Steve Bloomfield, the Observer’s head of news, said: “Both Shanti and Mark spent many months on incredibly difficult and groundbreaking stories that exposed wrongdoings that would otherwise have remained buried. The Observer is extremely proud of the prize that reflects the results of that hard work.” A coalition of local campaign groups demanding better fire safety measures in tall buildings have delivered copies of a book about Grenfell Tower to Enfield Civic Centre. With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi. The fire brigade’s “stay put” policy is dealt with first – there are frustrating testimonies from a firefighter and a control room operator that encompass the few elements of human drama. The former, played by Daniel Betts, gives his failed account of getting to a 13-year-old alone in a flat. The latter, played by Claire Lams, tells a boy on the 19th floor to stay put despite his desperate and repeated pleas. after newsletter promotion Snow hangs on to a Whiggish optimism that sometimes fails to stand up to scrutiny

This community of women became known as the Hubb Community Kitchen – Hubb means ‘love’ in Arabic. The women of the Hubb Community Kitchen describe it as a place of good food, love, support and friendship.Fox’s fellow judges for the nonfiction award were head of climate and health policy at the Wellcome Trust, Alice Bell; lecturer and writer Kojo Koram; journalist Cristina Odone and writer Sukhdev Sandhu.

Grenfell is painful to watch. The approach is almost beautiful and mesmerising, just as any view of a city is at the end of a flight. And then the horror, which is itself palpable, even as the work crews labour to clean up and make the structure safe. McQueen filmed Grenfell six months after the fire. They had already begun hoarding the lower floors in white panels, a task that would eventually see all 24 storeys wrapped and hidden from view. Never before, in years of reviewing books about buildings, has one brought me to tears. This one did, with the story of a Grenfell resident struggling to escape with his young daughters and heavily pregnant wife. Those who justified the deregulating policies that led to this misery sometimes spoke of the interests of “UK plc”. But, even if you put basic humanity aside, how is it good business to create the situation we now have, where billions have to be spent correcting mistakes that should never have been made? A jaw-dropping account of a callous system that swept individual conscience aside in favour of profit and politics. It is hard to convey how moving and enraging the book is - I urge you to read it for yourself. Because one thing almost all of us have been guilty of since the worst disaster in the UK this century is complacency.' - Evening StandardThe aim of our campaign is to get Enfield Council to do the right thing and ensure that the tall buildings at Meridian Water will have more than staircase, and therefore give people multiple escape routes in the event of a fire. In 2009, Steve McQueen made Static, a seven-minute film shot from a moving helicopter. The camera swooped, wallowed and turned about the Statue of Liberty in New York, came close and swept away, constantly filming the monument, newly reopened to the public after seven years of closure following 9/11. Static was loud with engine noise, the thwap of helicopter blades and constant wind. One thought of police surveillance helicopters and gunships, as well as of the statue as a symbol of freedom, and the hopes of arriving immigrants.