WHEN outrageous politicker Boris Johnson accuses opposition politicians of “outrageous politicking” over the Grenfell Tower fire, it is sure sign that the stakes for those who govern and those who aspire to govern are dizzyingly high.

Make no mistake, much of the political blame-making, blame-shifting and blame-avoiding that has gone on since the appalling events in London in the early hours of Wednesday morning, appears shabby, ill-timed, and calculated to denigrate.

It is in no small part a response - solicited or otherwise - to the anguish, anger and demands for answers of a traumatised neighbourhood barely embarked on the long journey to coming to terms with the trauma.

It is an indication too, of the dangerously febrile political state of the nation, a state in which every scrap of perceived advantage is seized and fought over with even less than the usual scant regard for the sensibilities of those affected.

Should we be surprised? Not really. The history of the world is the history of politics, and the fact that it is so all-encompassing is, paradoxically, why it is largely hidden in plain sight.

It is only in the midst of such carnage, such despair, that politics betrays itself. It simply cannot help itself.

Thus, we have folk throwing up their hands in horror at Theresa May’s alleged shunning of the surviving residents of Grenfell Towers; we have Jeremy Corbyn embracing them; we have assorted left-leaning politicians taking swipes at Government cuts; and we have politics consuming itself, in the shape of Boris Johnson being appalled at such antics.

Given the unprecedented horror of the fire, and the potential implications for those responsible for the building and the regulations that apply to it, a descent into political points-scoring was sadly inevitable.

It is surely undeniable too, that the fact that this tragedy came just days after a general election delivered a hung Parliament, served to make those political voices louder and shriller.

So, bearing in this in mind, should we be appalled? Absolutely and vociferously.

For if we are not, politics will ride roughshod over the only thing capable of bringing anything near a sense of closure to those immediately involved or affected by this inferno - justice.