Anyone who watched the events unfold at Grenfell Tower in White City, now almost two weeks ago, cannot be more than overcome with the feeling of sheer helplessness. Certainly Kensington and Chelsea Council - the richest borough in the UK - should be pilloried over the non-existent responses made to the helpless; but should it become overtly political?
Glastonbury
The whole ethos of the Glastonbury Festival is the coming together of the tribes in order to make a statement of togetherness and unity through music and the arts against all forms of violence.
Jeremy Corbyn appeared on stage on Saturday afternoon to a rapturous welcome, a hero who still cannot be convinced that he lost the recent general election. He allegedly told Michael Eavis - the Festivals founder, and on whose land it is held - that he would be, "Prime-Minister in six months", adding that he would make "Britain's nuclear deterrent Trident, history," shortly thereafter.
On Sunday he was followed by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell, in a debate with the Green party’s co-leader Jonathan Bartley, and Faiza Shaheen, an economist, on the festival's Left-Field stage. McDonnell railed at the Lords and the obvious privileges that they seem to take for granted, swearing that with the next Labour government they would bring in sweeping changes to how the Upper House was actually run.
Changing tack he then raged against continuing Tory austerity measures, saying that the population as a whole needed to rise up and defeat the draconian policies with any means possible. It was was with his final flood of rage that he made the most impact, saying that the residents of Grenfell Tower, "were murdered by political decisions that were taken over recent decades".
Murder?
Now that is a very contentious statement to make, especially considering that Labour was in government for a goodly proportion of those years. To make Political Capital from the dead, especially when all the facts are yet to be known, is a pretty shabby trick. 79 persons, as far as we know perished in the inferno, although a final death toll may never be known.
Dianne Abbott added insult to injury by claiming on Saturday that the Conservative party themselves were wholly responsible for the disaster "The Tories think people in social housing are second-class citizens. And, as we have seen from Grenfell, they are offering them second-class standards of safety. So, a direct consequence of that, a direct consequence of outsourcing … and a direct consequence of deregulation".
Hang on a minute here. Councils are responsible for building tower blocks, not centralised government. It appears on the surface that they themselves have been duped by the contractors who were trusted to undertake building work of a high safety standard. Blame cannot be put on any group of individuals, and for sure let us not make political capital from human misery.
Pointing the finger is all very well once all the facts are known - but we are a long way from that - then and only then can we take action against those who are culpable. Until then it is all conjecture.
