If we were living in a movie, the ash-blackened cage looming over West London would be a metaphor for something. Instead, the Grenfell Tower disaster — so catastrophic that we are told we may never know how many people died — is a distinctly un-metaphorical national disgrace.
The least we can do now is learn the lessons of the fire, as we did not after the Lakanal House fire of 2009, which killed six people. Some of those lessons should emerge from the public inquiry. Grenfell Tower was built in 1974 but had recently been renovated. In a sane world such a renovation should have improved safety standards. Apparently we do not live in such a world.
But beyond the life-and-death details of fire safety rules and enforcement, a bigger picture has long been apparent: the British housing system, particularly in London, is in a shocking state. Decades of policy failure have left us with unaffordable housing. That is why the residents of unsafe housing feel trapped and voiceless, unable to afford to move, and powerless to demand change.
A better politician than Theresa May might have used this tragedy to justify housing reform, announcing a bold plan to build a million new quality homes before 2020. That target is less ambitious than it sounds, merely making up many years of undersupply. Having many more decent homes on the market would lower rents and make other housing policy goals — choice, fairness, quality, safety — easier to achieve. But perhaps that expecting too much of Mrs May. Stronger prime ministers in luckier circumstances have failed to make headway on housing.
What of Jeremy Corbyn, the man who is keen to remind us that he’d be quite willing to run the country? The Labour leader certainly made a better job of appearing prime ministerial after the fire, showing concern where Mrs May seemed distant. But this — the performance part of the job — is not what matters most. Boris Johnson could also have played the necessary role to perfection, but that would hardly qualify him to lead the country.
What we really need from our politicians is a willingness to advocate and execute wise policies. Mr Corbyn, instead, focused on grabbing and redistributing property. “There are a large number of deliberately kept vacant flats and properties all over London,” he told ITV journalist Robert Peston, arguing that these properties should be used to house the victims of the fire. When pressed for detail he added, “Occupy, compulsory purchase it, requisition it, there’s a lot of things you can do.”
This is a telling statement — even leaving aside the use of the word “occupy”, which seems to wink at the idea of breaking into other people’s homes. Since Mr Corbyn’s remarks are often uncharitably interpreted by the British press, let us assume that was not his goal.
Still, there is little ambiguity in the word “requisition”. This reflects a consistent theme in Mr Corbyn’s thinking: that the British public can best be served by forcing others — including international corporations and foreign property investors — to bear most of the cost.
It’s not hard to see why this seems appealing. It taps into the same ideals exploited by Donald Trump and the Leave campaign: that there’s money being left on the table, that foreigners are rigging the game against us. Time to give the “Gnomes of Zurich” a poke in the eye.
Such xenophobia-tinged ideas have taken nations to very dark places in the past, but today it is more likely that they will simply lead to inept policies and bad outcomes. Seizing foreign-owned property in London — even proposing seizure — will reduce the tax base and do yet more harm to the reputation of the UK as a grown-up country. (Perhaps that ship has sailed.)
Rich and apparently wasteful foreigners are an easy scapegoat for the problem of high prices and high rents in London. But they have become a target based on anecdotes. What limited data we have — it is admittedly patchy — suggests that the idea of widespread “buy to leave” is a myth. Wealthy foreign investors did not become so by squandering rental income.
We should be taxing all property, with expensive properties taxed at higher rates, occupied or not, foreign-owned or not. There is no need to be vindictive. And we should be building more. There is still scope in London — to say nothing of the leafy south-east — to build safe, pleasant apartments in high-rise and medium-rise blocks. There are costs of doing so, but the costs of not doing so are far greater.
As for the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, plans have been announced to offer them homes in a new local development. Good. Surely the British taxpayer is willing and able to do what is right, and pay from our own pockets to rehouse them swiftly and well. There is no need to requisition anything.
This disaster should provoke a rethink not just of rules on sprinkler systems, but the entire rotten edifice of British housing policy. I am not optimistic; I fear we’re getting the politics — and the politicians — we deserve. But the residents of Grenfell Tower deserved so much better.
Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 23 June 2017.
My new book is “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy“.