Mogg

Whitewave, no one blamed the villagers of Aberfan , and it was a labour government who supported the guilty

James O'Brien looked at Jacob Rees-Mogg's apology over his Grenfell remarks in the context of Dominic Cummings saying "Tory MPs don't care about poorer people".

JenniferEccles I’m not easily shocked but you have managed to chill me with your post. Shocking,

I don't hate Rees-Mogg. He is living the life he as born into and most likely living it well. But he shouldn't have said what he did. It was beyond crass.

I certainly would not blame the residents for doing as they were advised.
JRM did not 'blame the residents'. His comments have been taken out of context and a different meaning put on them. There are some gullible people posting here, and clearly some who are easily shocked too!

Exactly Gill

Being polite and having a certain accent doesn't preclude you from making offensive and ill-judged statements. Eton doesn't appear to instill common sense in its ex pupils.

I wonder how many posting on here have actually heard the interview?

At no point did he say the residents did not have common sense.

He said what I have heard numerous people say, that it is common sense to flee a burning building.

So, if it was taken out of context why has he apologised?

Yes, I have heard it because I'm not going to comment on lies.

I have also heard a pastor from the community saying people are devastated by the comments.

"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."

That is what he said. Seems plain enough to me.

Yes, I've heard it.

Unless he was saying it would be common sense to him and the interviewer, but not to the residents of Grenfell.

Plain insulting.

That's how it sounded to me, but then I'm awash with envy.

Oh, and I can be gullible which is why I went to the trouble of listening very carefully to what he said.

Easily shocked? No, not shocked by this out of touch person.

It was a very insensitive thing to say (and I'm a fan of the man). He doesn't seem to realise that people don't find themselves in that sort of situation very often! They trust those in authority to give them the best advice.

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.

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........

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'.

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.

.....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?

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.

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

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.

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