The unbearable mechanical noise of two helicopter engines woke me up at 4 am this morning. I looked out of my bedroom window and witnessed a beautiful summer morning. Sunny and clear skies; not a cloud, except for thick grey smoke rising quickly from the horizon. I got dressed and decided to go out for an early morning walk. I then saw a third helicopter and realised that something was wrong. The man-made cloud of black smoke was the product of a huge fire that engulfed a 1970’s block of flats in North Kensington, not far from where I live. Nobody is mentioning any fatal casualties now, as if the media were frightened to admit more deaths in London only a week after the London Bridge terror attack.
Only hours earlier Theresa May had been dining with Monsieur Macron at La Rotonde in Paris just after she had reached a feeble political agreement with the Irish Unionists at 10 Downing Street. The British Press is now reporting the end of austerity, after 10 years of cuts affecting low income families mainly, those families who live in derelict towers like the one that is still burning this morning.
