After Grenfell Tower Fire, U.K. Asks: Has Deregulation Gone Too Far?
The ideal championed by the postwar Labour health minister, Aneurin Bevan, was of a place "where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher
and farm laborer all lived on the same street," and according to Pilgrim Tucker, a housing campaigner, in 1979, 20 percent of the richest 10 percent of Britain’s population lived in social housing.
Only 29 percent of Britons favored further cuts in public spending, down from 35 percent 10 years ago,
and 48 percent said taxes should rise, compared with 32 percent a decade ago.
Over time, the nature of social housing changed, as some apartments simply became private rental properties — including an unknown number
in Grenfell Tower itself — though their maintenance was controlled by the local council through a nonprofit management agency.
Private companies were required to use "authorized inspectors" for fire safety, but, as Mr. Freedland pointed out, they worked for builders and developers, and "there was a classic conflict of interest." Here the two trends of saving money and deregulation come together: The council had recently spent some $11 million on Grenfell Tower to insulate apartments and cut energy costs, using cladding
that was approved under existing building regulations.
Grenfell Tower had such impact because it symbolizes for many in Britain the retreat of the state, visible in badly maintained social housing
and the failure to build more social housing." Britain is having another chapter in the central debate of the capitalist era: What are the proper roles of the state, the market and the individual?
During the campaign, Mr. Corbyn and Labour called for renationalizing the railways, the water supply
and some utilities, spending much more on social services like the National Health Service and social benefits and ending tuition fees at universities.
