(Speech given at Town Hall, Bartholomew Square, Brighton, 17/06/2017, at the Solidarity with Grenfell Tower Residents Protest, organised by Brighton Solfed.)
Every one of us with a heart, every one of us with compassion, every one of us with human empathy – stands united this week.
United in grief for the great loss of life we have witnessed when Grenfell Tower went up in flames.
United in abject horror. Images of people waving towels out of windows. Stories of children behind windows screaming for help before they disappeared in a sea of flames. Stories of mothers throwing their children, their babies, out of windows as that was the only chance the children had of surviving. Sights and stories to chill your blood and break your heart.
UNITED IN ANGER. The images of sheets of fire devouring Grenfell Tower have found a permanent place in our memories, I don’t think anybody will ever forget those images. This is our 9/11, our Hurricane Katrina.
Anger against what?
Anger against Austerity. Financial cuts which were not necessary but a political choice. Financial cuts which have hit our emergency services, our fire services, our ambulance services. All of whom are screaming out that they are being stretched to the limit and facing further cuts.
Anger against the profit-before-safety mentality. A culture in which making money is more important than ensuring safety. A culture in which residents concerns are dismissed and even made impossible. A culture in which dissent is muted, attacked and silenced. A culture in which “renovation” does not mean sprinkler systems, working fire alarms and working fire extinguishers…..but a new outer skin for a building to make it look nicer for nearby rich residents. A culture in which it is apparently okay to save a measly 5000 pounds by opting for the flammable materials, rather than the fire resistant option, which would have cost 2 pounds more per square meter. The final death toll is still unknown, may never be known with any precision. Surely each and every life lost was worth more than a tenner a tenant?
Anger against the fact that there are second-class citizens in this country, people who somehow matter less. Already Tory Trolls have been spotted on social media, claiming that the Grenfell Tower tragedy means ‘a few less scroungers claiming benefits’ or suggesting it’s not as tragic as it’s made out to be because most of the tenants were muslims, immigrants, refugees. And where those few idiots voice their ignorance, you can be sure more people are secretly thinking it. It doesn’t really matter, because they are foreigners, coloured, gay, disabled, unemployed, single mums…..the list goes on and on.
Anger against the sheer vacuum of accountability. Who is responsible? Local Council politicians, the corporate fat cats involved, the ministers who sat on reports and recommendations for years without doing anything about it, the MPs who voted against measures to ensure all rented accommodation, private and council, is fit for human habitation….all of them are scrambling to blame anyone but themselves, even the residents themselves for observing Ramadan, which had NOTHING to do with the fire other than that the number of people awake allowed a great many more people to escape that horrendous towering inferno than would have otherwise been the case. As I understand there are now also attempts to blame the Greens and the EU. However, it wasn’t the Greens or the EU which led tabloid campaigns screaming for bonfires of regulations and EU red tape.
The only acknowledgement of responsibility I have seen has come from Jeremy Corbyn, who has more or less pointed out that we, as a society, are all responsible and should all take our responsibility, and certainly not run away from that responsibility when the shit hits the fan, as many of those involved now appear to be doing, like Kensington Council members, who had acted with authoritarian derision in the face of local tenant concerns before the Grenfell tragedy.
Here in Brighton and Hove, the Council has made all the right noises, there will be an urgent review of fire prevention measures. In this, however, they are only addressing council housing. They have NOT mentioned the privately owned properties which are rented out on behalf of the council. They have NOT mentioned the many privately owned emergency accommodations.
I have visited some of these places, talked to people who live or lived in Windsor Court, Percival Terrace, Grand Parade. I have seen for myself many extremely troubling health and safety issues in these places, the mazes of corridors, hallways and stairways are an accident waiting to happen. I have also sat across Housing Officers who tried to assure me that everything was just okeydokey in these places. They claimed inspections are carried out and all is always found to be acceptable. They denied aspects of these emergency accommodations which I have seen with my own eyes and then denied I could have possibly seen these things.
We have asked before, earlier this year, what it would take for them to pay attention. Would we have to wake up to news of a devastating fire or structural collapse, poor people, homeless people, vulnerable people carried out on stretchers or in body bags? I was much reminded of these questions this week, now that sheer inhumanity of the policy of Austerity, the policy of dehumanisation of the poor and the disabled has been revealed in all of its ugly nakedness by the disaster at Grenfell Tower, an entirely preventable tragedy.
I sincerely hope that Brighton and Hove City Council does implement new and stringent fire prevention measures. But their track record is a reminder that we will have to remind them of the necessity of this. That we expect and demand more than a fashionable lip-service while the tragedy is fresh on our minds. That we expect and demand real action, not empty platitudes and hollow meaningless assurances.
Take, for example, the case of Bobby Carver. A tetraplegic man, paralysed, wheelchair bound and helpless, housed in an attic flat with no lift, just two flights of steep stairs which he is expected to negotiate because in their own words, the Council thinks there are “no serious medical considerations” to be taken into account, no matter how often we try to make clear, utterly clear to them, that a wheelchair and stairs do not mix, Paralysis and a lack of care do not mix, assurances of transparency and Machiavellian backroom decision-making do not mix.
Apart from the inadequate housing, there is also inadequate care in place for this man. He is left to his own devices for over 100 hours a week, unable to visit his bathroom, sleep in his bed, use the kitchen. The Council continues to deny that he needs adequate care and do so for a very simple reason. IT MUST NOT COST TOO MUCH MONEY.
In reaching their conclusion that they don’t have to take this man’s case seriously, the Council have:
Ignored 29 medical letters written by a wide range of independent NHS experts. Privately, they tell each other that these NHS experts are not to be trusted, are not capable of delivering independent objective advice.
In reaching their conclusion that they don’t have to take this man’s case seriously, the Council have:
Ignored safeguarding issues raised by the Brighton and Hove NHS Clinical Commissioning Group.
Ignored safeguarding issues raised by an NHS Clinical Psychologist.
Ignored safeguarding issues raised by the Ambulance Services.
And yes, ignored safeguarding issues raised by the Fire Services.
The Fire Services visited Bobby Carver’s attic flat a few years ago and were shocked and appalled. They came because Bobby had been trying for two years to tell the Council that his fire alarms did not work. The Council made enquiries with the absentee landlord who lives in Spain. The landlord assured them, all the way from Spain, that the fire alarms worked just fine. The Council told Bobby that the fire alarms worked. Bobby assured them the fire alarms did not work and the whole cycle would start again.
At last the Fire Services came and told Bobby that the fire alarms did not work.
They told Bobby that the attic flat was a death trap.
They told Bobby that in case of a fire they would be unable to extract him from the attic.
They told Bobby that the new fire alarms they installed were rather pointless, at the most, they said, the alarms would wake Bobby up so that he would have ten minutes or so to prepare for his imminent death.
They also told him they would write a letter to the Council, to inform the Council of their safety assessment and their extreme concern with regard to Bobby’s safety.
The first person to read the letter raised the issue with a manager, we know this because we have done a Freedom of Information Act acces request for the files and have seen their emails, letters, casenotes and logged phone calls.
The manager lied and said that they couldn’t have known that Bobby’s health had suddenly and unexpectedly deteriorated, despite the fact that doctors had been trying to tell the Council just this for two years already. After that, this manager managed to forget the fire services warning altogether.
He made no note of it.
He did not file it.
He did not raise the issue.
Why? Because it didn’t fit into the Council’s narrative that there were no serious considerations to be taken into account. Any admission that there were serious considerations would mean they would have to spend more money, and this Council has resisted just that for SIX YEARS now.
There is no money, they say. That is NOT true. There is no money for Bobby Carver’s health and safety. There is plenty of money for the unbelievably high salaries of the top segment of permanent council officers, no problems whatsoever when their salaries are discussed. There is no money for a humane emergency accommodation policy. There is plenty of money for high-profile projects like the i360. There is no money for tackling much needed but financially starved addiction services, housing services. There is plenty of money for big companies scrambling for a piece of the tax-payer’s pie.
I pay taxes. I pay taxes because I hope the money will be used to care for the most vulnerable people in our community. Bobby had a working life until he became ill six years ago, he paid plenty of taxes, he was far better at working than I was. He paid his taxes because he hoped the money would be used to care for the most vulnerable members of our community. Because you never know, one day it might be you in need of that care.
Neither of us paid taxes in the idealistic hope that the money would be used to line the pockets of senior council managers or their fat cat corporate friends. Yet that is where our money goes, while people like Bobby, imprisoned in unsuitable homes, hindered by inadequate care, are ignored or forgotten. Or, if they make too much noise, vilified as aggressive lunatics.
Is this man worth less than anybody else in this city?
Is this man’s life so worthless that we need not worry about his safety, that we can completely ignore urgent warnings by the fire services?
It’s that kind of mentality which led to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. Do we really want to see similar scenes in our Brighton and Hove? Are we going to continue to allow this Council to run Brighton and Hove like it is a company? Brighton PLC, Hove Limited? This city needs companies, but it is in itself not a company. A city’s soul is not measured in the wealth of its wealthiest inhabitants, a city’s soul is measured in the collective of its population, a city’s soul is the city’s people. And that’s us. We are the people. And it is time that we remind this council of an old Sussex saying: SUSSEX WUNT BE DRUV.
We will not be druv, we will not be pushed around, we will not be filed, indexed and numbered. We will not leave because we can’t afford the extortionate rents. We will not stand by in silence when those of us who are vulnerable are mistreated and denied basic human rights.
I’ll end now with part of the poem which inspired Jeremy Corbyn’s election slogan:
Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!”
I hope, I desperately hope, that Grenfell Tower was wake-up call for those still slumbering and the final straw for those of us already awoken. Are we lambs waiting to be led to the slaughter? Waiting to be sacrificed on the altar of economic prosperity for the few? Or are we slumbering LIONS now awoken?
It is time now, time to rise and time to roar.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Thank you.
HOUSING CRISIS IN BRIGHTON & HOVE 