It’s now a full three months since the Grenfell Tower began to burn, killing 80 residents, and leaving around 250 households in temporary accommodation. The images from the blaze dominated news bulletins across the globe.
As details were pieced together and the residents’ stories were told, heartbreaking possibilities emerged: that the atrocity could easily have been avoided if concerns had been addressed, if construction supply chains had been different, if any of the myriad decisions surrounding the running and upkeep of the tower had altered.
Even while the blaze continued to race through the building, new problems emerged: the response from politicians both locally and nationally was inadequate and often, they simply weren’t there. The local authority seemed to have no capacity for emergency planning. The Red Cross later admitted Kensington and Chelsea council could have done more. Accommodation was crowded, and a number of residents were sleeping on floors or in one case, a park, before they were finally placed in cramped and crowded hotel rooms. As soon as the inquiry into the fire was announced, the narrow scope immediately led survivors and bereaved friends and relatives to fear it had the potential to be a whitewash.
In the immediate aftermath, many compared the catastrophe to Hurricane Katrina and the Hillsborough disaster. Both analogies make sense: Katrina was so devastating because the United States was unprepared, and the infrastructure was inadequate and response too slow because of racial and economic inequality.
The citizens of New Orleans were less valued in the land of the free, because they were poor, because they were black, because their lives were so different to those of the moneyed ruling class. Regards Grenfell Tower, the residents of the Lancaster West estate felt ignored, sidelined and abused because they lived in the richest boroughs of the country, but for the most part, were not as wealthy as their neighbours. At Hillsborough, allegations of cover ups and establishment collusion meant families have had to wait decades for justice and had to fight tooth and nail to be heard while their loved ones were slandered and maligned in death. Again, the working class were treated horrifically, and the battle for the truth was entirely uphill.
In North Kensington, no one expects justice to be easily won: it will be the result of dogged persistence and a collective fight for both change and an admission by many authority figures that they have failed people so utterly that dozens of lives have been carelessly lost and hundreds more scarred irreparably.
That Grenfell Tower happened at all is the result of a society that has ceased to function properly, that cannot house people safely and cannot respond and protect them when the very worst happens. The hollowing out of the state has been a core feature of Britain since the 1980s, as the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and New Labour have been slashing funding for infrastructure, basic services and local government, and selling off and outsourcing anything that isn’t nailed down, and much that figuratively was thought to be.
The social contract has been broken for years: the residents of Grenfell Tower endured that in a very public manner that was impossible to ignore. Across the country, many more people are at risk of having their life chances greatly diminished. Growth in life expectancy has stalled, the housing crisis has left millions homeless, struggling to afford rent, or living in appalling conditions. Our politicians shifted further and further away from the public, and little heed was paid to the detrimental effects on the lives of the majority of Britons, with schools, hospitals, the housing system and our emergency services all showing symptoms of the rot.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick has opened the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. It will be narrow, and it is unlikely anyone burned out of their home will feel full peace at the conclusion. One enquiry is not enough, nor are several likely to deliver the outcome needed to bring closure after the disaster. What is needed is a wholesale reappraisal and overhaul of our society, and how politicians, business and the media interact with, serve and represent the people. Many uncomfortable facts have to be addressed, and the culture of power needs upending if the people are to be rightly served by the political system, rather than subject to neglect and contempt.
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