Justice necessarily involves the apportion of blame, but in the case of the Grenfell tower catastrophe, there is so much liability to go around it seems impossible that the bereaved will ever feel they have had full redress.
The inquiry’s final report, published yesterday, is an astonishing catalogue of error at every level. Governments stretching back to 1991 ignored warnings about flammable materials on high-rise buildings. Manufacturers were “systematically dishonest” in marketing cladding materials they knew to be unsafe, and they got away with it because oversight bodies handed out certificates without proper supervision.
But this is not just a case of failures in the system or deficiencies in our wider approach to housing and construction; part of the problems were specific to Grenfell, too. The local council oversaw a Tenant’s Management Organisation that had “lost sight of the fact that the residents were people who depended on it for a safe and decent home”. That TMO manipulated procurement processes to appoint an architect that demonstrated a “cavalier attitude to… fire safety” to refurbish the tower. Even if building regulations had been up to scratch, “none of those involved in the design of the external wall or the choice of materials acted in accordance with the standards of a reasonably competent person in their position.”
And while firefighters showed extraordinary bravery on the night of the blaze, their leaders were complacent, reluctant to modernise their practices and seemingly unable to offer adequate training to those on the frontline.
This report demands decisive action and the many individuals and organisations responsible must be held to account. This includes properly compensating the victims, including those still trapped living in buildings with dangerous cladding. It also requires humble reflection on the fractal weaknesses − repeated in layer after layer of bad decision making − that caused this disaster. London may be one of the wealthiest, best regulated and well integrated cities in the world, but too often our sense of comfort or superiority crumbles in contact with reality. We are not as capable as we think we are.
In remembering the 72 lives lost, we should consider that the most significant culprits in the case of their avoidable deaths were incompetence, buck passing, dishonesty and recklessness. That this combination of inadequacies could coexist for so long should shame us all.