Badenoch Campaign took cash from councillor who dismissed Grenfell fears

One of Kemi Badenoch's Tory leadership campaign funders is a councillor who had oversight of Grenfell Tower and dismissed some residents' complaints about the pre-fire refurbishment as "grossly exaggerated".

- Robert Booth

One survivor of the blaze that killed 72 people said he was "disgusted" that Quentin Marshall, a senior politician at the Conservative-controlled Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) which owned the block, has given £5,000 to the current shadow housing secretary to help her become the leader of the opposition.

Marshall chaired the council's housing and property scrutiny committee from 2010 to 2016, during which time the cut-price refurbishment of the west London council tower block was executed. His committee's job included scrutinising all housing services, social housing regeneration, the tenants management organisation (which ran the block and its refurbishment) and fire safety measures, the public inquiry into the disaster heard.

After trust broke down between the landlord and residents during the controversial works which paved the way for the fire, Marshall's committee "failed in its task of ensuring that the relationship ... was rigorously investigated", the inquiry concluded.