Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show Sunday, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that those responsible for “social murder” at Grenfell Tower should be held accountable for their actions.
McDonnell was asked by Marr whether he stood by earlier remarks made at the Glastonbury Festival’s Left Field tent debate, when he said that the victims of the June 14 Grenfell Tower inferno had been “murdered by political decisions that were taken over recent decades.”
Asked if he regretted these statements, McDonnell replied, “No, I don’t regret that… Political decisions were made which resulted in the deaths of these people.”
Later he continued, “There’s a long history in this country of the concept of social murder where decisions are made with no regard to consequences of that, and as a result of that people have suffered.
“That’s what’s happened here, and I’m angry… I believe social murder has occurred in this instance and I believe people should be accountable.”
McDonnell did not say so, but he was citing Frederick Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Engels wrote condemning the British ruling class for the impact of fetid water supplies, cramped housing and disease on the working class:
