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"Anyone who's worked anywhere in the inner city--this isn't a surprise," said Danny Vance, an Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church. (Photo: Matt Dunham/AP)
As the death toll from the horrific and "unprecedented" fire that engulfed London's Grenfell Tower on Wednesday continues to climb, some are highlighting the institutional and economic reasons behind the devastation amid concerns that frequent safety warnings were ignored by the British government.
"Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
--Danny Vance, Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church
Focus has particularly centered on Gavin Barwell, who served as housing minister before recently becoming Prime Minister Theresa May's chief of staff.
"Barwell committed last year to review part B of the Building Regulations 2010, which pertains to fire safety, but the review was delayed, according to trade journal Fire Risk Management," Business Insider's Thomas Colson reported.
Colson continued:
A spokesman insisted that a review would take place "in due course," but it failed to materialise. Experts repeatedly warned the government's delays were endangering tower blocks throughout the UK following a 2009 blaze at Lakanal House, a tower block in south London, which claimed the lives of six people.
Previous fires, Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick noted in a radio interview, should have been a "wake-up call," but no action was taken.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who visited the site of the fire on Thursday, said the "truth has got to come out" about what ultimately led to the fire.
In an interview on Wednesday, Corbyn suggested severe budget cuts may have contributed to the fire's severity, noting, "If you cut local authority expenditure then the price is paid somehow."
"I believe we need to ask questions about what facilities and resources have been given to local authorities that have tower blocs in the area and, frankly, most do," he added. "We need to deal with this--we need people to be safe living in high rise buildings."
\u201cToday, I spoke with residents of Grenfell Tower. We must & will do everything in our power to ensure the truth about this tragedy comes out.\u201d— Jeremy Corbyn (@Jeremy Corbyn) 1497533778
Though Corbyn's comments were met with vitriol from right-wing British tabloids, he is far from the only one pointing to the link between severe budget cuts and public safety risks. As the Guardianreported, firefighters argued that "[c]uts to the fire service had taken a serious toll on operations."
"Put it this way," said one firefighter, "you're meant to work on a fire for a maximum of four hours, we've been here for 12."
George Eaton, writing for The New Statesman, noted "Home Office figures show there are nearly 7,000 fewer firefighters in England than five years ago, leading to longer response times and a 25 per cent fall in the number of fire prevention visits. Though the number of fire-related deaths has fallen from 750 a year in the early 1980s to 264 in 2015, it last year rose to 303."
Some, in addition to calling attention to austerity, have connected the fire to Britain's widening wealth gap, noting that it is the poor and disadvantaged who suffer most from cuts to public spending.
"Today's fire in Grenfell Tower is not outside of politics," wrote journalist Dawn Foster in Jacobin on Wednesday, "it is a symbol of the United Kingdom's deep inequality."
Describing the disparities in wealth and income as "disgusting," Danny Vance, an Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church, argued in the wake of the deadly Grenfell fire that safety concerns would not have been neglected if they were coming from those living in the "PS2mil, PS5mil flats around the corner."
"This isn't a surprise to me. Anyone who's worked anywhere in the inner city--this isn't a surprise. The poor are constantly neglected," he concluded. "Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
As the death toll from the horrific and "unprecedented" fire that engulfed London's Grenfell Tower on Wednesday continues to climb, some are highlighting the institutional and economic reasons behind the devastation amid concerns that frequent safety warnings were ignored by the British government.
"Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
--Danny Vance, Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church
Focus has particularly centered on Gavin Barwell, who served as housing minister before recently becoming Prime Minister Theresa May's chief of staff.
"Barwell committed last year to review part B of the Building Regulations 2010, which pertains to fire safety, but the review was delayed, according to trade journal Fire Risk Management," Business Insider's Thomas Colson reported.
Colson continued:
A spokesman insisted that a review would take place "in due course," but it failed to materialise. Experts repeatedly warned the government's delays were endangering tower blocks throughout the UK following a 2009 blaze at Lakanal House, a tower block in south London, which claimed the lives of six people.
Previous fires, Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick noted in a radio interview, should have been a "wake-up call," but no action was taken.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who visited the site of the fire on Thursday, said the "truth has got to come out" about what ultimately led to the fire.
In an interview on Wednesday, Corbyn suggested severe budget cuts may have contributed to the fire's severity, noting, "If you cut local authority expenditure then the price is paid somehow."
"I believe we need to ask questions about what facilities and resources have been given to local authorities that have tower blocs in the area and, frankly, most do," he added. "We need to deal with this--we need people to be safe living in high rise buildings."
\u201cToday, I spoke with residents of Grenfell Tower. We must & will do everything in our power to ensure the truth about this tragedy comes out.\u201d— Jeremy Corbyn (@Jeremy Corbyn) 1497533778
Though Corbyn's comments were met with vitriol from right-wing British tabloids, he is far from the only one pointing to the link between severe budget cuts and public safety risks. As the Guardianreported, firefighters argued that "[c]uts to the fire service had taken a serious toll on operations."
"Put it this way," said one firefighter, "you're meant to work on a fire for a maximum of four hours, we've been here for 12."
George Eaton, writing for The New Statesman, noted "Home Office figures show there are nearly 7,000 fewer firefighters in England than five years ago, leading to longer response times and a 25 per cent fall in the number of fire prevention visits. Though the number of fire-related deaths has fallen from 750 a year in the early 1980s to 264 in 2015, it last year rose to 303."
Some, in addition to calling attention to austerity, have connected the fire to Britain's widening wealth gap, noting that it is the poor and disadvantaged who suffer most from cuts to public spending.
"Today's fire in Grenfell Tower is not outside of politics," wrote journalist Dawn Foster in Jacobin on Wednesday, "it is a symbol of the United Kingdom's deep inequality."
Describing the disparities in wealth and income as "disgusting," Danny Vance, an Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church, argued in the wake of the deadly Grenfell fire that safety concerns would not have been neglected if they were coming from those living in the "PS2mil, PS5mil flats around the corner."
"This isn't a surprise to me. Anyone who's worked anywhere in the inner city--this isn't a surprise. The poor are constantly neglected," he concluded. "Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
As the death toll from the horrific and "unprecedented" fire that engulfed London's Grenfell Tower on Wednesday continues to climb, some are highlighting the institutional and economic reasons behind the devastation amid concerns that frequent safety warnings were ignored by the British government.
"Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
--Danny Vance, Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church
Focus has particularly centered on Gavin Barwell, who served as housing minister before recently becoming Prime Minister Theresa May's chief of staff.
"Barwell committed last year to review part B of the Building Regulations 2010, which pertains to fire safety, but the review was delayed, according to trade journal Fire Risk Management," Business Insider's Thomas Colson reported.
Colson continued:
A spokesman insisted that a review would take place "in due course," but it failed to materialise. Experts repeatedly warned the government's delays were endangering tower blocks throughout the UK following a 2009 blaze at Lakanal House, a tower block in south London, which claimed the lives of six people.
Previous fires, Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick noted in a radio interview, should have been a "wake-up call," but no action was taken.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who visited the site of the fire on Thursday, said the "truth has got to come out" about what ultimately led to the fire.
In an interview on Wednesday, Corbyn suggested severe budget cuts may have contributed to the fire's severity, noting, "If you cut local authority expenditure then the price is paid somehow."
"I believe we need to ask questions about what facilities and resources have been given to local authorities that have tower blocs in the area and, frankly, most do," he added. "We need to deal with this--we need people to be safe living in high rise buildings."
\u201cToday, I spoke with residents of Grenfell Tower. We must & will do everything in our power to ensure the truth about this tragedy comes out.\u201d— Jeremy Corbyn (@Jeremy Corbyn) 1497533778
Though Corbyn's comments were met with vitriol from right-wing British tabloids, he is far from the only one pointing to the link between severe budget cuts and public safety risks. As the Guardianreported, firefighters argued that "[c]uts to the fire service had taken a serious toll on operations."
"Put it this way," said one firefighter, "you're meant to work on a fire for a maximum of four hours, we've been here for 12."
George Eaton, writing for The New Statesman, noted "Home Office figures show there are nearly 7,000 fewer firefighters in England than five years ago, leading to longer response times and a 25 per cent fall in the number of fire prevention visits. Though the number of fire-related deaths has fallen from 750 a year in the early 1980s to 264 in 2015, it last year rose to 303."
Some, in addition to calling attention to austerity, have connected the fire to Britain's widening wealth gap, noting that it is the poor and disadvantaged who suffer most from cuts to public spending.
"Today's fire in Grenfell Tower is not outside of politics," wrote journalist Dawn Foster in Jacobin on Wednesday, "it is a symbol of the United Kingdom's deep inequality."
Describing the disparities in wealth and income as "disgusting," Danny Vance, an Associate Pastor at Notting Hill Community Church, argued in the wake of the deadly Grenfell fire that safety concerns would not have been neglected if they were coming from those living in the "PS2mil, PS5mil flats around the corner."
"This isn't a surprise to me. Anyone who's worked anywhere in the inner city--this isn't a surprise. The poor are constantly neglected," he concluded. "Things like this are going to keep happening if the poor are ignored in this city."
"What Republicans are trying to jam through Congress right now is a level of economic recklessness we’ve never seen before," said a group of Democratic lawmakers.
A new analysis indicates Republicans' plan to extend soon-to-expire provisions of their party's 2017 tax law, as well as their push to tack on additional tax breaks largely benefitting the rich and big corporations, would cost $7 trillion over the next decade, a figure that a group of congressional Democrats called "staggering."
The analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), published on Thursday, updates previous estimates that suggested the GOP effort to extend expiring provisions of the 2017 law would cost $4.6 trillion over a 10-year period. The new assessment shows that extending the law's temporary provisions—which disproportionately favored the wealthy—would cost $5.5 trillion over the next decade.
The projected cost of the GOP agenda balloons to $7 trillion after adding Senate Republicans' call for $1.5 trillion in additional tax cuts in the budget resolution they advanced in a party-line vote on Thursday. The GOP has come under fire for using an accounting trick to claim their proposed tax cuts would have no budgetary impact.
"The Republican handouts to billionaires and corporations will come at a staggering cost, and it's unconscionable that their plan to pay for those handouts includes kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance, hiking the cost of living with tariffs, and driving up child hunger," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said in a joint statement issued in response to the CBO figures.
"Even after making painful cuts that will inflict hardship on typical American families, Republicans will still risk sending us into a catastrophic debt spiral that does permanent harm to our economy," the Democrats added. "What Republicans are trying to jam through Congress right now is a level of economic recklessness we've never seen before."
The CBO's updated cost analysis came as President Donald Trump plowed ahead with what's been characterized as the biggest tax hike in U.S. history, one that will hit working-class Americans in the form of price increases on household staples and other goods.
Trump administration officials, not known for providing reliable numbers, have claimed the president's sweeping new tariffs could produce roughly $6 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade. The Trump tariffs have sent financial markets into a tailspin, heightened recession fears, and prompted swift retaliation from targeted nations, including China.
In an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday, Boyle—the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee—said Trump's tariffs represent "the single largest tax increase in American history."
"It's a tax that everyone will pay in this country, based on the goods that they buy," said Boyle. "However, it's also a tax that is highly regressive—the poorest amongst us will end up paying a higher percentage of their income."
The new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator joins "a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health," said one critic.
Echoing a party-line vote by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last week, the chamber's Republicans on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, former televison host Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Since Trump nominated Oz—who previously ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania—a wide range of critics have argued that the celebrity cardiothoracic surgeon "is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS," in the words of Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
After Thursday's 53-45 vote to confirm Oz, Weissman declared that "Republicans in the Senate continued to just be a rubber stamp for a dangerous agenda that threatens to turn back the clock on healthcare in America."
Weissman warned that "in addition to having significant conflicts of interest, Oz is now poised to help enact the Trump administration's dangerous agenda, which seeks to strip crucial healthcare services through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act from hundreds of millions of Americans and to use that money to give tax breaks to billionaires."
"As he showed in his confirmation hearing, Oz will also seek to further privatize Medicare, increasing the risk that seniors will receive inferior care and further threatening the long-term health of the Medicare program. We already know that privatized Medicare costs taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs," he continued, referring to Medicare Advantage plans.
CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who, like Oz, came under fire for his record of dubious claims during the confirmation process. Weissman said that "Dr. Oz is joining a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health. This is yet another dark day for healthcare in America under Trump."
In the middle of Trump's tariff disaster, the Senate is voting to confirm quack grifter Dr. Oz to lead the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.
[image or embed]
— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Oz's confirmation came a day after Trump announced globally disruptive tariffs and Senate Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would give the wealthy trillions of dollars in tax cuts at the expense of federal food assistance and healthcare programs.
"While Dr. Oz would rather play coy, this is no hypothetical. Harmful cuts to Medicaid or Medicare are unavoidable in the Trump-Republican budget plan that prioritizes another giant tax break for the president's billionaire and corporate donors," Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said ahead of the vote.
"None of Dr. Oz's 'miracle' cures that he's peddled over the years will help seniors when their fundamental health security is ripped away to make the rich richer," Carrk continued. "And while privatizing Medicare may enrich Dr. Oz's family and big insurance friends, it will cost taxpayers far more and leave millions of patients vulnerable to denials of care and higher out-of-pocket costs."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), was similarly critical, saying after the vote that "at a time when our population is growing older and the need for access to home care, nursing homes, affordable prescription drugs, and quality medical care has never been greater, Americans deserve better than a snake oil salesman leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
"Dr. Mehmet Oz has been shilling pseudoscience to line his own pockets. He can't be trusted to defend Medicare and Medicaid from billionaires who want to dismantle and privatize the foundation of affordable healthcare in this country," the union leader added. "AFSCME members—including nurses, home care and childcare providers, social workers and more—will be watching and fighting back against any effort to weaken Medicare and Medicaid. The 147 million seniors, children, Americans with disabilities, and low-income workers who rely on these programs for affordable access to healthcare deserve nothing less."
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," said one observer.
Israeli airstrikes targeted at least three more school shelters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding scores of others on a day when local officials said that more than 100 people were slain by occupation forces.
Gaza's Government Media Office said that at least 29 people—including 14 children and five women—were killed and over 100 others were wounded when at least four missiles struck the Dar al-Arqam school complex in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering after being forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled coastal enclave by Israel's 535-day assault.
Al Jazeera reported that "when terrified men, women, and children fled from one school building to another, the bombs followed them," and "when bystanders rushed to help, they too became victims."
A first responder from the Palestine Red Crescent Society—which is reeling from this week's discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of eight of its members, some of whom had allegedly been bound and executed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops—told Al Jazeera that "we were absolutely shocked by the scale of this massacre," whose victims were "mostly women and children."
Warning: Video contains graphic images of death.
Horrifying scenes following the Dar Al-Arqam School Massacre!#Gaza pic.twitter.com/xOvuq3Zztx
— Dr. Zain Al-Abbadi (@ZainAbbadi11) April 3, 2025
An official from Gaza's Civil Defense, five of whose members were also found in the mass grave on Sunday, said: "What's going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world. This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. The children are being killed in cold blood here in Gaza. Our teams cannot perform their duties properly.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi said that the death toll was likely to rise, as some survivors were critically injured.
Dozens of victims were reportedly trapped beneath rubble of Thursday's airstrikes, but they could not be rescued due to a lack of equipment.
The IDF claimed that "key Hamas terrorists" were targeted in a strike on what it called a "command center." Israeli officials routinely claim—often with little or no evidence—that Palestinian civilians it kills are members of Hamas or other militant resistance groups.
Israel also bombed the nearby al-Sabah school, killing four people, as well as the Fahd School in Gaza City, with three reported fatalities.
Some of the deadliest bombings in the war have been carried out against refugees sheltering in schools, many of them run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—at least 280 of whose staff members have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The United Nations Children's Fund has called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. More than 17,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Thursday's school bombings sparked worldwide outrage and calls to hold Israel accountable.
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," Australian journalist, activist, and progressive politician Sophie McNeill wrote on social media. "We must sanction Israel now!"
There were other IDF massacres on Thursday, with local officials reporting that more than 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn. Al-Wahidi said more than 30 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City's Shejaya neighborhood, citing records at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Ahli's emergency room "is overwhelmed with casualties and, as is so often the case over the past 18 months, the victims are Gaza's youngest."
Thursday's intensified airstrikes came as Israeli forces pushed into the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. Local and international media reported that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families fled from the area, which Israel said it will seize as part of a new "security zone."
Human rights defenders around the world condemned U.S.-backed killing and mass displacement, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—whose bid to block some sAmerican arms sales to Israel was rejected by the Senate on Thursday—saying: "There is a name and a term for forcibly expelling people from where they live. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is illegal. It is a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including upward of 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced at least once, and the "complete siege" imposed by Israel has fueled widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and disease.