Tower

It’s very weird when a friend is in the news. I’ve known Nicholas Holgate for years. Until now, he was Town Clerk for Kensington and Chelsea council. I would say this, but he’s one of the most decent people I know; think rock-solid integrity, think public service. He was in the Treasury for years before moving to the council; central government’s loss, local government’s gain, I thought at the time. And he’s a Liberal Democrat, though he had to sit on that while he worked in government. Anyway, he’s the one person in the fallout from the Grenfell Tower fire who has had to resign in consequence of what happened;

Thursday

Tom Goodenough

How many other blocks like Grenfell Tower are there in Britain?

Theresa May was rightly criticised for her response to the Grenfell Tower blaze. The Prime Minister’s decision not to initially meet survivors or relatives of those killed looked dreadful, and in the days after the fire there was a real risk that what happened was being pinned squarely on the Tories. While it was right to criticise May for her initial failings though, it also seems fair to say that the Prime Minister’s statement this morning was faultless – at least in terms of helping those on the ground in Kensington. Yet her remarks now raise troubling questions about how many other blocks like Grenfell Tower there are across Britain. For

Anthony Horowitz

Diary – 22 June 2017

Five years after I swore I’d finished with him, it’s odd to be back on the road with Alex Rider. It’s also quite confusing. In the 16 years it’s taken me to write the books, Alex has aged just 15 months while I’ve experienced 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, the Arab spring, Brexit, Presidents Obama and Trump, and Theresa May. Until a few months ago, I would have said that life feels much the same in the UK where Alex and I live. But three terrorist attacks, the election and the horrendous fire at Grenfell Tower threaten to tear us apart. Even the queen was heckled when she visited the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

If you’re not tired of London, you’re tired of life

London, city of the damned. City of incendiary tower blocks, jihadi mentals trying to slit your throat, yokels from Somerset up for the day to enjoy a spot of ramming Muslims in a white van. City of Thornberry, Abbott and Corbyn. City of Boris. City of anti-Semitic marches to commemorate Al Quds. City of Isis flags and where, in most boroughs, white British people are a largely resentful minority. City of vacuous liberal platitudes — we all stand together, not in my name. Why would you live there? I would rather live in Gaza, just about. If you are not tired of London by now then you are surely tired

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour and the Lib Dems are as much to blame as the Tories for Grenfell Tower

I haven’t been in Camden this afternoon, so I can’t vouch for there being no marches of activists holding banners with the words ‘Labour Out’ and ‘Corbyn Must Go’, but somehow I doubt there are – and I certainly haven’t seen them on the news. But why not? Last week we saw no end of left-wing activists out on the streets trying to exploit the Grenfell Tower tragedy for their own party political purposes – trying to present it as a case of callous Tories treating the lives of the poor as worthless as they slash their way through budgets with abandon.   Yes, Kensington and Chelsea is a Conservative-controlled borough

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: The dying of the right

On this week’s episode, we look at conservatism’s apparent decline, how society has responded to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and whether young people have had their critical faculties vanquished by a certain boy wizard. First up: This time last year many were wondering whether the left, in Britain and abroad, was in terminal decline. The Brexit vote and Trump’s shock victory seemed only to compound that, and yet, just a few months later, the Spectator now has a cover piece, by Fraser Nelson, declaring that conservatism needs saving. How did we get here? And can anything be done about it? To discuss this, Fraser joined the podcast along with Michael Heseltine. As Fraser writes in

Friday

Tom Goodenough

Grenfell Tower: Theresa May’s ‘Hurricane Katrina’ moment?

We don’t yet know what caused the Grenfell Tower blaze. Yet already one thing is clear: this devastating fire, in which at least 17 people – and possibly many more – lost their lives, should never have happened. Grenfell Tower is turning into Theresa May’s ‘Hurricane Katrina’ moment, says the Guardian, which contrasts Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to meet those affected and his ‘promise to find the truth’ with the Prime Minister’s decision to make no ’contact with the shattered survivors’. May looks ‘off the pace, inarticulate, seemingly uncomprehending – a leader failing the great ordeal by disaster that is the ultimate test,’ the paper argues. The Guardian says this is

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

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Trying to turn Grenfell Tower into a morality tale about the rich and poor stinks

Who would want to be a political leader in the wake of a disaster such as that of Grenfell Tower? If you show up and hug the victims you run the risk of being accused of opportunism and obstructing the emergency services in their work; if you stay away from the site you will be accused of callousness – even if you are spending your time working on the practical issues relating to the event. But there is a very strong emerging narrative: that Jeremy Corbyn got it right by turning up and sharing the grief of the victims, and that Theresa May got it horribly wrong by restricting her

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Angry protesters descend on Kensington Town Hall in the wake of Grenfell Tower blaze

Angry protesters have descended on Kensington Town Hall in the wake of the Grenfell Tower blaze in which at least 30 people lost their lives. People chanted ‘We want justice’ and ‘shame on you’, as several of the demonstrators held a sit-in protest inside the town hall. Chants of ‘Not 17, not 17’ could also be heard, amidst claims from some of those taking part in the protest that the official number of those who died in the blaze was being covered up. Police earlier confirmed the death toll from the fire, which broke out in the early hours of Wednesday morning, had reached 30; there are fears the number of those

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Yes, Grenfell is a scandal. No, Theresa May does not have blood on her hands

“Burn neoliberalism, not people” said Clive Lewis in a tweet showing the skeleton of Grenfell Tower. Odd words from a Labour MP. When asked just what he meant, he explained that his ‘agenda’ is to ‘end not just the current government but Thatcherite economic dogma’. In this way the grief and anger after the Grenfell Tower disaster has been moulded into a march on No10 with chants of ‘May must go’ and ‘blood, blood, blood on your hands’. Just a few days ago, John McDonnell was calling for a protest march in Westminster. Now, he has got one. "Blood on their hands." Posters at the #GrenfellTowerprotest pic.twitter.com/qp9ec8acJz — Damien Gayle

Thursday

Nick Cohen

Grenfell Tower and the politics of needless death

As the body count rose from the Grenfell Tower fire, sensible people warned us not to rush to judgement. Activists, mainly from the left, denounced a complacent housing bureaucracy at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, and a Conservative government, which had refused in its laissez-faire way to regulate rented housing. The warnings sounded sensible. At the time of writing, I still do not know for sure why the fire spread with such ghastly effectiveness. Why rush to judgement and into print? In any case, is there not something wrong with people whose first reaction to a disaster is to take cheap shots? But sensible points can be beside

Will Heaven

Why didn’t Theresa May meet Grenfell Tower survivors?

We can’t yet be sure what caused the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower. Early speculation, some of it expert, some of it not but based on eyewitness testimony, points to the cladding on the outside of the building, which was added during a recent £8.6m makeover. This, it seems, may have turned an ugly but safe concrete tower into a death trap. Nor do we have any idea how many people were killed in the blaze. Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said at 11 a.m. today: ‘Sadly I can confirm the number of people that have died is now 17. We do believe that that number will increase.’ There