By Kehinde Andrews
A lot has been written about how the appalling tragic fire at Grenfell Tower is crisis of neo-liberalism, the lack of regulation and austerity. All of which is true, but to truly understand the implications of the disaster we must not see it as the result of an accident, mistakes or failures. The discomforting truth is that the horrendous loss of life is the perfect demonstration of the logic of the system we have become accustomed to. Countless people are mourning lost friends and family because the political consensus that has emerged since Thatcherism was designed to produce such a catastrophe. Warnings fell on deaf ears because they were pitched at a frequency policy makers could not pick up. Death in a system set up with total disregard for the lives of the disadvantaged, is simply not preventable. Grenfell Tower is a case of state manslaughter, the embodiment of the workings of Tory Britain. The government may not have intended to kill those who died in the fire, but they are wholly responsible for their deaths. The only way to move on from the tragedy is to bring down the government and political system that created it.
Subscribe to continue reading
Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.