Gov refuses home office investigation into historic child sex abuse in Oldham

[Perzival]

I've just read on x that Jess Phillips has formally declined Oldham council's request for the HO to investigate the grooming gangs in Oldham. Why on Earth would they do this? Apparently JP says it should be a local investigation? Clearly that is a conflict of interests and if the council are asking for help they should?

The only link I can find other than x is GB news (apologies).

https://www.gbnews.com/news/oldham-grooming-gangs-labour-government-inquiry-abuse-scandal

I think that is extremely unfair.

NOBODY is saying that it should be brushed away.

There have been various inquiries (and convictions). Oldham Council would like a further inquiry, and would like it to be Home Office led. Jess Phillips encourages another inquiry but thinks it should be locally led, as the ones in Telford and Rotherham were.

I'd say it's those who are accusing Philips of "brushing it away" are playing party politics.

It is grossly unfair to suggest that those who don't think that the best next step must necessarily be a Home Office led, additional inquiry in Oldham do not care about the rape of girls.

Typical of the defensive left. Did you read my post? People are looking to more extreme parties because EVERY mainstream party had failed these girls and the population as a whole. Not just Labour, the Tories too.

People thought Labour were the answer- the change. They weren’t and people are angry, Society ignores that at its peril.

Exactly.

Not sure who all these working class labour leaders are that you seem to insinuate (I've just looked up Clem Atlee who is generally considered to be the best labour leader and it says he was upper middle class). Not that I think class is a determinant of being a good leader on its own although of course it would be great to have more representative MPs. And not sure what Reform policies you think are so bad as you don't detail them. All the leaders that are successful at the moment are what you would probably call far right (eg Meloni, Milei in Argentina, Orban) so I'm willing to give Reform a chance.

It's NOT something that can just be dealt with on a local level

You're quite right it's not, @GiveMeSpanakopita, but just think of the possibilities

By foisting this off onto an additional local inquiry they can buy yet more time to do nothing about implementing the national one's recommendations because they're "waiting for the results", it could be used as a handy diversion when asked about Starmer's role when DPP, and even to avoid questions all together because it's "subject to inquiry"

Given that their entire ethos is finding a reason not to do something, and doubly so where this subject's concerned, it's not hard to see how this would appeal

There's a huge amount on X about this including some details and extracts from the trials which I strongly regret reading. I don't know how to phrase this, not "just" rape, the depravity is unspeakable.

I am so disappointed in Jess Phillips. She might have made a difference, albeit at the cost of her parliamentary seat.

I'm with you @MyDeafEar. I can really understand why so many are pinning their hopes on Farage. People have done this historically with populists and continue to do so when times are not good. Perhaps, in the future, we may have better politicians. The public needs to demand that! Farage is not a better politician, so many will be disappointed in the short term.

Do you ask what the white community are doing about CSA too?

I don't mean to take anything away from the victims of these gangs, what happened and how it was dealt with (or not) was unforgivable and people absolutely need to be held accountable, but let's not pretend CSA is a Muslim issue.

Given that GBNews are the only MSM outlet presumably showcasing this, why are you apologising for sharing it?
Thousands of children have been raped and apologists are still trying to make this a ‘far right’ issue. This is why this abuse was allowed to continue.

BBC are now reporting on it

Unbelievable comment.
Any members of the ‘white community’ (FFS what do you even mean by the word ‘community’ in this instance) who even mentioned Rotherham Rape Gangs were cancelled or locked up or accused of being ‘far right’ extremists.
Great to see that the bien pensant woke left are finally admitting that child abuse is a ‘bad thing’.

Labour were definitely, traditionally the party of the 'working man'. The first leaders were people like Ramsay McDonald and Keir Hardie, who were working men. More recently, we had John Smith, who very sadly died suddenly and paved the way for Blair. Many Labour MPs have historically been working class. It's only in the last 30 years or so that the whole ethos of the party has changed and become essentially the same as the Tory party.
I agree with you that class is not a good determinant of an effective leader but my post was in response to others re Labour not supporting the working class now, which is entirely true. Unfortunately, nowadays, we have had a massive change of sentiment in terms of the values that are lauded, with many politicians, and nearly all the leaders using their political positions as stepping stones to earning £££ after ingratiating themselves to the billionaires during their time in office.

When I previously looked up the Reform manifesto there was a huge amount of uncoated and unrealistic spending promises. I'm not sure that right wing leaders are successful to the general population at all, but time will tell. Perhaps Reform can come up with a more realistic manifesto next time- we'll see but I suspect that all the people supporting them would be extremely disappointed with the reality.

Sadly this is true. Electoral politics is a joke. I loathed having to vote reform but when the public poll repeatedly that immigration is far too high and all elected leaders do is increase it, it gives us only one option to communicate with out leaders. It's so far from ideal, but it is what it is.

During the Brexit campaign, pollsters for Remain noticed that Farage's personal popularity increased whenever he made a speech. However, support for the cause he was espousing (Brexit) declined. He's a divisive politician, revered by his own side but who will never be widely trusted - the last such example was Corbyn who led Labour to an historically bad result.

If, however, a new, younger, more credible leader of the populist right emerges and Farage supports that person rather than flouncing off to form his own party, the applecart is looking very wobbly and ready to be upset. I think that this will happen soon in France if Jordan Bardella is able to wrest control of RN from Marine Le Pen, who is tainted with the racist views of her father.

I’m sick of hearing about community relations. What about the white working class community and maintaining good relations with them? Why is it that only one community matters?

@zdcgbjm surely that graph is pointless if the Pakistani paedophiles aren't actually being prosecuted..

I would be quite concerned about this. There are increasing numbers of energetic and charismatic content creators on social media now who stand to the right of Farage on matters around migration and feel that he is controlled opposition. If any of these rise to the top, they're going to make Farage look like a milktoast centrist dad.

@rainingsnoring I think you're right about Reform - they are painted as a right-wing party, but they're a populist party with a LOT of public spending promises which is making inroads with Labour voters. Time will tell if they can clean up.

Then again the Conservative party seems unable to campaign on anything except being mad about the removal of the winter fuel payment, if my local association is anything to go by.

What IS getting cut-through in the US, Europe, Canada, New Zealand etc is political parties who aren't afraid to put their own citizens first.

One of the biggest findings of the 2022 inquiry (which was very broad, into child sex abuse nationally, but also covered grooming gangs and organised networks) is that there were massive failures to record ethnicity data, inconsistent labelling of crimes as rape vs CSA vs CSE etc, very narrow definitions of "organised networks" to only mean literally crime gangs and not the more common pattern in these cases of just having a WhatsApp group with all your cousins and telling them to come over tonight, etc.

So how can we trust any of the data?

The data is no good, per the previous inquiry.

We know what has happened, hence your post.... numerous inquiries have uncovered this but nothing has been acted on.

Because Pakistani Muslim men tend to control the votes of their extended family members, so politicians (especially Labour politicians in Northern seats) want to keep them on side to secure votes and keep themselves in their jobs. Underage poor white girls don't have a vote, so no one gives a shit about them.

That's what previous posters mean by 'community relations'.Getting votes by selling out raped girls sounds bad so they call it something that sounds nicer, but that's what it is. Those girls were abused on an industrial scale and both local and central government and public servants(police, social services, health) look the other way to keep themselves in their comfy positions. Raped girls are not considered worth risking your own position or risking being called the lefts worst possible insult (racist).

Anyone saying this is all right wing propaganda is welcome to prove me wrong.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4xnv02nr0o

"Uncosted and unrealistic promises" - abit like Labour then. The most uncosted being their net zero plans which will cost hundreds of billions (and reform have pledged to ditch).
My point about meloni etc. is that they are actually popular with the public unlike Starmer and Labour who have only just been elected (on a record low percentage) and they have similar policies to Reform. Orban has been in power since 2010 and is still popular. Maybe the facts are "right wing?"

I have known about the 'grooming scandal' for years but I had no idea until today of what actually went on. I have seen some details and couldn't read more.

'Grooming'. That was a euphemism, designed to suppress the full, horrific, depraved truth.

Anyone still shrieking about community tensions needs a good, hard think about their values.

As for Jess Phillips, surely the majority of Pakistani men in her constituency are appalled by what happened, are making that known, and therefore will support a full government inquiry?

And it's funny how these politicians don't care about community relations when it's white people behaving badly - then they get the book thrown at them and massive media coverage.