What the Grenfell report didn't do
Welcome back to Inside the Big Issue. I’m senior reporter Greg Barradale
“Nobody knows who is going to be alive for justice - maybe not my mother, maybe not my me.” Those were the words spoken by Maria Jafari, who lost her father in the Grenfell fire, at a press conference on the day the final inquiry report into the tragedy was released.
Even the most hardened hacks faltered as they heard the story of Francis Dean. He escaped the fire, but his partner Zainab Deen and her son Jeremiah did not. While Francis stood outside the burning tower, on the phone to Zainab, he passed the phone to a firefighter. When the firefighter passed it back, he told Francis to tell Zainab he loved her. Then the line went dead.
“We are demanding justice for these lives that died,” said Dean. “The government actually promised us justice. This was the previous government, and I do hope this current government can take up that lead and assure us that we are going to get justice.
The Grenfell Inquiry’s final report, for many affected by the fire, does not represent closure. It’s another landmark in a story that’s stretched out over seven years. The survivors and families at the press conference, in a hotel near Paddington, demanded manslaughter charges.
The Big Issue has been there, covering the sprawling legacy of the Grenfell fire, across those last seven years.
The horror at the fire led to promises of change. But action to remove dangerous cladding has faltered - as we saw with the recent fire in Dagenham, buildings remain housing residents despite fire safety issues. Homeowners face sky-high bills and soaring mortgage rates just to make their homes safe. Neera Soni, who lives in a Birmingham building with multiple fire safety issues, told the Big Issue on Wednesday that the report should be a catalyst for the government to “actually start to listen and speed things up.”
In the shadow of Grenfell Tower, the aftermath of the fire blights lives on the Lancaster West estate. On the fire’s seventh anniversary, we revealed the council charged residents for cleaning excrement off a memorial to the fire. A landmark refurbishment of the estate has run over-time and over-budget.
On a visit to the estate last year, I met Virginia Sang. As the fire engulfed the tower, she rushed to do “what I could to help people in the local area”. At 6am, she went home, had a bath, and went to work to open up a local GP surgery “in case the fire brigade might need something”. People she had known since her school days died in the fire. When I met her last year, she said how black ash from the fire still blew through her kitchen window when she opened it.
“Half of us might not be alive,” by the time the refurbishment is finished, she told me. Sang has since died, becoming one of those who did not live to see justice done.
A win for Inside the Big Issue
As devoted readers of this newsletter will know, I delve through our dusty archives every week to bring you a slice of Big Issue history. With Oasis reuniting, I turned last week’s edition of Inside the Big Issue into an archive special, detailing our long history with the brothers Gallagher.?
Among the unearthed interviews was a chat between Noel Gallagher and then-PhD student Rupa Huq from 1999. After I shared this, Rupa saw it and got in touch - not only are Oasis reforming, but Labour are back in government, and she’s now a Labour MP.
And that’s how this week’s Big Issue cover story was born. The piece Rupa has written about her encounter with Noel Gallagher - and the political parallels and changes with now and then - is a great read. All from the archive section of this newsletter.
In a way, it’s a victory for us all.
As a young boy, Jared Harris didn’t see his hellraising actor father Richard very often. But when he did, they always had the best time he says in a Letter To My Younger Self
Dom Joly took a flat earther to the ‘edge of the world’. He discovered evidence doesn’t always change opinion
What academics learned when they put trackers on homeless people
My Pitch
Fans of Massive Attack may recognise the voice of Big Issue vendor Claude Williams. He rapped on Five Man Army, from the group’s 1991 debut Blue Lines, and was a part of the Wild Bunch, which morphed into Massive Attack.
“We used to play all-night gigs in the summer, crank up a generator and go to the cash and carry and get a couple of crates of beer and just go on The Downs,” he recalls.
“We’d got 300, 400, 500 people popping off. It wasn’t just pre- dominantly black people, it was black and white people, just people into music. I still listen to the music from that time.”
“Every day I wake up and I try and do something good for somebody. It makes me feel good when I do that. Since I’ve been doing the Big Issue I have met some really beautiful people.”
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