Hunter S Thompson
said journalism suffers from “a curious rape mania that rides on the shoulder… like some jeering, masturbating raven.” True in
1967, true today.
The Daily Mail regularly titillates its readers with sex-obsession, not only in its health and celeb articles - full of oldies trying to prove they’ve still “got it” - but in its comic section, where the soul of a newspaper reveals itself. The “Chloe & Co” strip features the eponymous, shameless slapper together with her doughnut-addicted friend Angela, a vicarious fantasy of what women might do if all their controls were off.
The DM certainly has plenty to slaver at now, what with the media dogpiling on Prince Andrew and the furore over the yet-to-start gang rape enquiry. If the Left plays on the former sufficiently to ruin him completely and even to endanger the monarchy itself it may then seem to them “
a good day to bury the bad news” about the latter.
However, this issue won’t stay buried. It’s not just about the gangs, it’s also about the institutional enablers and complaint-suppressors that have allowed them to operate for decades.
Several victims have now pulled out of the panel, together with the two candidates (with backgrounds in policing and social work) shortlisted to lead it.
The lack of trust goes further, into party politics. Victims fear that the Government seeks to widen the investigatory scope to cover sexual abuse of the young in general, so as to muddy the waters. Earlier this year the PM had resisted setting up a national enquiry at all, saying that Conservatives were “
jumping on a far right bandwagon.”
But this bandwagon is a public juggernaut and Labour are tied to its wheels. If they don’t cut the bonds quickly it will roll right over them. The reason they haven’t yet done so is their forlorn hope of keeping Muslim voters onside by not looking too closely into the vile crimes of a small number of the latter’s co-religionists.
Too late: the Minister (
PUSS) for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls
very nearly lost her seat last year on a different and still hot Muslim-related issue, namely
Gaza. How long can the UK remain a secular, liberal, nation-based quasi-democracy?
The real choice for this government is whether it will continue to bow to an influential and power-seeking minority, so showing them a dangerous weakness and compromising the unity and safety of the country, or stand up for justice without fear or favour.
And so to PMQs.
First came the Lib Dems’ Dr Roz Savage, who said her question had been photographed entering Number Ten in a see-through plastic folder (a rare example of governmental transparency?) She used this slender link to raise security concerns over the drive for digital ID. Sir Keir batted that away easily, saying “you cannot see it” and it would help with access to services and with combatting illegal immigration. If only all queries could be dealt with so superficially!
Then Labour’s Jayne Kirkham asked about housing in Cornwall.
Enter next the Leader Of The Opposition (LOTO) who broached the “grooming gangs” topic. Badenoch quoted a victim, one who had left the inquiry panel, as
disappointed in Jess Phillips’ Parliamentary comments the day before: “what’s the point in speaking up if we’re just going to be called liars?” Victims also complain that what they wish to say is controlled using a process of official nudges and written submissions - blurt-proofing the hearings?
The PM said “The inquiry is not and will never be watered down, its scope will not change, it will examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders, and we will find the right person to chair it.”
M’Lud: define “scope”; and does “examine” imply “publish”?
Starmer also announced the fresh involvement of Dame Louise Casey, whose “
National Audit” report in June had
led to the decision not to delegate the matter to local authorities as originally proposed, but to have a national grooming gang enquiry after all. Sir Keir resisted the call for a judge to chair it, on the grounds that Baroness Casey felt it would proceed faster without judicial involvement and also allow criminal proceedings to be instituted in tandem with the inquiry. He endorsed Jess Phillips (as previously with Angela Rayner) and “gently” (a bully-word in his vocabulary) reminded the Tories that they had had 14 years in power to tackle the problem.
LOTO may not have scored signally on this occasion but left us all in no doubt that the Government is “under the cosh.”
Labour’s Bill Esterson gave the PM a breather with an invitation to congratulate a mental health institution.
Next up was the Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey. He reminds me of C Northcote Parkinson’s
board member who is valued because he is consistently wrong. On this occasion he was “jumping on a far-left bandwagon” by attacking the beleaguered Prince Andrew’s grace-and-favour residence. Davey seems not to have wished similar homelessness on Lord Mandelson, now in line for his third lot of severance compensation. Sir Keir waved that away with a generalisation that Crown properties should be scrutinised.
The Prince and the Lord are only two of the many prominent figures with whom the late Jeffrey Epstein cultivated warm relations, to their cost. Goodness knows what he may have told them of his dealings with the law, perhaps playing the role of victim. But the Press loves it all, regularly reprinting that photo of the Prince with the stunning seventeen-year-old redhead, affording the reader the chance to disapprove and ogle at the same time. Cor! Caw, caw!
The girl seemed very happy to be there, but appearances are deceptive because the human psyche is multi-layered. The sexual abuse she claimed to have suffered at the hands of her father at the age of eight may have acted as a slow poison in her, leading to bad and self-destructive life choices. How many “escorts” and common prostitutes have such early experiences in their past? This is why a wide scope is appropriate when delving into the prevalence and long-term effects of childhood neglect and abuse.
But that should not be used to drown out the extra factors of racism and religious bigotry at work in the “grooming gangs” or the broader threats to the King’s peace implied in their mindset and that of their sympathisers.
Sir Ed turned from kicking a man when he is down to urging the PM to “repair the Brexit damage by negotiating a new UK-EU customs union to boost Britain’s trade and grow our economy.” Starmer pretended to disagree but then said he had achieved “a much closer relationship with the EU, recognising the damage done by the flawed Brexit deal that the Conservative party negotiated.” In other words, yes, broadly speaking, but don’t be so obvious, fool. Eurocommunism must be established by stealth.
Following this we had others’ questions on pothole repairs, inequality of wealth (the PM “gently” told the Greens’ spokesperson Dr Ellie Chowns that her party should start voting for his measures) and maternity services. Wendy Morton (Con) asked about building development on the “grey belt.” Labour’s Lee Barron complained of a school that had deplorably refused to make a playing field access ramp for a disabled child.
Will Forster (Lib Dem) reported that local elections had been put off in his constituency and elsewhere. Sir Keir said “we expect the elections in Surrey to be for the new unitary councils,” that new system that simultaneously sucks power from Parliament and from grassroots voters.
Already local authorities seem almost enigmatic to the man in the street - when the football row about Jewish supporters at the upcoming Villa match (will it be renamed the Bob Vylan Ground?) burst out I had to find
the Mayor’s name on the internet. The list of other Council members, added to the three Muslim MPs in Birmingham (two Labour plus the independent
Ayoub Khan who called for the ban) raises the issue of factional influences on how decisions are made and to what extent Parliament can help maintain fair and impartial dealings in the provinces.
Ironically, Labour’s Alan Strickland said Reform’s Durham members “cannot cope with accountability” while at the same time
Nigel Farage has taken to sulking in the public gallery since the Speaker has been at no pains to let him reply to the multiple attacks on him by Starmer and Co.
More questions and pleas came, on hospices, flood defences, struggling pharmacies and youth clubs.
Rebecca Smith (Con) reported that small businesses were telling her that the PM’s plan for them would be of little help. He replied with what he had said to her last week, to Opposition cries of “rubbish.”
As we face clocks going back again, Alex Mayer (Lab) urged the reintroduction of “
Churchill time” aka British Double Summer Time. The PM thanked her for her question.
The session ended with comments on the sad state of NHS dentistry: and on a fatal school stabbing in Huddersfield that prompted Sir Keir to speak of his Crime and Policing Bill with its powers to tackle knife crime.
Then everyone went off for a cuppa and a Walnut Whip.
