
Emily Maitlis doesn't understand grooming gangs
'You are focusing on Pakistani grooming gangs, because, probably, you're racist.' That's what Emily Maitlis ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe when he appeared on the News Agents podcast yesterday. But is she right?
In fact, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population, according to figures from the Hydrant Programme, which is part of the police and helps investigate child sex abuse. According to academics from the universities of Reading and Chichester, around one in 73 Muslim men over 16 have been prosecuted for 'group-localised child sexual exploitation' in Rotherham.
"Why do you 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 talk about Pakistani grooming gangs? There are 𝙩𝙚𝙣 times as many white grooming gang suspects?"@maitlis asks ex-Reform MP @RupertLowe10 why he won't denounce all perpetrators of grooming gangs equally. pic.twitter.com/btuJ60GDL1 — The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) May 15, 2025
Lowe has been keen to highlight these cases and is crowdfunding an inquiry into the grooming gang scandal.
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Scottish Labour Deputy leader Jackie Ballie, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and Davy Russell, newly elected Scottish Labour MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse yesterday (Picture: Jeff) Reform has no place in Scottish democracy as it is difficult to justify any support for a party with outdated views on multiculturalism and climate change. Labour must show that Hamilton was not a blip to defeat two decades of failed SNP policies and the toxic politics of Reform. Voters are more likely to engage if there is tangible hope of positive change. Neil Anderson, Edinburgh Counting chickens? While Labour's victory in the Hamilton by-election on Thursday seemingly points to the party winning the Scottish Parliament elections next year, if I were Anas Sarwar I wouldn't be sizing up the curtains of Bute House just yet. The seat was won comfortably by the SNP in the last Scottish Parliament election in 2021 and is just the sort of seat Labour needs to win if Sarwar is to become Scotland's next First Minister. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The SNP has made little progress in restoring its fortunes following its heavy defeat in last summer's Westminster election, with polls suggesting the party's support across Scotland is still 15 points down on its tally in 2021. In the event, the fall in the party's support in Hamilton was, at 17 points, just a little higher than that. However, Labour's own tally was also down by two points on its vote in 2021, when overall the party came a disappointing third. That drop was very much in line with recent polling, which puts the party at just 19 per cent across Scotland as a whole, while the SNP has around a third of the vote. In addition, Labour is losing somewhere between one in six and one in five of its voters to Reform since last year's election. 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On top of this there was, of course, the marking and noting of any problems and collecting materials for the next day's work. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In the last year or so of my career we had a school inspection. The HMI 'dropped in' to observe one of my lessons and said at the end, 'That was an excellent lesson, but I'm afraid I cannot grade you on it as you didn't have a detailed lesson plan'. My reply was that I had never written a full lesson plan for any lesson since graduating from Callendar Park teacher training college. If teachers are allowed to teach without all the emphasis on accountability their workload would be greatly reduced and they could enjoy working with their pupils and seeing them love to learn, as I did at the start of my career. Barbara Wilson, Edinburgh Cringe no more I must disagree with Alexander McKay, and by extension, Billy Connolly, on the charge that the Scottish Parliament is 'pretendy' (Letters, 6 June). Far from it. 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Bus priority lanes are not, in the first instance, about reducing pollution, but about minimising congestion for those who are prepared to travel together. And to encourage people to do so, buses need to be able to progress reliably, especially on the main arteries. Cars have a vastly disproportionate footprint compared to buses. Bus lanes go some way towards reallocating the communal road space more fairly. Harald Tobermann, Chair, Edinburgh Bus Users Group Write to The Scotsman