THERESA MAY has admitted she “shed a tear” after realising that her incompetent election campaigning plunged the country into a paralysing hung parliament.

But it could have been even worse for her.

Had the fridge suspected of igniting Grenfell Tower malfunctioned a fortnight earlier, it might not have just sparked a tragedy, but also fuelled extra anger on polling day that would have removed Mrs May from her high office altogether.

Even though the information emerged after the election, the idea so many vulnerable people perished because flammable cladding was £5,000 cheaper than potentially much safer construction materials was still a political gift to Jeremy Corbyn.

It fitted his claim that the rich get richer in “austerity Britain” while life at the bottom only gets tougher.

Worst hardships

The local Tory council’s slow and inadequate response even meant some survivors had to sleep rough in parks, and now a new target for local anger has emerged.

It should have been impossible for any organisation to move even more slowly than the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but some charities proved they can.

More than £20million has been donated to groups promising to help Grenfell victims, but funds rushed to charity accounts by a generous British  public have largely remained there, doing nothing. One explanation for this appalling state of affairs is the distance between charities and the communities they seek to help.

Unlike churches, mosques and other faith groups which ­provided fast, round-the-clock help to people they knew as neighbours, staff in misnamed voluntary organisations are more like local government employees.

They are actually not local, sleeping elsewhere once evening arrives. Such charities, frightened of the newspaper headlines that would greet donor money ending up in a fraudster’s hands, proceed cautiously.

And, all too sadly, there are plenty of con artists out to cheat — who don’t reach for their own wallets when disaster strikes but plot to empty those of others.

One man has been charged with fraud after allegedly ­trousering nearly £2,500 in emergency cash and hotel payments after falsely claiming he lost his wife and son in the Grenfell inferno.

With the reputation of so many developers, councillors and now charities being shredded, public anger at perceived incompetence and unfairnesses in Britain is rising again.

Mr Corbyn certainly hopes so.

He wants people to believe the Tory way of doing things is wicked, or at least borderline wicked, and it’s only a matter of time before this bubbling anger installs him inside No 10.

The reality, however, is life for those at the bottom won’t improve if the Left establishes “top of the pops” status for its own ­caricature of “wicked” Tories ­versus angelic socialists.

The explanation for of our ­discontent cannot be found by framing ­everything as spend- carefully May against spend-a- lot Labour.

It’s about models of doing things that are responsive and those that are not.

Oddly enough it was Mr Corbyn who revealed most about the best way forward but not in the way he intended.

When Grenfell’s survivors were being first let down by local Tory councillors, he fumed that hotels would have been found if those needing beds were ­British Airways customers with rescheduled overnight flights.

He meant to imply Tories were even more mean-spirited than big business.

Instead, he highlighted the crucial difference in customer experience between ­private firms constantly having to earn loyalty and agencies of ­government where contact with voters occurs rarely, and in safe electoral districts, almost never.

I don’t know if BA workers have bigger or smaller hearts and brains than the council employers who are judged to have failed Grenfell’s residents.

I do know the Tories have ruled the royal borough since 1964. They’ve enjoyed North Korean levels of one-party control since before we won the World Cup.

We don’t necessarily need more private sector involvement in running state services but public servants must be as sensitive to local communities as the BA salesforce is to its frequent flyers.

Public servants won’t be good servants of the public if they don’t in some way see that public as their masters in tangible, ­regular ways.

They need to fear what might happen at election times.

It’s clear almost no one in K&C was fearful of poorer voters at all.

That’s now changed — but too late for the 100 or so voices who weren’t heard and who will never be heard again.

BLAIR BASHES BREXIT

I SEE Tony Blair is back and STILL trying to stop Brexit.

More people voted for Britain to leave the European Union than voted for any of his high-tax, high-spending governments.

In fact, more people voted to leave the EU than have voted for anything else in British history.

We don’t need Inspector Morse to solve the mystery of why politicians like the former Labour PM are unpopular.

They promised to accept the outcome of the referendum and they have not done so.

SONGS OF PRAISE REVAMP

MY nan and my grandma sing with the ­heavenly choirs now, but while they were still down here on planet Earth they both loved BBC TV’s Songs of Praise. The long-running Sunday afternoon hymns and ­interviews show might be about to get a more male and slightly younger audience, however.

Not because ­religious revival is sweeping Britain but because ­Katherine Jenkins will be one of the new hosts.

The devil may have many of the best tunes but with this much-loved Welsh singer in his corner, God is still in business.

RED ALERT FOR DEBT TIMEBOMB

RED is definitely back in Britain. Red socialism has returned with Jeremy Corbyn ahead in opinion polls.

And more and more red-coloured electricity, gas and phone bills are dropping through letterboxes as more and more households struggle to make ends meet.

Without including mortgages, the average household is up to its neck in £7,700 of credit card and other all-too-easily-accessed forms of consumer borrowing.

All of us who spend too much have to take personal responsibility for putting those things we want but probably don’t need on to our plastic.

It’s amazing that just ten years after their greed caused the last crash, the big banks have been so willing to increase our credit limits to levels that the Bank of England sees as dangerous.

As the UK economy slows down, the alert signs are flashing again – and they, too, are flashing red.

PAUSE THE PUNDITS

ONE thing I hope we’re doing 100 years from now is reading a bit less news and more books and history.

I waste far too much time reading what pundits think might happen in the future.

At this time of the year I immerse myself in the outpourings of football commentators and their speculation as to who might move to Manchester United in the summer transfer window.

Waiting for the signings of United boss Jose Mourinho teaches me transfer gossip is even less trustworthy than political promises.

But, weak-willed news junkie that I am, I still can’t get enough of it.

CHANGING BELIEFS

A FRIEND asked a really good question on Twitter this week.

What custom or belief that is common or widely accepted today will be regarded as completely beyond the pale in a century or so? The most popular answer from his followers was meat-eating.

Someone suggested the way we treated older people – that there would be horror at the way we
“dumped” our parents and grandparents in homes where so many receive so little personal attention.

I think it might be abortion we turn against.

Science is advancing fast and it will be possible for unborn children to survive outside of the mother’s womb from a very early stage.

Time will tell.

MOST READ IN OPINION

[ooyala code="M0Ym12YjE6U8QYr8W3RJD62jg8trgNko" player_id="NDcyOWI0M2YyMDdkN2YwODU5Mzc5MDUz" width="1920" height="1080" caption="Eerie video inside Grenfell shows the devastated hallway and charred core of the tower" auto="true"

Source: Read Full Article