As a Londoner, I thought I was somewhat familiar with the extent and effects of inequality in the capital. On income. On life expectancy. On temperament. I suppose in the main, I was. Then again, the shock factor of learning how up to twenty of my fellow citizens burned alive this week did indeed bring home, in a sort of dystopian nightmarish fashion, just how terrifying the consequences of being working class can occasionally be.
This is not to say that nobody of wealth ever suffers or dies. In fact over a hundred people tend to meet their maker in old Blighty every day. Often after experiencing the agony and chilling terror of heart failure or cancer, sometimes for many years. The grim reaper doesn't always discriminate based on age but in this case... in this case it is we who discriminated. We who carelessly built a tower with an excess of flammable materials and a deficit of suitable escape routes. Nobody expects to die like that. Not in 2017.
Man created fire approximately a million years ago and we still haven't learned how to control it yet.
I hear that our Prime Minister decided not to talk to the victims. It was reported that she had concerns for her safety. You can imagine how well that went down with most of the public. I don't doubt that there's some sense in her decision though. Grieving families are not the stablest of characters and a certain percentage of murders and assaults are committed out of rage or emotional instability. More to the point, I'm sure there are plenty who would rather see anyone else in the world right now than her and perhaps that is the real reason for her decision. Pouring Theresa on the flames is hardly likely to extinguish anything.
I do think she should step down, though. For obvious reasons.
There are three tower blocks a street away from the house I live in. One hopes there'll be some sort of initiative or at least a common-sense check to see how a blaze would spread, if such a disaster happened again. Danger is nothing new and will claim us all eventually but the more convenient and sedated our lives become, the more injustice we feel when an avoidable tragedy happens, especially one so horrific. I wonder whether there are extremist Muslims asserting that Allah has scorched us for our sins. It seems a little harsh to me but then I guess life is. I guess life is.
I hope I don't die in a fire.
Written by Dan.
