Bolton Fire: Who’s to Blame?
Anyone who has seen footage of the fire at the block of flats which were student accommodation for Bolton University must realise what a terrifying experience it was. It was a miracle nobody was killed.
Of course it brings back memories of the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 when 72 people died. The similarity lies in the inflammable cladding which fed the flames in both cases.
The Fire Brigades Union has pointed the finger at a long history of deregulation and short-term profit grabbing in the construction industry:
https://www.fbu.org.uk/publication/grenfell-tower-fire-crime-caused-profit-and-deregulation
But if builders are taking potentially fatal shortcuts, why aren’t elected politicians stopping them?
On top of the neoliberal deregulatory agenda there have been savage cuts in the fire service. Tory politicians in particular have been to the fore in ripping up ‘burdensome’ health and safety regulations and cutting public services in the name of austerity.
Skwawkbox interviewed a firefighter in the wake of the Bolton fire. He explained, “It takes us longer to get to a fire than it did 10 years ago and when we do, we arrive with reduced resources to tackle the incident that meets us. Fire safety and fire policy in this country is utterly disgraceful. We have plunged to dangerous lows on what people should expect from one of the world’s richest countries.
Private Landlords are not being held accountable and local authorities have no effective enforcement powers. The deregulation agenda and cuts to the fire service must be stopped and reversed. We have to rip up the whole system and rebuild it with people’s safety, rather than profit, at the heart of new and transformative legislation.”
He’s right. But to do this we have to take on the Tories. As Mayor of London Boris Johnson imposed cuts on the fire service in the capital, contrary to his election promises. When questioned by the London Assembly about this he replied, “Get stuffed.” Now he’s Prime Minister.
The attitude of his class to the suffering and death of working class people is shown by the crassly insensitive remarks of Jacob Rees-Mogg about the Grenfell tragedy. For him it was “common sense” to ignore the advice of the fire brigade. He’s not alone in his arrogance and indifference to ordinary people’s lives. When asked by Evan Davis on BBC’s PM programme if Rees-Mogg was implying that he was cleverer than most people, fellow Tory MP Andrew Bridgen replied: “But we want very clever people running the country, don’t we, Evan?”
The longstanding advice of the fire brigade is to stay put in the event of a fire in a block of flats. That advice is muddied when flats are covered in cladding that can actually spread the conflagration. That was what made the tragedy at Grenfell so much worse.
But Grenfell Tower was not the only building covered in life-threatening cladding. According to the Financial Times a government scheme to replace dangerous cladding after the Grenfell Tower disaster has approved preliminary funding for just one building, leaving up to 17,000 households in blocks with similar panels. 17,000 households in peril! What have the Tories done about this in the two and a half years since Grenfell? The answer is - nothing.
Sarah Jones, Labour’s shadow housing minister, has sounded the alarm after the Bolton blaze. She declares, “This is a national crisis which requires a national response...Your government cannot keep sitting on its hands when so many lives are in peril.”
The continuing tragedy is that all Labour can do now is ask the questions. The Tories have shown their contempt for working people’s lives. It is high time to get rid of them.
