James O'Brien takes a close look at Jacob Rees-Mogg's Grenfell apology

5 November 2019, 14:42 | Updated: 7 November 2019, 8:41

Jacob Rees-Mogg has apologised for the remarks he made on LBC about the victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. James O'Brien looked closely at the words he used - and said they speak volumes.

The Leader of the House of Commons had been criticised for his "insensitive" comments during his Nick Ferrari phone-in yesterday.

He had said: "The more one’s read over the weekend about the report and about the chances of people surviving, if you just ignore what you’re told and leave you are so much safer.

"And I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do. And it is such a tragedy that that didn’t happen."

Today, he was forced to issue an apology, saying: “I profoundly apologise. What I meant to say is that I would have also listened to the fire brigade’s advice to stay and wait at the time. However, with what we know now and with hindsight I wouldn’t and I don’t think anyone else would.

"What’s so sad is that the advice given overrides common sense because everybody would want to leave a burning building.

"I would hate to upset the people of Grenfell if I was unclear in my comments. With hindsight and after reading the report no one would follow that advice. That’s the great tragedy."

James O'Brien looked at the apology in the context of Boris Johnson's chief strategy chief Dominic Cummings admitting that "Tory MPs do not care about these poorer people".

Speaking on his LBC show, James said: "That is the key advisor saying he knows a lot of Tory MPs and they don't care about poorer people.

"And now we come back to Jacob Rees-Mogg's comments about people who died on the night of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and his attempted apology for offending them on an egregious and unbelievable level.

"In his apology, you get the almost inevitable 'if'. 'I would hate to upset the people of Grenfell if I was unclear in my comments.'

"If you weren't unclear in your comments, you wouldn't be profoundly apologising for them, would you?"

Watch his monologue at the top of the page.