Grenfell Tower has become a symbol of the times in the U.K. The public sector and the services the working class man relies on has been subject to years of neglect, even before the so-called harsher measures of austerity kicked in.
Unless there are protests, cuts to government funding, and in the private sector cutting costs in construction and service provision have an almost invisible presence beyond the murmurs of discontent.
What the disaster at Grenfell Tower has done is make the invisible presence of cuts and cost cutting a horrific and nightmaric vision etched on people’s minds. As we grieve for people who have lost family members if not whole families, friends, and possessions – we can’t help but question how such a thing can happen in the 21st Century in the UK, let alone in one of the captivating city’s richest boroughs.
here you can clearly see the contrast between those who can afford to pay and maybe buy anything they want, and those who in part rely on the system to help them get through life.
Poor housing is a trap, not just in terms of the safety implications that Grenfell has highlighted, but there are health concerns for people who. Live in squalid, unkept buildings in need of renovation and repair. There is the economic and social exclusion that happens on some estates which creates that micro environment, or pockets of society which seems closed of from the progress more affluent, socially mobile sections of society are able to achieve.
People in such situations are trapped in a variety of ways, and the way our society is structured, the impetus of government and business, seems likely to little by little take away the hopes such people have.
If we all pay into a system that is des ingest to protect all in society, why is it that some people are getting such a rough deal? Why is it that we systemically create a society that seems prone to limit the opportunity afforded to some people and keep them penned up in a stratum of society that further serves to both define and reinforce their status and self vision of those as being seen in need, wanting and dependent.
what I think is becoming more self-evident, is that the people who we define as poor will always be so if we as a society keep failing them and ignoring them, by pandering to those who have more money and influence. What we need is a society with justice at its core, and that doesn’t mean punishing the people who take shortcuts and ruin people’s lives as in the sad case of Grenfell. It means making sure, through the public services and regulation of private companies, that tragedies like this never happen in the first place.