Seven years ago, the worst high-rise fire in British history in Grenfell Tower cost the lives of 72 people.
Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian
‘Today’s report should make you angry. People died horribly and futures were wrecked because of ideology, neglect and greed.’
Profit was put ahead of safety, security and people’s lives
What mattered most was the maximisation of profits, minimisation of costs, the highest returns to the shareholders and the most jaw-dropping bonuses for the CEOs, where safety, morality, ethics, kindness, empathy, and concern for humanity and environment meant nothing.
In 2014, the former prime minister, David Cameron, proudly announced that his government had stopped ‘needless health and safety inspections’
Chris Riddell Via The Observer
‘Firms chased profits, ministers sat on their hands, innocents paid with their lives.’
‘…the broken political philosophy of the neoliberal state: ‘a state that stepped back and allowed a ruthless, dishonest industry to regulate itself.’-Peter Apps, author of Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen.
Neoliberalism and their worship of ‘Deregulation’! It is so tragic that in Britain they proclaimed this as “a bonfire of regulations” and they got it, so horribly, so tragically in Grenfell Tower.
Lest we forget: In a speech on 27 January 2014, David Cameron, the architect of inhumanity (Austerity and Brexit Referendum) said: “We’ve now identified those 3,000 regulations that we’re going to scrap and we have already got rid of 800 of them.”
‘Once again, the nation is coping with the disastrous consequences of a dysfunctional state and a corresponding public philosophy – one that states that deregulated markets work better than public initiative. Under this bleak worldview, public regulation is, a priori, bad.
‘It was this state and philosophy that together delivered a building safety ecosystem – and culture – producing Britain’s worst peacetime fire, whose lethal origins and outcome were so graphically described in last week’s report of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster. Dysfunctional national and local government, feeble regulators and amoral businesses, it declares, were jointly responsible for the avoidable catastrophe that led to 72 deaths.’- Will Hutton
Lest We Forget
The inhumanity and criminality of the Tories 'Bonfire of Regulations’ was not limited to the planning, construction, and building industries. It was to everything. For example to the NHS, Justice Department, Railways, Water and Sewage, and Education, to name but a few.
Below are reflections on what the demagogues and free-market zealots have done to the NHS and the Justice Department. To highlight this, let us look at a reflection of a GP and professor of addiction medicine, at University of Edinburgh on what the ‘Bonfire’ has meant for the NHS:
(Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, 2010-2012): ‘Health and Social Care Act 2012 was not the first but was maybe the most disastrous attempt of any Conservative government to decentralise and to allow local individual enterprise and autonomy. Other examples of this dogma include Kenneth Clarke’s discredited fundholding schemes and the wholesale sell-off of the NHS real estate, resulting in the ongoing burden of public-private partnerships.
Concealed beneath this apparent support for the NHS is the real reason for decentralisation and local autonomy. The 2012 reforms were a deliberate commercialisation and marketisation of the NHS, establishing commissioning groups to allow and encourage competition and drive down costs.
...The prospect of further restructuring should raise alarm, the irony being that the parlous state of the NHS results from misguided Conservative planning. The prospect of further “reform” is chilling.’- Prof. Roy Robertson
For what they did to the Justice Department, see the link below:
"We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right" (Clause 39 Magna Carta, 1215): This was Justice in 1215
Then see what the Tories have done to JUSTICE!!
For God’s sake, we are Citizens not Customers: Justice cannot be for Sale or Profit
See also, what they have done to WATER and SEWAGE!
When they sold off the source of life, they destroyed life and humanity
And finally see how the Tories again and again have chosen clamity and have ‘gifted’ the nation the bonfires of destruction
The Game of Musical Chairs in Britain: Five Prime Ministers in Six Years
The Age of Absurdity, Incompetence, Irresponsibility and Unaccountability
Photo credit: India Today
They Wrecked Britain
The Tragedy of Britain: Vision-less, ideologue leadership
The Tragedy of Britain: Championing ‘Bastard Economics’
The Tragedy of Britain:..and thus, they gave us their Brexit!
The Tragedy of Britain: The Lies of Boris
The Tragedy of Britain: The Lies of Liz
The Tragedy of Britain: Rishi with no Life Story to Tell
May they be held accountable in the court of humanity.
‘What took place in the early hours of June 14, 2017 was social murder. This was the term first coined by Frederick Engels in his famous study, The Condition of the Working Class in England. Writing in 1845, at the beginning of industrial capitalism, he explained, “When society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death...” and “yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual.”
‘Engels’ indictment of an entire social system—capitalism—resonates more than 150 years later. This is because it speaks to the common experience of working people the world over…’- Continue to read
This Must Never be Forgotten
The Culprits who failed Humanity, Civility, and Duty of Care
Neoliberalism, Deregulation and Privatisation, leading to unchecked Corporate Greed, Dishonesty, Selfishness, Indifference and Arrogance; resulting in the breakdown and the Loss of Moral Fabric the World Over.
The Inconvenient Truth: The Tragedy Neoliberal Capitalism
The Enduring Shame of ‘Bastard Economics’ , Neoliberalism and Crony Capitalism
The catastrophic fire that killed at least 72 innocent people in London was the inevitable byproduct of an ideology that vilifies the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, the disabled and the disadvantaged, blaming them for their plight, whilst celebrating crony, feral capitalists, tax-dodgers and tax-avoiders, offshoring their heists and more.
‘...But Grenfell is more than a story of negligence—a tragic coalescence of a dozen discrete moments of hubris and greed. It is also an awful fable of our time. Pundits often describe it as a “Hurricane Katrina moment,” a catastrophe that exposes a rich country’s contempt for its poor. “The charred remains of Grenfell Tower have become a shocking symbol of inequality at the heart of the capital itself,” the New York Times declared in a story on London's atomization earlier this week. “They have changed the national narrative.” Grenfell has become a grisly metaphor for all that is squalid about the British capital, unfettered free-market capitalism, and society at large.’- Continue to read
Deliberate, dishonest, dismissive, dangerous: how report describes Grenfell Tower’s key players
Grenfell report blames decades of government failure and ‘systematic dishonesty’ of companies
Bastard Economics of Greedy Neoliberalism and the Killings of the Innocents in London Tower
‘Nothing can make it less distressing to remember the dreadful circumstances in which the victims died. Nothing can excuse inaction against those responsible, now that the inquiry is over.’
'The people of Grenfell knew the truth before the fire. It’s we who must learn from them now.'
'As I watched the mass exodus of MPs from both sides of the house who chose to leave rather than stay for Keir Starmer’s brief statement on the Grenfell inquiry report this week, I was reminded of a similar act of disdain by a previous member of parliament.
'Eric Pickles, one in a long line of David Cameron’s ministers in charge of housing, was questioned about the role deregulation had played in the Grenfell disaster as part of the inquiry. In response, he asked tetchily how long it was going to take, because he had a busy schedule. Perhaps foreseeing how badly this might play in public, he calmed down long enough to insist that Cameron’s bonfire of red tape had played no part in his department’s failure to rewrite inadequate building regulations.
'The inquiry chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, found otherwise. Citing documents and evidence from those inside the housing department, he wrote: “Lord Pickles was not only aware of, but supported, that (deregulatory) approach, including the application of the policies to the Building Regulations...”- Continue to read
Now, the pertinent question is: What is to be done? How can we move forward?
We must move forward envisioned by beauty, hope, and wisdom, reimagining a better world
We must become like water lilies symbolising rebirth and resurrection, serenity and calmness, beauty and grace, resilience and endurance.
Photo credit: Hidden Significance
There is no doubt that ‘Grenfell showed what can happen when human needs are disregarded.’ The Report has clearly demonstrated that neoliberalism has failed and ‘the Neoliberal Emperor has No Clothes.’ We need a new economic story and new storytellers. Economic models and prescriptions and their quest for maximisation of profits, ‘must be balanced with values of care, respect for life and a sense of responsibility in those with power over others.’
We should acknowledge that economics and business must be all about human well-being, flourishing, and thriving in society and that this cannot be separated from moral, ethical and spiritual considerations. The idea of an economics which is value-free is totally false. Nothing in life is morally neutral. In the end, economics cannot be separated from a vision of what it is to be a human being in society. In order to arrive at such understanding, our first recommendation is for us to begin a journey to wisdom, by embodying the core values of the Golden Rule (Ethic of Reciprocity): “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. This in turn will prompt us on a journey of discovery, giving life to what many consider to be the most consistent moral teaching throughout history. It should be noted that the Golden Rule can be found in many religions, ethical systems, spiritual traditions, indigenous cultures and secular philosophies.
Neoliberal economics and business models have prompted the business community to be concerned only with their ‘Bottom Line.’ We now know that this thinking has tragic consequences both for the public and the business community itself.
In the post Grenfell world, a ‘New Bottom Line’ must be formulated along the lines of ‘Corporations, government policies, our educational, legal and health care practices, every institution, law, social policy and even our private behaviour should be judged 'rational', 'efficient', or 'productive' not only to the extent that they maximise money and power (The Old Bottom Line) but ALSO to the extent that they maximise love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological behaviour, and contribute to our capacity to respond with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe and all being."
Finally, we must wake up and free ourselves from the chains of neoliberal slavery.
To do just that, I am delighted to offer you an excellent alternative:
I am dreaming of a day when economics becomes, once again, a subject of beauty, elegance, wisdom, ethics and moral philosophy. I look forward to the day when the main culprit of all tragedies, Neoliberalism, the false and inhumane ideology of human existence, will be thrown away in the dustbin of history and flushed out into the sewage. Carpe diem!
And this is what I suggest:
Walking and Working with Beauty: Eternal Wisdom for a Rewarding and Meaningful Life in the Post-neoliberal World
Make Economics ‘A Thing of Beauty’ and Build a Better World
What if Universities Taught KINDNESS?
Wouldn’t the world be a better place with a bit more kindness? Harnessing the Economics of Kindness
A Businessman and an Economist in Dialogue for the Common Good
Photo credit: Kwize