THIS Labour government never looked more pathetically gutless than in its response to the grooming gangs.
The systematic and nationwide sexual exploitation of vulnerable young white girls by organised gangs of largely Pakistani men is the greatest scandal of our time.
MP Jess Phillips announced a watered-down approach to inquiries into grooming gangsGetty
And Labour doesn’t want to know. In January, the Government announced a £5million fund for five local inquiries into grooming gangs.
That was an obscenely inadequate response to mass child sex abuse.
These atrocities played out in scores of cities and towns for decades.
Councils that failed vulnerable children can’t be allowed to investigate their own failures.
Now, that already derisory response has been watered down even further.
Forty-five minutes before the House of Commons broke for the Easter holidays, Jess Phillips of the Home Office told an almost empty chamber that the Government would now be taking a “flexible” approach to local grooming gang inquiries.
At the discretion of the councils involved, that £5million fund can now be spent on other projects.
This is more than political cowardice. It stinks of a cover-up. The scandal of the grooming gangs screams out for a statutory inquiry where witnesses are made to give evidence.
This is exactly what we had with the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry, the Covid inquiry and the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. A formal investigation, conducted within a legal framework.
Anything less is a cop-out. Anything less is running from the ugly truth.
“The truth?” Jack Nicholson’s crusty old warrior shouts at Tom Cruise’s slick young lawyer in A Few Good Men. “You can’t handle the truth!”
When it comes to the grooming gangs, Labour can’t handle the truth.
And yes, we can all understand that this is politically tricky for Labour.
We get that a Labour government does not wish to lose Muslim voters, or to shine a light on the woke cock-ups of Labour-run councils, or to weaken its support in northern cities and towns.
But we are talking about the mass rape of children.
Political expediency for Labour should simply not come into it.
Real teeth
And this cowardly cover-up is enormously dangerous for our country because it encourages the forces who would love to see this multiracial, multicultural country come apart.
Ignoring the crimes of the grooming gangs does not make this country a less racist place. The opposite is the case.
Labour’s inability to face the evil inflicted on all those white working-class girls will be a gift to those who seek to promote division.
Labour’s cowardly cover-up is enormously dangerous for our countryPA
Labour really don’t get it, do they?
This is a tolerant country. Cultures and races co-exist here more peacefully than they do anywhere in the world.
But by ignoring the unspeakable crimes of the Pakistani grooming gangs, by lacking the moral courage to call for an inquiry with real teeth, this Government only promotes racial division.
If those rape gangs were white, Keir Starmer would be coming down on them like a ton of self-righteous bricks.
Oh, Prime Minister, you are a lawyer. Isn’t it painfully obvious?
If British justice is not colour blind, then it is not real justice at all.
Clean pair of heels
Parts of Birmingham have been left looking like the third world amid an ongoing bin strikeRoland Leon
AS Birmingham’s long-running bin strikes drag on, it is tempting to suggest that the UK’s rat-infested second city looks like somewhere in the Third World.
But that would be an insult to the Third World.
A local resident called Natasha, who has an 11-week-old baby son with an impaired immune system, told BBC Radio WM that part of her street in Winson Green was “quite literally a waste site”.
You would imagine – wouldn’t you? – that the local MPs would be working night and day to resolve a strike that has now mutated into a public health hazard.
Birmingham based Labour MP Liam Byrne has been swanning around Japan on a ‘fact-finding mission’PA
But Liam Byrne, Labour MP for Hodge Hill and Solihull North – two of the areas worst affected by the bin strike – has provoked outrage by taking himself off to Japan on a “fact-finding mission” with seven other MPs in his role as chairman of the Business and Trade Committee while his city rots.
Mr Byrne stayed at Tokyo’s New Otani Hotel before moving on to Kyoto and Osaka by bullet train.
It is ironic a Birmingham MP was swanning around Japan while the rats grew fat in his constituency.
Because Japan is by far the cleanest country in the world.
I’d bet my life Mr Byrne – who extended his business trip to spend a private holiday – did not see one scrap of bubble gum wrapper on his jolly to Japan.
Let alone a well-fed rat the size of a Brummie cat.
31? It’s Beatle mania
White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has already landed an exciting new acting jobGetty
Aimee Lou will play Beatles star George Harrison’s ex-wife Pattie BoydGetty
AIMEE LOU WOOD, the brilliant, snaggle-toothed Brit who just stole the show in The White Lotus, is to play George Harrison’s ex-wife Pattie Boyd in the four-film retelling of The Beatles story.
The real Pattie was 19 when she played a schoolgirl in A Hard Day’s Night and met 21-year-old Harrison.
Aimee is already 31 – around the same age as the actors cast to play The Beatles. But The Beatles were young.
When the band broke up in 1970, John and Ringo were 29, Paul was 27 and George was just 26.
What’s striking about the casting of the four Sam Mendes films on The Beatles is the venerable age of the actors.
These films will be unmissable. But Harris Dickinson (John) is 28. Paul Mescal (Paul) is 29. Joseph Quinn (George) is 31.
And Barry Keoghan (Ringo) is already 32 . . . 32? By the time they were 32, the Beatles all had long-established solo careers.
I loved Barry in Saltburn and The Banshees Of Inisherin. I loved him a little bit less in Apple’s ludicrously anti-RAF war drama, Masters Of The Air.
But even for a brilliant actor, 32 is far too old to be playing a Beatle – any Beatle. Nobody’s acting is that good.
AS the world’s support for the brave people of Ukraine falters, full credit to Prince Harry for making the time to visit that heroic country and spend time with veterans. Good for you, Harry.
AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young is celebrating turning 70-years-oldGetty
GASPS of shock that Angus Young – the-school-cap-and-blazer wearing lead guitarist of AC/DC – just celebrated his 70th birthday.
Rock and roll’s delinquent schoolboy is 70? It hardly seems possible.
And the most astonishing thing of all is – Angus still hasn’t handed in his homework.
Liz at 59: From that dress to this bikini
Liz Hurley looked incredible 30 years ago when she wore her famous black dressGetty – Contributor
And she still looks remarkable today, at 59, pictured in a bikini in the MaldivesInstagram
LIZ HURLEY blows kisses to her 3million Instagram followers from a sun-dappled beach in the Maldives.
Liz turns 60 this summer but she truly looks better than when she was on Hugh Grant’s arm half a lifetime ago.
And not only does Liz look sensational in that Blaze bikini from Elizabeth Hurley Beach, she designed it herself.
What a woman.
Prince Charles has been showing what a great ambassador he is for the UK on a trip to ItalyGetty
ANOTHER royal tour, another triumph. In an age when the MAGA White House wants to build walls, erect barriers and alienate America’s old allies, how heartening to see King Charles III in Italy, quietly promoting our country while totally charming the locals.
This was soft power in action. And it matters. And it works.
Charles gave a lovely speech — in Italian — to Italy’s parliament, which expressed his genuine and deeply felt affection for that great country and included some pretty good jokes about British crimes against pasta.
Grace. Humour. Decency. Our monarch embodies these virtues. But these quiet, decent values are out of fashion in Trump’s America.
The Donald sneers that foreign leaders are “kissing my ass”. Classy!
His Vice-President, JD Vance, says, “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy things those Chinese peasants manufacture.” Why the need to be so offensive? Why casually insult a nation? Why call the Chinese “peasants”?
This week King Charles charmed 59million Italians. While the Veep of the USA deeply offended 1.42billion Chinese.
Who is better serving their country?
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