Devastated: Grenfell Tower.

The Metropolitan Police has revised its estimate of the number of people likely to have died at Grenfell Tower up to 79, which leaves 382 unaccounted-for, according to my reckoning.

That’s taking into account the fact the tower had 600 residents, 65 were rescued and 74 were being treated in hospital. Of course some of these may have died – but have they been included in the figures?

Here’s CommanderStuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police:

The appeal for residents who are well, but have not made themselves known to the authorities, is important. Anybody who escaped but has stayed quiet – please contact the police.

The images released by the police were shown in this article – but for clarity, here they are again:

The promise that the police investigation will go wherever it takes them – with no fear of or favour to the powerful – is one to which the Met must be held.

The people in the following video have serious doubts. They say many more bodies than we have been told have already been found. They have questions to which they would like to hear answers, and they have stories that are harrowing:

https://twitter.com/JamzLdn/status/876495066151485440

Unrest about the way the government – local and national – has handled the disaster is continuing. Right-wing supporters of the Tories have been posting misinformation about the Labour MP for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, claiming that she was on the tenant management organisation that made the decisions which made Grenfell Tower unsafe. This is not true – those decisions were made after she left.

Some have been posting lies about Jeremy Corbyn as well.

Some have been delving into their bookshelves to find a definition of what happened to the residents of Grenfell Tower. I was interested in this, from Aditya Chakrabortty:

The relevant part states: “When society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”

I’d like to know the book title and the author, because those of us who have been defending the sick and disabled from government persecution could have used that passage – and may have a use for it in the future.

And now there are questions about the treatment of other people in social housing near Grenfell Tower:

Again, I don’t have more details at this time and would like to appeal for anyone with information to provide it via the Comment column.

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here: