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Jeremy Corbyn's bid to seize empty luxury flats to house victims of the Grenfell Tower fire has been bluntly rejected by Theresa May.

The Labour leader said the government could "occupy" or "requisition" homes in Kensington - which has one of the biggest rich-poor divides in the country.

The move was backed by 59% of Brits in a YouGov poll released on Friday.

Yet a Downing Street spokeswoman shut down the talk today, saying: “We do not support the proposals to seize private property".

Mr Corbyn had first raised the prospect of seizing empty homes in a House of Commons debate last week.

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And he told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do.

"It's all very well putting our arms around people during the crisis but homelessness is rising, the housing crisis is getting worse and my point was quite a simple one.

"In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table in order to deal with that crisis and that's what I think we should be doing in this case."

Mr Corbyn also slammed Kensington and Chelsea Council, which has been stripped of its responsibility for victims after a slow and chaotic response on the ground.

(Image: PA)

He said: "Somehow or other it seems to be beyond the wit of the public services to deal with a crisis facing a relatively small number of people in a country of 65 million.”

Grenfell remained a blackened shell towering above west London today as the death toll rose to 79 and police warned the recovery operation would take several weeks.

Every council in England has now been ordered to make an urgent list of buildings that have the cladding suspected of speeding up the Grenfell Tower fire.

(Image: PA)

The government has demanded two lists - all buildings with "aluminium composite" panels and all buildings over 18 metres high - by the end of today in a bid to stop other towers being a death trap.

Town halls will then be ordered from tomorrow to send samples of any ACM cladding for government-run fire tests.

Last week Mrs May was booed and called a "coward" as she refused to speak to protesters outside a community centre.

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A Downing Street spokeswoman rebuffed a question on whether the Prime Minister will resign.

She said: “The Prime Minister is chairing Cobra right now. Later on today she’ll meet the Irish Taoiseach. After that she will chair a third meeting of the Grenfell Tower task force. On Wednesday her government will set out a Queen’s Speech. On Thursday she goes to European Council.

“These are incredibly challenging times with two terrible incidents in recent weeks and she’s leading the country through them."