Ronald Olden

This sanctimonious comment by Sadiq Khan is a self serving dangerous cop out intended to place himself above the management culture which is to blame for the devastation caused by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Obviously Sadiq Khan doesn’t include himself in this allocation of blame. But he has been Mayor of London managing a budget larger than either the Welsh or Northern Ireland Assemblies, for longer than Theresa May has been Prime Minister, and has specific responsibility for what goes on there.

In the interests of political balance Ken Livingtone (Labour) and Boris Johnson (Tory) were Mayors of London before him.

Over the period of four successive Governments (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron (Lib Dem Coalition) and David Cameron (Tory, Sadiq Khan was MP for Tooting in London (where there are a number of high rise Tower Blocks).

From 2008 he was also a Minister of State for Communities in the VERY Government Department which was responsible for writing the Building Regulations which were in operation when the Tower was refurbished, and, when Ed Miliband was Leader of the Opposition he was Shadow Minister for London.

Before he became an MP, Sadiq Khan was a Councillor in Tooting. Are the Tower Blocks there equipped with Sprinklers and have combustible materials present in their construction??

During his years in all these jobs, the three General Elections he fought as a candidate, (he also campaigned in most recent General Election), and in the Mayoral Campaign etc has Sadiq Khan ever spoken out about the lack of Sprinklers in Tower Blocks and the use of flammable materials to clad them?

How does Sadiq know that this fire was MERELY a ‘preventable accident’ caused by years of neglect by the ‘local authority and successive governments’? All the indications so far suggest that it was solely the local authority which was to blame for the extent of the devastation.

This comment by him, exactly the reason why I have been posting all over Social Media to a urge people to make sure blame stays where it is.

If anyone is to blame for the devastation caused by this fire it is the landlord. Passing off blame to others, who perhaps in a perfect world would have done more, but didn’t, will over the months end up, enabling the culprits to pass themselves off as victims themselves.

This ALWAYS happens following disasters like this. We end up being brainwashed into believing society, some long gone government, or even we ourselves personally, are to blame and the real culprits end up getting off scot-free.

I have no doubt that the regulations will now be toughened up and supervision put in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. But some council or public employee somewhere, is at this very minute is likely doing something grossly dangerous or neglecting something, in some other sphere which they will after the event blame again on the government for not stopping them doing.

Accountability MUST stay with the culprits.