Introduction: Grenfell and the return of ‘social murder’

Abstract

This chapter introduces the context, main arguments and chapter structure of the book. A first section recounts the main events of the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017 and the ensuing political fallout, explaining that the disaster had been foretold in previous deadly fires and warnings about the impact of building and fire safety deregulation. A second section argues that this refusal to listen made Grenfell an act of what Friedrich Engels called ‘social murder’ at the hands of unregulated private greed. This is followed by a third section outlining the book’s overall argument that Grenfell has exposed a deeper neoliberal fault line in the governance of housing safety from decades of privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation. A fourth section sets out the three main case studies of regeneration under PFI underpinning the book’s argument, and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book. The chapter ends by detailing the empirical evidence and research process underpinning the book.