Culpable

Deregulation, Austerity and the Causes of the Grenfell Tower Fire

Matt Wrack, Paul Hampton

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9780745351025
• eBook ISBN: 9780745351032
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Infrastructure
• Index: History

‘If anyone still doubts that 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire because successive governments deliberately took away safety measures in the name of profit, this lucid, luminously written book will put them straight’ Francis Beckett, journalist and contemporary historian

‘A searing indictment of the death and destruction neoliberalism has wreaked’ Gregor Gall, Visiting Professor, University of Leeds

‘Frames the frantic moments of heroism and exhaustion of that night within a calm, detailed account of the FBU’s fire safety advocacy over decades’ Daniel Blackburn, Director, International Centre for Trade Union Rights

In June 2017, a fire broke out in the 25-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in West London. 72 people died in what was the worst residential fire in Britain since World War II. Culpable is a searing indictment of the government’s role in this tragedy. For nearly four decades, the ministers responsible for public safety systematically dismantled regulations through privatisation and deregulation, enabling the contractors who made Grenfell Tower a ticking time-bomb.

Despite warnings from professionals (including the Fire Brigades Union), politicians from successive governments imposed deregulation in the name of the market and in favour of private profiteers. Meticulously researched, and drawing on the extensive findings of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, Culpable sets the record straight and challenges readers to consider the fundamental issues of power and violence that remain unresolved in the aftermath of Grenfell.

Paul Hampton is Head of Research and Policy at the Fire Brigades Union. He is the author of numerous FBU and other labour movement publications, and has been a trade unionist for 40 years. 

Steve Wright is General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Steve Wright, FBU general secretary
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Housing as a social service
• 2 Thatcher’s deregulation unleashed
• 3 Blair’s ‘better deregulation’ unchecked
• 4 Cameron’s deregulation accelerated
• 5 Building safety downgraded
• 6 Fire safety fragmented
• 7 Refurbishment botched
• 8 The ‘impossible’ fire
• 9 Deregulation never stopped
• 10 Justice delayed, lessons unlearned
• Notes
• Index