Justice for Grenfell. Garry Knight/Flickr. Public domain.It’s just gone midnight on the 14th of June. Mushtaq Lasharie has returned home from a celebratory dinner with his friends and colleagues in the Labour Party. Only a few days previously, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – and the politics he represents – had dealt the British public a surprise result. Having dragged himself back to his ground-floor flat on the Lancaster West Estate, Mushtaq changed into something more comfortable and sat down in front of his computer ready to catch up with the news.
Around 00:54, Mushtaq heard some noise outside his flat. It was probably some people having a fight, he first thought, possibly over a domestic issue, as sometimes happened on the estate. But there came more noise – “Help! Help, call the fire brigade!”. Mushtaq looked out of his window and saw that the 24-storey Grenfell tower, just twenty yards away from him, was on fire.
No one heard a fire alarm. Residents inside Grenfell were only woken by screams and shouts.
