The Guardian website posted a new lead article late this afternoon.
Grenfell survivors issue 12 demands to PM to overhaul response to tragedy
The first paragraph of the story says "Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are writing to the prime minister". By the third paragraph however it transpires that the letter has been "written by lawyers on the survivors’ behalf, (...) based on feedback from the meeting".
The meeting is the one held in Parliament last week, called by Diane Abbott.
A Guardian story on Saturday described it as follows :
Labour MPs invited survivors to parliament for a meeting chaired by Diane Abbott, which collapsed into recriminations and resentment.
One activist, who walked out of the meeting, said that local residents and survivors felt as if they had been paraded before a “flock of vultures”.
“How many more times are the victims of this tragedy going to be exhibits in a grotesque sideshow?” Ishmahil Blagrove said in a posting on Facebook after the meeting, questioning why MPs had not come to visit the site of the fire.
Ismahil Blagrove is a co-ordinator for Justice 4 Grenfell.
This letter has been sent on behalf of a different group BMElawyers4Grenfell. It begins :
We are an umbrella action group incorporating leading BME Lawyer groups, BME Community Organisations, survivors, residents and supporters, created to assist those who have survived the fire and those who live within the vicinity of Grenfell Tower.
We arranged a meeting, called by the Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbot M.P. (...) Also in attendance were 150 Residents.
The letter is signed by Ismet P Rawat (Mrs), President, Association of Muslim Lawyers, Peter Herbert, Chair, Society of Black Lawyers, Ghino Parker (Mrs), Resident and Grenfell community representative.
The Guardian article clarifies that Mrs Parker is "a local resident who is supporting survivors and bereaved relatives".
Did the meeting "collapse into recriminations and resentment" or is that just Ismahil Blagrove's view ? If it did how did it express the 12 demands which have been formulated ? How did it mandate BMElawyers4Grenfell to represent its views ? In its interestingly ordered list of the various people involved in BMElawyers4Grenfell survivors are listed third and residents listed fourth. When the letter refers to 150 residents attending the meeting how many of those were survivors ?
I note that not a single former resident of Grenfell Tower is quoted in this Guardian story.
Nor in the one on Saturday which included an account of the meeting.
That one did contain quotes from Pilgrim Tucker, "a housing campaigner who has worked with Grenfell residents for several years", "prominent barrister" Jolyon Maugham, David Alexander, "professor of disaster management at University College London", David Lammy, "the MP for Tottenham who lost a friend in the fire and has become a strong advocate for survivors and bereaved families", Souad Talsi, "founder of Al Hasaniya, a charity supporting Arabic-speaking women in the area" and an unnamed senior manager of Al Hasaniya.
But not a single survivor.
