Mogg

Perhaps this despicable member of the brexit elite is not as intelligent as some poor folk have been led to believe.

Dad was a senior fire officer when high rise blocks started to be built. He was convinced that if correctly constructed they were among the safest buildings around.

The concrete floors and compartmentalized system only became unsafe when the structure was compromised. It has become clear that 'refurbishment' did just that. Drilling through floors and walls plus inadequate fire doors, criminal lack of maintenance and a single escape staircase were a recipe for disaster. Then add the cladding to 'improve the the view' for the neighbours and the death warrant was signed.

Blame Westminster council. Blame untrustworthy contractors. Blame Johnson. But not the Fire Service and a procedure that has been proved safe elsewhere as long as building regulations are scrupulously maintained. No blame for those who took the advice they were given in good faith.

Under a very thin veneer of civilisation, RM is the lowest of the low.

I guess being public school/Eton educated and speaking properly is enough for some. Pathetic.

Well you guess wrong about me, then.

I mix with people from all walks of life, and long ago learnt not to judge anyone because of how they speak, or where they went to school.

A heartless git is a heartless git, however, regardless of whether he went to Bash Street Secondary School or Eton College.

Maybe there is less of an excuse for someone with a good education? Maybe they should know better?

Amongst his unsympathetic comments, RM made mention of how 'you and I' would respond, which 'others' the victims, and is potentially a racist remark, or classist, or at best insensitive.

Anyone giving an interview should be much more careful about how they come across, and consider their language and how it might be perceived by various audiences, particularly in such tragic circumstances.

So easy to be wise after the event.

Andrew Bridgen digs deeper, by saying Rees Mogg would have survived because he is 'cleverer'.

I would never tire of slapping that man!!!

Flyingsolo I think yours was a very good and thoughtful post.

Nabil Choucair

His mother, his sister, his brother-in-law and his three young nieces all died in the blaze

It gets worse.

The Tories just don’t get it do they?

Jenni Russell

Wow, the MP Andrew Bridgen just making Rees Mogg Grenfell remarks worse; defends him by saying he’s a very clever authority figure who would not personally have accepted the advice to stay in a building on fire. Says Grenfell residents not authority, leadership figures. Appalling

It must cut those who have lost family members like a knife to hear comments about common sense, and what others would have done and blah blah blah.. I absolutely know it must.

Wouldn't it be just great if, some time in the wee small hours of 13th December, we had a "Portillo moment" starring Jacob Rees Mogg?

I feel a combination of lots of emotions - rage, disgust, overwhelming sadness, horror, frustration...the list is endless. The one thing I don’t feel is the need to say anything about ‘common sense’.

Yes, I don't feel rage., I'm too weary. Just sad.

I can be enraged about multiple things all at once.
I'm not enraged about Mogg though, just saddened that anyone could be so insensitive.

What we should be enraged about

We should be enraged about both the dangerous cladding and Mr Mogg’s behaviour - the 2 are not mutually exclusive

There is no "ambiguous" meaning to what he said.

I'm not at all surprised about that.
When our fire alarm kept going off in the hall, our council advised us to disable it.

Grammaretto, I agree entirely. What we should be enraged about is that there are I believe some 300 buildings still with the dangerous cladding and goodness knows whether any of them have sprinklers. I was horrified to hear that people had been put to live in tower blocks that do not have the correct materials, fire alarms and sprinklers.

"There are some gullible people posting here" doesn't seem too difficult to understand, as I read it.

There’s a vast difference between a poster misreading a comment on GN and a senior member of the Govt making a crass, ill judged, offensive comment about people who died a horrific death. So no, not easily done.

.....who are repulsed by his comments of being 'guillible' and 'easily shocked'
I was referring to a poster who say she was 'shocked' by another poster. You are misreading my comment. See how easily it's done?

We do certainly live in a blame culture
S'not my fault so must be yours!
What JRM said was unforgettable and unforgivable because he is in government! He has to realise that responsibilty.

What saddens me is that we still haven't learned the lessons from Grenfell. There is still dangerous cladding on high rise buildings.
As for leaving the building at an earlier time. How can we know how we would have reacted? By the time the exit (singular) was full of smoke, it was far too late.

Stop digging Chestnut, it is bad enough to defend the man, but do not accuse me and others who are repulsed by his comments of being 'guillible' and 'easily shocked'.

It must be because I have 'fire' on my mind, I have myself possibly made an inappropriate comment about a pyre. I expect people will throw insults at me now........

So, if it was taken out of context why has he apologised?
If something you said had an ambiguous meaning, and people took it to mean something offensive then it makes sense to apologise because you expressed yourself badly. I would do the same. No need to burn him on a pyre of flaming insults for making a bad judgement.