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Artist News
Government responds to Stormzy’s BRITs performance
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 23 February 2018
Stormzy’s performance at the BRITs this week was certainly the highlight of the show. And in particular, his rapped attack on Theresa May for her continued poor response to the Grenfell Tower disaster. Amazingly, yesterday this received a response from the government – although it was to deny his accusations of inaction.
Guardian political correspondent Jessica Golt tweeted yesterday: “In response to Stormzy’s BRITs comments, Number 10 says £58.29m has [already] been committed to Grenfell survivors, rehousing and community. If there are concerns about distributing of funds, [the government] will listen, [spokesperson] says, but has accepted initial response to fire was too slow”.
In the rap, in which Stromzy also called out the Daily Mail, he said: “Yo, Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell? What, you thought we just forgot about Grenfell? You’re criminals, and you got the cheek to call us savages. You should do some jail time, you should pay some damages. You should burn your house down and see if you can manage this”.
In a further statement, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “The PM has been clear that what happened at Grenfell was an unimaginable tragedy, which should never be allowed to happen again. She is determined the public inquiry will discover not just what went wrong but why the voices of the people of Grenfell had been ignored for so many years. If there are any concerns being raised about that, we will of course look at those. Wherever there is more that can be done, we will look at that too”.
“The prime minister did say that the initial response was too slow and that is something for the public inquiry to look at”, they went on. “I’m not getting into responding to individual comments – I’m pointing out the gravity with which the PM is taking this”.
