Mick Hartley

She did warn us. https://t.co/aHXnMijPy6 pic.twitter.com/xo3afSNrqF

— Jack David (@FFS_WhatNow) January 1, 2025

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James Heale at the Spectator – Labour rejects calls for Oldham grooming gang inquiry:

State failure was a consistent theme of British politics in 2024. So as the new year begins, attention has turned to perhaps the most egregious instance of that malaise in modern times: the horrific scandal of grooming gangs in dozens of UK cities. Jess Phillips, the Safeguarding Minister, has rejected calls for a government inquiry into historic child abuse in Oldham, prompting a Tory backlash….

Reports have previously been commissioned and produced in Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford; Oldham now plans to launch its own Telford-style inquiry. Given the strength of feeling – which Phillips acknowledges in her letter – it seems inevitable that there will be questions or debate in the Commons when parliament returns next week….

Yet for the hundreds of victims and those invested in bringing perpetrators to justice, this will seem pitifully inadequate. In each town where grooming gangs operated, similar patterns emerged: victims were ignored, law enforcement complicit and political officials more concerned about reputational damage than lives affected. Local authorities can hold their own inquiries, of course. But given the scale of these crimes, the fact they took place over decades, in many towns, suggests a level of institutional complicity requiring the attention of central government.

Labour’s stance is made harder by its previous support for such inquiries. The party has launched a review every two-and-a-half days it has been in office. If the two-child benefit cap gets a task force, then surely child abuse warrants an inquiry? In its election manifesto, the party pledged to stand for open government.

‘Too many victims of historical injustices have had insult added to injury by years of legal delays’, it said, promising to right the historic wrongs of Hillsborough and the Battle of Orgreave. Phillips herself previously claimed that Tory ministers ‘literally don’t give a toss’ about ‘violence against women and girls.’ Critics will ask if that stance stacks up with her decision on Oldham.

If any recent scandal is just crying out for a government inquiry, it's surely this. Overlooked, ignored – too embarrassed – the whole business is a national scandal dwarfing, say, the recent Post Office affair. Central to the whole business is the fact that this rape on a massive scale was carried out by men of Pakistani heritage on vulnerable young white girls. This has always been a factor – probably the major factor – in why there's been a reluctance by the authorities to carry out any more investigation, and really it's not at all clear that anything's about to change.