Once again, the nation is coping with the disastrous consequences of a dysfunctional state and a corresponding public philosophy – one that states that deregulated markets work better than public initiative. Under this bleak worldview, public regulation is, a priori, bad.
It was this state and philosophy that together delivered a building safety ecosystem – and culture – producing Britain’s worst peacetime fire, whose lethal origins and outcome were so graphically described in last week’s report of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster. Dysfunctional national and local government, feeble regulators and amoral businesses, it declares, were jointly responsible for the avoidable catastrophe that led to 72 deaths.
