Grenfell and politically constructed ignorance

This project examines the techniques of neutralisation that civil servants and regulatory agencies used to justify decisions that legitimised and facilitated the use of highly combustible materials on high-rise buildings such as Grenfell Tower, this includes understanding the development of “politically constructed ignorance,” through which the central government encouraged civil servants to deny the existence of health and safety issues to avoid undermining the neoliberal policy agenda.

Further reading:

• ‘The Fire Before the Flames: State Omissions, Deregulation and the Limits of the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry’ (2026) Journal of Law and Society. 
• ‘Passive Subjects or Custodians of the Free Market? Civil Servants and Regulatory Failures that Led to the Grenfell Tower fire’ (2026) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy.