Pious Noises

On the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell disaster, the Church of England did what it does best and played host to an empty gesture. Tumbledown Tessie, whose substantial contribution to the nation's present plight has not provoked the Lords Spiritual to impose any noticeable penance, joined the leader of the cost-cutting local authority, the jabbering homunculus in charge of vapid sloganeering, and the appointed wielder of the whitewash brush to hear the names of the expendables read out at Westminster Abbey. Half a decade of assiduous concern on the part of Her Majesty's Government for the well-being of landlords and profiteers was not lost upon the families of the dead, whose legal representative assured the assembled crooks, parasites, fools and ghouls that, since nothing was likely to be done beyond protecting the guilty, they probably wouldn't have to sit through the whole tedious business again in a year's time. It is to be hoped, at least, that the presence of the bereaved served to mute and moderate the worst of the sniggering.