Sky News anchor Adam Boulton plumbed the depths of crassness this morning by telling a Grenfell justice campaigner that the survivors’ objection to the government’s appointment of Sir Martin Moore-Bick to head the public inquiry into the tragedy was just because the judge is “white and middle class”.
And then went downhill from there.
Ignoring Grenfell spokeswoman Sue Caro’s clear and logical explanation of the survivors’ objections to the judge based on his judicial record, Boulton told Caro:
Is there any truth in the fact that you object to the judge because he’s white and middle-class, aren’t you?
then, after she gives a further, lucid explanation:
Do you think this is helpful? I mean you strike me as being white and middle class as well.
And when Ms Caro explains that as she lives in the community and her children have lost friends in the school, so there’s no equivalence between her and a judge from a ‘rarified’ background:
Well, it’s a statement of fact, isn’t it?
Ms Caro handled this nonsense with exceptional grace, which made her statement that Boulton had made “quite an offensive comment, actually” all the more pointed.
Here’s the video, around 4 minutes long:
The survivors, families and neighbours of Grenfell Tower are entitled to a proper investigation of what happened and they are perfectly entitled to ask for it to be run by someone with ‘real world’ experience who can understand their daily reality – but they’re being criticised for having an opinion and are seeing that opinion denigrated and misrepresented.
The victim-blaming continues. Can’t imagine why they would have misgivings about the government’s public inquiry – which should be a public inquest – run by an Establishment figure.
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