It is government, not firefighters, that is to blame for the lives lost at Grenfell

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Thursday 14 June 2018 18:30 BST
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Theresa May with firefighters outside Grenfell Tower the day after the fire
Theresa May with firefighters outside Grenfell Tower the day after the fire

Tony Sullivan’s firefighter’s view of the tragedy at Grenfell is the best account I have read anywhere, and pays tribute to the courage and decency of London’s firefighters – even more impressive as he declined payment for the article. As he suggests, scapegoats may be found at contractor, material supplier or council level but the real blame for the disaster is failure at the top level of government.

Conservatives in particular have become ideologically obsessed with deregulation as a means of liberating markets, cutting costs and taxes, and reducing the role of the state. Financial interest may also have played a part. They seem to have forgotten that regulations were originally introduced for good reasons.

It is time for Tories to realise that ruling a country properly does not always mean doing the bidding of commercial interests or of the free market think tanks that business finances, and that markets, if they are to benefit society as a whole, must be properly monitored, guided and, indeed, regulated.

Adrian Cosker
Herts

I have just read Tony Sullivan’s article and would like to congratulate him on an outstanding factual and totally professional response to those who seem to think they have all the answers but sadly know little.

I too have listened to comments on the way fire fighters operated on that dreadful night and have felt deeply saddened that ignorance from ordinary people and from those who should know better has resulted in blame and criticism being laid at the door of those who were willing to walk into that inferno and give their all.

The time will come when all the enquiries have been concluded and when those who have questions to answer are held to account. Sadly people are all too ready to demand answers but these things will take time and being patient when you are grieving is perhaps hardest to bear.

We have all been moved to hear of the dreadful events of that night but please let’s not taint the memory of those who died by blaming those who were trying to help.

R Chambers
Huddersfield

Thanks to Tony Sullivan for telling it how it is. This was a terrific piece and just so sensible, instead of the hype we get from other sources.

Sue Hayes
Address supplied

Rational, logical, measured article by Tony Sullivan on Grenfell. Excellent piece of writing and the best display of common sense I have read about the fire.

Margaret Adams
Keighley

Grenfell survivors deserve somewhere secure and permanent to live

Your stories today of the tribulations still affecting the survivors of Grenfell are deeply worrying. That pokey and unsuitable flats have been bought without consideration of reasonable needs further demonstrates the lack of care and competency that evidently exists in all areas of central and local government.

Given the evident shortage of decent accommodation in London, would not the best memorial to those people be a new block on the same site, built to good standards, well run and managed in perpetuity, for social tenants?

Michael Mann
Shrewsbury

A solution to our plastic problem?

In the 1970s I lived in Oregon. The governor introduced a refundable deposit on all bottles and cans. The condition of the can was irrelevant, ie crushed or not. It was not necessary for the purchaser only to return the bottle or can with proof of purchase. Anyone could return a can and retrieve the deposit.

The result was an immediate and almost total reduction in waste bottles and cans being left on the streets or in garbage cans.

Surely the UK government could introduce a similar tax on plastic containers? Irrespective of proof of purchase, a plastic container could be returned to secure the deposit. The next issue is to recycle the returned plastic. In the immortal phrase, this recycling cannot be rocket science.

John McKinley
Birmingham

The £160,000 handbag can teach us a lot about society

The recent auction of a handbag at England’s Christies that sold for over £160,000 (US $214,000 or €180,000) is a disgusting example of what has gone wrong with the modern world.

A handbag is useful although a quite adequate one can be bought for the price of a good meal rather than the price of a house. Some people have more money than they deserve – give some to charity.

The bag was likely made from three crocodiles, none of whom certainly agreed with their fate. Although not the most cuddly of our creatures they should not be killed for someone else’s vanity – protect all animals from humanity’s lack of “humanity”.

The purpose of a normal handbag is as a means of carrying a few items although this bag carries so-called celebrity value. A celebrity is based on what they do in life not on what they are carrying – do something that makes you more worthwhile than being a bag-carrier.

Fault also lies with modern social media that emphasises accessories rather than achievements – report how good people are rather than how good they look.

Let’s bag the expensive bags.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia

It’s not OK to ‘draw Muhammad’

It saddened me to learn that the popular Islamophobe Geert Wilders has once again made plans for a “draw Muhammad” cartoon competition in his political party’s office in the Dutch parliament (Independent). This brings back memories of a similar stunt he pulled in 2005 in the name of free speech which led to backlash and outcry. I’m afraid this time will be no different, and in my opinion, that is the main reason why he chooses to do this – to insight hatred and violence, rather than prove a point about free speech.

There is nothing wrong with freely and openly criticising Islam. That is free speech and advocated for in the religion of Islam. But to portray the Holy Prophet of Islam in an insulting way through caricatures does nothing to foster healthy debate about the merits of Islamic teachings. Instead, it just provokes anger and backlash.

Free speech is different than free license to defame and dehumanise. Especially when you are doing so to a man revered by over a billion Muslims in the world, not to mention millions more non-Muslims who respect the Prophet of Islam.

Ahsan M Khan
California, USA

The biggest narcissists

The University of Toronto’s Miranda Giacomin’s groundbreaking paper suggesting that those with thick groomed eyebrows are narcissists is the final, incontrovertible proof that the biggest shower of egocentric divas our society has endured the misfortune to suffer was the cast of Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds.

I always knew that lickspittle class traitor Aloysius “Yes, Mi’lady” Parker was a wrong ’un.

Mark Boyle
Renfrewshire

Where are the US’s ‘Christian values’?

So the US government want to house children of immigrants in tents (Trump administration ‘planning to put thousands of migrant children in tent cities’) after separating them from their parents. This seems at variance with the much professed Christian nation that the USA claims to be.

I am not a Christian but I believe that one of the basic tenets of Christ’s teaching was charity. I seem to remember something about there being three things that a Christian should abide by – “faith, hope and charity, but the greatest of these is charity”.

I frequently hear American politicians of all political stripes extolling their Christian beliefs but when it comes to implementing them according to the teachings of the founder of their faith they seem remarkably forgetful!

Patrick Cleary
Honiton

Why encryption is important

HM chief inspector of constabulary Thomas Winsor’s recent musings that encryption may soon be regulated should be deeply concerning to anyone that cares about privacy. Thomas has shown a worrying, albeit hardly surprising, lack of understanding of even the basics of encryption.

What Thomas fails to understand is that encryption is not simply a “nice-to-have” for the privacy conscious – it’s fundamental to the success of the UK economy. Our banks rely on it for trading, our online retailers rely on it to protect customer data, and as Thomas will surely attest, our police rely on it to keep sensitive data secure.

The reality is that tech companies simply can’t grant access – it’s mathematically impossible to do so without creating a “backdoor”, which leaves systems just as accessible to the cybercriminals trying to cause us harm as it does to law enforcement.

While Thomas suggests this will make the public safer from terrorists, there is no proof removing encryption will have a positive impact, in fact it will leave everyone at the mercy of cybercriminals. Thomas certainly means well, but his comments are at best counterproductive, and at worst, dangerous.

Sadly, this won’t be the last we’ll hear of this. Around the world, political leaders are lining up to pressure tech companies over encryption, from Russia’s attempts to block messaging app Telegram through to the Australian PM’s bizarre claim that the laws of his country trump the laws of mathematics.

The laws of individual countries are malleable – the laws of mathematics are not. It’s time that our leaders stopped pretending otherwise.

Broderick Perelli-Harris, senior director of professional services at Venafi
Bracknell

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