‘IF you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.

In this age of austerity the poor die for others’ prosperity.

Nurseries and libraries fade from the land.

A strange time is shaping on the strand.

A sword of fate hangs over the deafness of power

See the tower and let a new world-changing thought flower.’

An extract from Ben Okri’s long poem, published in full in the Financial Times, faces us with the reality of a society built on the worship of money and contempt for those who are poor.

One Grenfell campaigner told the Financial Times: "It was not that we stayed silent but that they never responded.

"It is not just that they ignored us but they viewed us with contempt."

Is Kensington and Chelsea a rogue local authority?

I think not; Haringey has plans to completely undermine social housing.

Shropshire Council and the local NHS betrays a not dissimilar contempt for the residents of the rural areas and small towns which are the heart and soul of Shropshire; local services supporting a decent way of life destroyed in favour of councillors’ Shrewsbury vanity projects; a decision to close Ludlow streets for four hours at the behest of a commercial enterprise without prior consultation with Ludlow Town Council; Ludlow’s midwife-led unit closed for six months by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals board despite the serious warnings of risk raised by local campaigners.

But the refusal to allow Ludlow mothers into the meeting of the maternity services ‘stakeholders’ beggars belief – who could have a greater stake in local maternity services than local mothers?

Change is possible, the Bard reminds us ‘The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings'.