Unbelievable first week of the election. Rees Mogg makes a staggering comment on Grenfell, Bridgen even more staggeringly defends it in the worst of ways, a candidate quits for sexual harassment and they have to apologise/deny/excuse a terribly doctored video. For Labour too, just today there were 2 candidates in anti-Semitism storms. The Lib Dems meanwhile have started on the wrong foot, losing in the polls and not helped by getting ignored by most TV companies for debates, not to mention the really terrible and quite manipulativebar graphs finally getting attention.
Just want to add something about Rees Mogg: whatever he may have meant from his comment, there is no way to spin it positively at all (which explains the leading tories' silence of it). Either, like Bridgen, you argue that Rees Mogg and the Tories are smarter than the average working class person, which really doesn't need to be expanded in any further; or, you are telling people to ignore the fire service and authority, which is very un-conservative but also in this case a demonstration of how out of touch and insular politicians are. The rule makes sense: it's used all over England in high tower blocks and I'm fairly sure in most of the developed world. But the stay put rule relies on one key assumption: that houses are built properly. That fire doors to prevent smoke entering for 30 minutes are present, that sprinklers are functioning, that the building isn't covered in what amounted to pretty much petrol infused kindling. It's as if the Tories have looked at Grenfell and the lesson they've taken from it isnt that housing regs needed to be tighter of that cost cutting due to lack of funds isn't an excuse for ignoring people's safety, but that the Fire Service, the same fire service which, you know, is universally liked, knowledgeable in the field and save people's lives daily, are in the wrong. Says it all really.