The fire before the flames: State omissions, deregulation and the limits of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry

Abstract The Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry investigated the causes of a West London residential fire that killed 72 people. Its Final Report makes some headline‐grabbing criticisms about how post‐2010 deregulation contributed to regulatory failures preceding the fire. Although the Final Report's criticisms are direct, they are also understated and limit the longer term role of the neoliberal project. Using the Public Inquiry's own data, this article supports the bereaved and survivors’ view that the government operationalised explicit acts of omission to sustain an inadequate testing regime of cladding materials for decades before 2010. Adopting a critical criminological lens, the motivations for doing so are not obscure, but were embedded within neoliberal structures that require interrogation if the Grenfell Tower fire is to be understood and addressed.