Over-promoted butler and Edwardian cosplay enthusiast Jacob Rees-Mogg has been on the radio criticising the 72 victims of the Grenfell fire at a time when he’s trying to win over voters.
Yes, you read that right.
Rees-Mogg, going over the Grenfell report findings in an interview on LBC, said it would have been “the common sense thing to do” to ignore the Fire Brigade’s “stay put” instructions and to leave the building.
In fact, he’s so convinced that he’d defy emergency service advice in a crisis that he posits to the host: “If either of us were in a fire, whatever the Fire Brigade said, we would leave the burning building.”
He then has the audacity to contradict his entire attitude to the disaster by saying, “I don’t think it’s anything to do with race or class” when he’s shown utter ignorance about general fire procedure in tower blocks because… spoiler alert… he’s never lived in one.
Here’s the full quote:
“The more one’s read over the weekend about the report and the chances of people surviving, if you just ignore what you’re told and leave, you are so much safer. And I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the Fire Brigade said, we would leave the burning building, it just seems the common sense thing to do and it is such a tragedy that that didn’t happen, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with race or class.”
And watch it here:
Ahmed Chellat, who lost five members of his family in the fire, has told the Mirror that Rees-Mogg “has got to apologise… People died on the stairs trying to leave, they couldn’t breathe. People needed help and directions, they tried to open doors and there was smoke everywhere. What is he talking about? How is he coming to this insensitive conclusion?”
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