https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2 ... gs-inquiry
Keir Starmer makes U-turn mid-air over grooming gangs inquiry
Since Louise Casey’s “fast track” report into the matter of the so-called “grooming gangs” atrocities in very recent history (actually the organised and systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable children and the victims’ execrable treatment by local authorities charged with their protection/care) formally recommended a national public enquiry, it seems clear that the Prime Minister has no real alternative but to accept Casey’s recommendation, despite having previously rejected calls from the opposition to do so.
Politically, Louise Casey sits in the House of Lords nominally as an independent peer on the cross benches (which is why she seems to be the trusted “go-to” independent choice to produce similar public reports on other sensitive matters. However, with her track record as the head of Shelter and of working closely with Labour politicians at local and national level leading the Rough Sleepers task force, as well as her work on reporting on the Metropolitan Police and elsewhere, an assumption that Ms Casey’s political sympathies may lean broadly in a leftward direction may not be entirely wide of the mark. I am therefore a little surprised, not that Casey has drawn the conclusions that she has, but that in doing so she would not have been alive to the political consequences of arriving at the conclusion of making a recommendation of a national public enquiry for Starmer and his government. I don’t suggest for a second that Starmer was expecting Casey to agree with his rejection of a national public enquiry, but he may just have anticipated that, or at any rate hoped for it.
But, there you have it. Predictably, Badenoch is calling for a formal public apology from the PM.
But can Labour turn this into a political win ?
In one respect, Casey’s recommendation and Starmer’s decision ought to help spike the guns of Farage/Reform UK and indeed Badenoch and Jenrick, who have been seeking brazenly to imply that the issue is entirely one about race, and by extension, immigration (which it is not), and to weaponise it in pursuit of far-right “hard-of-thinking” votes .
It is to be hoped that the new enquiry will not delay for too long the implementation of the recommendations of the Jay Report.
"The opportunity to serve our country: that is all we ask.” John Smith, May 11, 1994.
- By Youngian