The words “Labour gain Kensington” were one of the biggest shocks of last week’s election, but they shouldn’t have been, really. While the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) as a whole is the richest in London, its northern-most wards are among the city’s most deprived. That so many commentators were so surprised when Labour won serves mainly to highlight that we’d forgotten that poor people live there.
The stories now emerging about the maintenance of the Grenfell Tower suggest that the council had done much the same. Local residents warned repeatedly that a number of local blocks were at risk of fire. Those warnings were ignored.
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