Labour rejects calls for Oldham grooming gang inquiry

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Are Labour right to push the responsibility for carrying out a public inquiry back onto Oldham Council?

I don't understand how it is considered acceptable for local authorities to carry out their own inquiries when they are often part of the institutional failure that allowed these crimes to be carried out on such a large scale over decades. Councils, police and social services were/are all implicated in the failure to act (or to actively obstruct) in some way or another.

"Phillips’ letter to Oldham Council, seen by GB News, claims it is for the the local authority ‘alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene.’ 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."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labour-rejects-calls-for-oldham-grooming-gang-inquiry/

Archive...

https://archive.ph/3greC#selection-1667.0-1759.570

The Mail suggesting why Labour politicians might want to steer away from the issue.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14276369/Labour-rape-scandal-Rochdale-SIMON-DANCZUK.html

https://archive.ph/sRRFd

I know Danczuk had his own issues, but as I recall Jess Phillips faced a backlash from voters within the Muslim community and only just scraped into Parliament.

If there is an element of truth in this, it is completely unacceptable on two counts. First those poor poor girls. But second young people from within those communities need clear guidelines of what is unacceptable, so that they don't spend their lives marginalised.

WTF?

You're attacking the wrong person, @themostspecialelfintheworkshop

Starmer as DPP is the person who started going after these men. Brought in new staff and changed the CPS guidelines so they could be successfully prosecuted.

(And what on earth are you talking about "send a mother to jail for 26 months for saying something racist for about 2 hours on twitter"? He isn't DPP any more and hasn't been for years.)

That's not what Maggie Oliver says, @PerkingFaintly

When Keir Starmer was DPP he made the decision, alongside the prosecutors, that the man who got a 13-year-old pregnant, didn't face charges of rape.'

Maggie Oliver exposes Keir Starmer for his 'failure' to tackle the grooming gangs during his role as DPP.

Meant to put that header in italics, it's the description from YouTube

The DT reporting has been extraordinarily good and they aren’t giving up. I can’t read their articles without feeling rage at the entire system - the police and social services come out particularly badly

how do we know this still isn’t happening? It seems systemic.

why doesn’t the left want every rock lifted up? Thousands of young girls have been raped and attacked. It’s utterly dystopian.

i shall never forgive the system for allowing this to happen. Nothing less than a full inquiry into the whole rotten system is now required and with properly implemented actions.

how do we know this still isn’t happening? It seems systemic.

It is still happening, according to lots of people with local knowledge.

Hmm.
When DPP he oversaw and attended the group that reduced the criminal consequences for those importing / viewing images of child sex abuse - which is why they rarely get a prison sentence (see Huw Edwards etc).
As leader of labour he's advocated for the rights of men claiming to be women to access unconsenting women when vulnerable and undressed (TWAW, wrong to say only women have a cervix, they're the most vulnerable group in the world etc) In other words decriminalising indecent exposure & voyeurism - from a lawyer who claims to be concerned about VAWG.

Listen to what he says. He's openly advocated for the rights of men who erode the boundaries of women and girls. No wonder he's not believed when he claims that challenging VAWG is his priority.
When someone shows you who they really are and all that - believe them.

But from my reading over the last few months, it seems a lot of these children were taken into care after they were already being abused.

Parents were trying to protect their children, going to the police and social services, and ended up having their children taken off them.

Scary thing is you can also see this playing out with the trans issue. Parents who attempt to step in and protect their children from trans ideology (i.e. say they are too young to take hormones or reject the idea of new pronouns / names etc) are also having their children removed from their care or being blocked from contact with them in the case where families are separated).

The same tactic still being used but in a different context.

I was working in a Northern town in the late 70s. This kind of grooming was becoming apparent and it was exactly the same groups. What was being talked about more though was the massive increase in heroin distribution and addiction that was happening at the same time. Heroin dealing is still a big problem and more often than not the police turn a blind eye.
It has gone on for so long and been covered up by so many it is too easy for people who weren't around in the 80s, 90s, even up to the 2000s and beyond to allow the current fear of being accused of racism to distract, divert attention, misrepresent facts.

If it was just one town, it would be easy to put it down to localised corruption, or ineptitude of one department.

But the fact it is happening in so many towns, over such a long time period, indicates something more.

Mandatory reporting is good, but prominent politicians are unable to talk about this without caveats around saying the wrong thing or the implications of causing violence. It indicates that the focus is never just on the abuse or suspected abuse but on community relations too. Starmer saying that politicians calling for an inquiry are on the far right bandwagon is not promoting the right environment for any professional needing to report.

Mandatory absolutely bloody well doing something when stuff gets mandatorily reported might be a good idea too.

Just as well he didn't say that anyone suggesting an inquiry was far right then, isn't it?

Given Starmer said he wasn't closing his mind to an inquiry himself, that would make far right too...

Yes absolutely.

Another reversing ferret

https://archive.ph/JR0Hu

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/13/labour-rochdale-mp-paul-waugh-backs-grooming-gangs-inquiry/

I agree with his caveats and I don't have a problem that he, and all the others, voted against the inquiry last week. If there's a grooming gang inquiry (or whatever if there's a faster alternative option) it needs to be its own thing. Not tacked onto and derailing something else.

You know I didn't say that he did.

But if politicians can't talk about wanting to get to the bottom of sexual abuse without fear of being labelled as far right by the prime minister, that attitude can easily trickle down to every social workers office in the country.

I remembered Sarah Champion giving an interview to Red magazine ten years ago.

Just found it on their site.

https://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/interviews/a518022/sarah-champion-mp-interview-red-magazine/

Starmer, Q&A, 6 Jan 2025:

no turn stone should be left unturned, but frankly it’s time for action. Get on with it. Why didn’t the last government implement the Jay requirements? [...]
Yes, of course you’re right to challenge and say “Well, couldn’t there be something else?” But the basic problem here is pretty well known. [...] So I don’t duck your challenge, but I do genuinely say, for those that are really concerned with protecting these victims – and I really am –it’s time to get on with it. Implement all the recommendations so far, and you’ll make a material difference to the lives of very, very many victims. And that’s why I think Professor Jay said, you know, let’s just get on with what we’ve got. [...] I’m not closing my mind. If you or others put specific allegations or issues to us then we will faithfully deal with them, absolutely rightly. I’m absolutely not prepared to have this, you know, pushed under the carpet.

Thank you. I'm assuming the interview was by Janice Turner of the Times. It doesn't read like it was written just a few weeks shy of ten years ago, especially considering all the references to the Jay report, which still hasn't mostly been implemented.

If the Tories had wanted a statutory inquiry they could have held one. Anytime in the last 14 years would have done nicely.

Then they wouldn't have to twist themselves up like pretzels to deflect attention. Nigel Farage is not the only one who noticed their inaction.

All not helped by Nadine Dorries dropping her former Cabinet colleagues in it from a height on Newsnight – some by name.

^https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1876778141873483814^
Dorries: I can assure you that the entire time I was Cabinet Minister this was never discussed.

Can't disagree with that.

Eta Although this has been going on for so long there's plenty of blame to go round. The Tories were holding the can. Labour have it now.

Short excerpt, but I watched more elsewhere. My amateur transcription, so apologies for any fails.

[Immediately leading into this bit, Derbyshire was repeatedly asked when Dorries first decided a new national inquiry was needed; Dorries was repeatedly responding by talking about her involvement with other inquiries into child sex abuse.]

(7 Jan 2025)
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1876778141873483814
Dorries:
The, the inquiry was much further reaching than just the, the grooming gangs and I think a national inquiry on what happened in terms of the grooming gangs and the people who knew, social workers, police.

Derbyshire:
But so why didn’t the government[?cross-talk] do that, then?

Dorries:
Well yeh, that’s a good question.

Derbyshire:
Well, what, you were in Government.

Dorries
No I was, you know I was Culture Secretary, this didn’t even come anywhere near, near my desk.

Derbyshire:
No, but you were sat round the Cabinet Table enough, weren’t you?

Dorries:
I can, I can assure you that the entire time I was Cabinet Minister this was never discussed.

Derbyshire
What, so I’m asking you why?

Dorries:
I, I can’t answer

Derbyshire:
Because there are a number of Conservatives who were in Government, who are calling for it now.

Dorries:
I, I can’t answer the question. But I think a good person for you to ask that question to would be people like Suella Braverman and Priti Patel who were Home Secretaries at the time.

Derbyshire:
But I mean there’s no record of you speaking in the Chamber specifically about Oldham, Telford, Rochdale, Rotherham or ever calling for a national inquiry.

Dorries:
So when this was tabled, I did support the – with John Mann – I did attend a number, you don’t have to stand up in the Chamber and speak about something to support something. I attended those meetings and committee reporting and others at the time when it was launched when Theresa May was Prime Minister.

Derbyshire:
Tomorrow the Conservatives will force a vote in Parliament...

Eta Although this has been going on for so long there's plenty of blame to go round. The Tories were holding the can. Labour have it now.

Quite. A lot of the crimes happened on New Labour's watch, after all.

There are so many parallels.
Any one trying to call attention to it is shut down as some type of ‘phobe’.

Labour was in charge of the councils where grooming took place.

And I find it a strange argument that Labour has to follow the Tories lead. Aren't they supposed to stand by their own principles?

Yes indeed.

Starmer is strongly in agreement with Maggie Oliver that it's time to take action, not merely talk about it.

And I'm strongly in agreement with Maggie Oliver, that what we need to see whether politicians do take those actions they've promised.

I hope we'll see cross-party co-operation in passing the legislation for Mandatory Reporting, for example.

Obviously the details have to be right. But I hope we won't see the sort of spoiler nonsense that went on with the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill last week. This is much too important for petty party politicking.

Bid to halt children's bill sickening, says Phillipson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgngd52z71o

Among the other things, that sort of spoiler tactic means the bill itself doesn't get the proper scrutiny. So the party politicking does us all a double disservice.