What is the purpose of a Public Inquiry?

After the tragedy comes the Public Inquiry.  Its aim?  To get to the truth.  There is only one real question. And it needs to be asked over and over again.  And then some more.  The question?  Why. Why, if true:

·      Why was a fridge allowed in a residential building when the fridge was perhaps not safe?

·      Why did the London Fire Brigade leave the locus of the fire after tacking an initial fire relating to the fridge?  

·      Why did they assume that it would not have spread?

·      Why did the fire spread?

·      Why did the cladding not protect? 

·      Why did the design effectively mean it was a chimney in waiting? 

·      Why were fire baffles not in place at each floor?

·      Why were lead contractors allowed to bid for work that would appear to give them no profit? 

·      Why are these contractors then able to push the prices their sub-contractors down? 

·      Why are sub-contractors then effectively forced to choose cheaper materials in order to make some sort of margin? 

·      Why are lead contractors so slow at paying their sub-contractors?

·      Why were tenants allowed to sub-let or run homes of multiple occupancy against the council rules?

And so it goes on.  I am sure you could add many many more Why questions to my meagre list.

The reality is we won’t know if we don’t keep asking Why.

So it is disturbing that the local MP is whipping up feeling against the proposed Chair of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.  Labour MP Emma Dent Coad said Sir Martin was “a technocrat” who lacked “credibility” with the families.

On the BBC Today programme this morning she continued: “I have been talking to hundreds of people who have been affected.  They need somebody they can talk to, somebody with a bit of a human face.  I don't think he should do it. I don't think there will be any credibility".

On a rater more sinister vein she claimed, “Some people are saying they are not going to co-operate with it, so it's not going to work.”

They have also been angered, she claimed, by his decision to allow Kensington Council (which was criticised by some for its apparent slow and ineffective response to the disaster) to contribute to the inquiry.  Is she really saying the most important witness should be excluded?  And for what reason would she not want the democratically elected council to be part of the process?  The answer to that is, of course, Labours view of what is democratic doesn’t match with that of every other political party in the UK.  Think Animal Farm.

If we want the answers to the Why question, one would have thought that Kensington Council would be first in the witness box, not excluded from it.

Which very sadly lead me to the conclusion that Corbyns Labour party really doesn’t want answers?  They want scapegoats.  And a Chair appointed by a conservative Prime Minister will be their first target.

Actually, I would rather have a technocrat, a professional, a thorough person, a dispassionate person leading the Inquiry than some cuddly person who goes and “stands by the residents”, whatever that vacuous notion may mean.

Only then we may start getting to the truth of what were the circumstances that gave rise to the tower that was Grenfell.  And the truth of the scandal that appears to blight hundreds of other housing blocks around the country, like in Labour controlled Camden, which could have so easily been the ones that were destroyed along with countless lives.

Sadly Labours contempt for anyone that is not of their narrow-minded view may ruin what may well be the most important Public Inquiry since Piper Alpha.