Europe is sweltering in the traditional late-June heatwave and even here in beautiful Ruislip we have 31c with several days of it still to come. The rich smell of barbecues is drifting along the breeze. Recent summers have tended to be disappointing but this one has already delivered a long sunny spell and now, in UK terms, some real heat and little prospect of a set of traditional thunderstorms to ruin it.
Alas, there is far less satisfaction to be had than might have been the case. We woke on Wednesday to hear the hideous news that an entire tower block of flats in Kensington had been consumed by fire, with 58 confirmed deaths so far and many residents missing. Normally such fires spread gradually either up or down but this one spread so fast in both directions that the whole block was quickly ablaze and no possible rescue could take place for the hapless folk trapped inside. A public inquiry will establish what happened but it seems that cheap cladding, rather than slightly more costly fire-proof cladding, was the reason that it spread so fast. That this should happen in the richest borough in London speaks volumes for our divided society.
A more natural type of disaster, but just as devastating, began yesterday in northern Portugal and is still on-going, Temperatures in Iberia have topped 40c and massive forest fires have overwhelmed the emergency services, spreading so fast that many died in their cars trying to escape.
The downbeat public mood was made visible in the Trooping the Colour ceremony yesterday to mark the Queen's official birthday. The crowd that flocked down the Mall to join the royals as the RAF flypast thundered overhead at 1:00pm was noticeably down on recent events.
All this amidst the chaos of a Government that has thrown away its majority and must now cobble together some sort of policy. These are troubling times, my friends.
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