Charlton Hart: Cook Government needed smoke signals from burning shops to finally read the room and respond

At what point does a pattern of crisis management become a governing philosophy?

For the Cook Government, the line is becoming increasingly blurry — forced to fend off criticism of departments plagued by predictable failures with a strategy which appears to be less about prevention and more about perfecting the art of the panicked press conference.

Across multiple portfolios, a worrying pattern has emerged: ministers who appear unwilling, or perhaps unable, to ask the tough questions of their departments, choosing to be guided by advice rather than interrogating it.

Consider the flammable cladding still clinging to almost a dozen Department of Education buildings.

The catastrophic Grenfell Tower fire in London was in 2017, a horrific lesson in the dangers of this material.

Yet, year