Reform bow to pressure and sack housing spokesperson

Following his obscene comments about the Grenfell Tower disaster, Reform has sacked spokesperson Simon Dudley. It comes as Reform has been struggling to hold on to candidates for the local election.

Firings do happen

As the BBC reported, Simon Dudley used to be an executive at Homes England and Ebbsfleet. He joined Reform in February.

Sickeningly, Dudley said the following to Inside Housing:

The practical impact of over-regulation is to stop things. Now, people may feel that we’ve done the right thing through introducing this regulation, but on the other side of that, think about all the human suffering of not having a home, not being able to have children and being stuck in your parents’ home in your childhood bedroom. So there is a balance. You know, we can’t, you know, sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?

Following an intense backlash, the party gave him the boot. Politics UK reported on the sacking as follows:

People responded to his sacking online:

That’s right; he’s sacked as a spokesperson – not as a member.

Also, it seems like they sacked him because the backlash grew too great; not because they disagreed with his statement:

The Tories are criticising Reform too, which is a bit rich considering they were the party in government when Grenfell happened (and also that they dithered on taking action for years):

Danger

As Rachel Charlton-Dailey reported for the Canary, Dudley said ‘fires do happen’ in relation to the tragedy.

Dudley also told Inside Housing:

Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare… many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?

The problem with this is that we famously have made vehicles illegal – most recently the Tesla CyberTruck (or, to be more specific, it failed to meet our standards).

If you’re wondering why CyberTrucks don’t meet standards, look no further:

This is a tangent, obviously, but the point is this: when things are dangerous, they should be illegal.

And do you know what’s really, really dangerous?

High rise buildings clad in flammable materials.

We need reform not Reform

Housing is too important to leave in the hands of greedy companies who prioritise profits over people. Grenfell was the most shocking example of why that is, and Reform has now shown it will side with the profiteers.

Featured image via Miles Glendinning (Wikimedia)