This Terrible Fire: A Point Of No Return

If it is possible to imagine something worse than screaming families being burnt alive in a raging tower block inferno, this Blog cannot think of it. The whole country is transfixed with shock and dismay that something which all thought was impossible, has happened. But following upon the desire to help, contribute, shelter and comfort which flows down to North Kensington from every corner of the British Isles, there is a rising tide of anger. Anger that this did not need to happen.

Anger that repeated entreaties from residents that something should be done to deal with obvious fire risks were ignored by authorities at every level. Anger that parliamentary warnings to ministers to regulate standards of refurbishment which have a lower bar than building standards, were ignored by this Tory government. Anger that never ending austerity and cuts to local authority funds have meant poor supervision and inspection. Anger that contractors and others directly responsible for this unprecedented calamity are hiding behind compliance with regulations to justify the institutional manslaughter of innocents.

For it is a fact beyond denial, widely filmed and witnessed, that a building said to be constructed of fireproof boxes designed to ensure fire could not spread and which, like others, had for years stood secure in this belief, after a refurbishment carried out by a cash strapped council using bargain basement contractors, one of which has already gone bust, became a flaming torch, an upward raging firestorm, burning from within and without, incinerating an unknown number of residents in the greatest domestic horror seen here since World War Two.

Inquiry will reveal guilt. For the guilty a day of reckoning will come. For the bereaved their suffering will never end. For those who, helpless, witnessed terrible scenes, those images will never go.

As for austerity and its clammy outriders, a small state, light touch regulation, outsourcing, cuts and toothless quangos, the day of reckoning is now.

It is over.