Post-Grenfell working class in Theresa May’s Britain

This video from London, England says about itself:

“My family sent video before they were burnt alive”: Grenfell survivor

16 June 2017

Okasha, a resident of Grenfell Tower, spoke about how his auntie and cousins thought “helicopters were there to save them” as he relives that night.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Tenants unite

Every so often, some politician, pundit or policy wonk pops up to tell us that “class” is no longer the central question in British politics.

The real divide, we are informed, is now between the local and the central, small government and big government, north and south, growth and the environment, the new and the old, etc.

It is not to deny the significance of such dimensions to say: “Tell that to the working-class residents of Grenfell Tower, Ledbury Towers and thousands of other housing blocks.”

It took the atrocity in Kensington to force the government and mass media to pay attention to the plight of people — all of them on low pay or benefits — who have no option but to live in accommodation that is not only severely inadequate but also murderously dangerous.

Now hundreds of people in four Peckham tower blocks have had their gas cut off and will have to be evacuated while safety work is carried out. As elsewhere, years of fears and complaints expressed by residents have been ignored, if not treated with contempt.

Like millions of workers and their families across Britain, their housing needs count for little or nothing to the wealthy, big business and their political champions. That’s why we need a Labour government with a working-class housing policy — and the revival of a militant tenants’ movement in working-class localities.

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