The Grenfell report shames us all. We are blinded to the plight of the poor

Today’s scathing report into the Grenfell Tower fire has blamed “dishonest” companies and failures by successive governments. George Pitcher says Christians can’t only mourn the 72 lost lives. We must also repent of our own blindness to the suffering of the poor, both at Grenfell and in the English Channel 

This is an utterly shaming week in the history of our nation. Indeed, it is shaming for a western European civilisation that is often claimed to be built on Christian foundations.

Two desperately tragic events – one from seven years ago, just revealed in all its scandalous horror in a published report, and the other occurring in real time this week – stand in cold condemnation of our carelessness and moral abandon.

The bald facts are these: The inferno that swept through London’s Grenfell Tower criminally dangerous flats in 2017 killed 72 people. And, this week, 12 desperate human beings, including six children and a pregnant woman, drowned in the English Channel, seeking asylum in the UK.