Good morning. All governments have to perform U-turns from time to time and over the weekend Keir Starmer had to stage another, announcing that he would order a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal. Although Starmer can argue that he never firmly ruled out an inquiry, and that he is just responding to a recommendation from a short, evidence-basedaudit of “our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers” of grooming gang abuseconducted by Louise Casey, this is still embarrassing because it is an obvious victory for Kemi Badenoch, Reform UK and Elon Musk (probably the prime mover in this) who were aggressively lobbying for a national inquiry in the new year. Badenoch is now sayingStarmer should apologisefor not agreeing with her more swiftly. Asexplained last week, when the opposition has to resort to demanding an apology, that is normally a sign of weakness, not strength, because it means it is running out of proper grievances to pursue. But this remains difficult territory for Labour. The No 10 press operation will be grateful that it has been quite low down the news agenda because of what is happening in the Middle East.
Here isAletha Adu’s overnight story.
And here is an analysis byPeter Walker, who is with Starmer at the G7 in Canada and who explains how Starmer broke the news about the inquiry in a huddle with reporters on the plane crossing the Atlantic.
And here are the key developments this morning.
The Home Office has announced that National Crime Agency will lead a national operation against grooming gangs.It says:
The NCA will work in partnership with police forces around the country and specialist officers from the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce, Operation Hydrant – which supports police forces to address all complex and high profile cases of child sexual abuse – and the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme.
Their job will be to give victims of these horrific crimes, whose cases were not progressed through the criminal justice system, long-awaited justice and prevent more children from being hurt by these vile criminals.
This will build on action already taken by the government to see offenders locked up. Police have already reopened over 800 historic cases of group-based child sexual abuse since the home secretary asked them in January to look again at cases that were closed too early and victims denied justice.
The Home Office is due to publish the Casey report into the grooming gangs.Casey was asked at the start of the year to “uncover the nature, scale and profile of group based CSEA [child sexual exploitation and abuse] offending”, to provide evidence about the ethnicity of offenders, and to consider “the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending and the motivations and characteristics of grooming gang offending”.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has claimed that there could be hundreds of people who deserve to go to jail for covering up grooming gang abuse.In an interview with Sky News defending the need for an inquiry, Philp said:
What I’ve heard in the last few months, meeting retired police officers and meeting survivors, and what has really shocked me, has been the way that this was deliberately covered up over years and possibly decades.
It wasn’t that people were just negligent or just didn’t look into it properly. They deliberately and actively covered it up. I’m talking about senior police officers, local council leaders, social services, the Crown Prosecution Service.
And the reason they deliberately covered it up for years was because the victims were mainly very young white girls, often from troubled backgrounds, from care homes and so on, whereas the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani heritage. And people in authority at the time were more concerned about so-called race relations than they were about protecting young girls …
There’s a criminal offence called misconduct in public office, and I think those people – and I’m not talking about handful, it is probably dozens or maybe hundreds of people in positions of authority over the years – deliberately covered this up. I think they are guilty of that criminal offence and frankly should be going to prison.
As an example, Philp citedevidence given by John Piekos, a former police office who says that, after he left the force and tried to get the police in West Yorkshire to investigate grooming at a children’s home in Bradford, he was told by a serving police officer and a council official to drop the
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am:John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, gives a speech promising a “national project of renewal”.
Morning:Rachel Reeves, the chancellor (who was also promising renewal in her spending review last week), is on a visit in the north-east of England, promoting plans to improve the road network/
11.30am:Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm:Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm:David Lammy, the foreign secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, are due to make Commons statement, on the Israel/Iran conflict, and the inquiry into grooming gangs respectively. But we are not sure yet which is coming first, and, if the Speaker allows one or more urgent questions, they will come first.
Around 5pm (UK time):Keir Starmeris due to arrive at the G7 meeting in Canada.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian hasgiven up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.