Latest news with #Groomed:ANationalScandal
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lucy Powell's dismissal of the rape gangs horror was an admission of Labour's monstrous cover-up
Why in the name of God is Lucy Powell still not sacked? You will probably have heard that the Leader of the Commons interrupted Tim Montgomerie, a Reform UK commentator, when both were panellists on Radio 4's Any Questions last week. Talking about the rape gangs, Montgomerie raised a powerful Channel 4 documentary which had just been broadcast, 'Groomed: A National Scandal', and Lucy Powell quickly jumped in. 'Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, let's get that dog whistle out,' she sneered. In a bitter irony, Powell was repeating the same appalling pattern of deflection and denial that the documentary had just exposed. For more than 40 years, young girls in the UK have suffered rape and sexual torture at the hands of depraved men, mostly of Pakistani origin, who pimped them out to their relatives, mates and paying customers. When the girls or their parents complained to the police, the council or social workers, their stories were usually dismissed, swiftly buried or 'investigated' (yeah, right). Often, the authorities, most of them Labour-leaning like Powell, feared giving offence to the Muslim community or being perceived as racist. That was seen as far more important than safeguarding children. Don't forget it was – and is – politically embarrassing to upset Muslims who tend to vote en masse for Labour candidates. Many Leftist politicians, including serving Cabinet ministers (Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Jess Phillips, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper), depend hugely on their votes. The Government recently rejected a national inquiry into the Pakistani rape gangs, the biggest scandal in our country's history, preferring to give a paltry few million quid to several Labour councils to investigate themselves with all the vigour one might expect. For some reason, the chosen councils did not include the towns and cities (like Bradford) where the worst abuse is believed to have taken place. If you had to give a name to this strategy it would be: Raped Girls for Votes. Thousands of poor, white children, some of the most vulnerable individuals in our society, have cynically been sacrificed for the sake of the Left's electoral survival. The Faustian pact involved is so horrifying that all Labour ministers can do is accuse those who call them out of being racist. That is what Lucy Powell tried to do to the extremely decent and thoughtful Tim Montgomerie. When she was taken to task on social media by people like me for her despicable comments, Powell initially insisted that she had been taken out of 'context'. She was merely rebuffing a line of political attack, you see. Soon after, with criticism mounting, Powell apologised if her remarks were 'unclear'. She tweeted: 'In the heat of a discussion on AQ, I would like to clarify that I regard issues of child exploitation & grooming with the utmost seriousness. I'm sorry if this was unclear. I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself. As a constituency MP I've dealt with horrendous cases. This Gvt is acting to get to the truth, and deliver justice.' Unfortunately for Powell, she had been perfectly clear. The mask had slipped, that was all, and for a few seconds we glimpsed the ugly face behind the self-righteous, butter-wouldn't melt facade. Those like Montgomerie, who refuse to genuflect to the multicultural religion (Christianity being a tad judgmental for Starmer's Marxists), have to be gagged and silenced in order to create the 'fairer' Britain the Government wants to usher in. Those who are guilty of 'wrongthink' and ask awkward questions – like why are Pakistani-origin men so disproportionately responsible for child sexual 'exploitation' (not abuse, 'exploitation')? – can be safely exiled outside the ideological bubble and, therefore, beyond the bounds of acceptable discussion. Talking about grooming gangs equals 'hate speech', which is illegal (or soon will be if Labour smuggles in its Islamophobia definition). That is why Lucy Powell felt so confident that by uttering the phrase 'dog whistle' (guaranteed to get a Pavlovian reaction; dog whistle = racist bad) she would ensure Montgomerie was a pariah fit only for cancellation. Exactly what happened to the actor Laurence Fox when he insisted on another BBC current affairs show, Question Time, that Britain was not a racist country, actually it was a rather nice, tolerant place. Most of us privately agreed, of course, but Fox had put himself outside the ideological bubble and was therefore guilty of 'hate speech' so his career was over. In fact, it was Lucy Powell, not Tim Montgomerie, who was guilty of political point scoring. Her timing could not have been worse, poor dear. The massive success of Reform in Thursday's elections made it very difficult to paint the party's passionate concern about the rape gangs as simply a vile preoccupation of the 'far-Right'. If it was, at least a third of the population were now far-Right and very angry about the industrial-scale abuse of white, working class girls by Muslim men who saw them as 'easy meat'. Suddenly, there were an awful lot of Reform voters holding forth on radio and TV and they seemed not just sensible but (whisper it) rather nice. As a result, the smug, holier-than-thou cabal on the mainstream media found themselves having to discuss topics which, only 24 hours earlier, they had ruled unacceptable. This is the first time I have listened to Any Answers in many years without fearing an immediate brain haemorrhage. Well done to all those who rang in to tell the startled presenter what the citizens of Planet Normal feel. Our Prime Minister is delighted to recommend Adolescence, a Netflix drama which comfortingly, if unstatistically, suggests that the knife-crime epidemic arises in white boys from stable homes with two loving parents. How I wish we could sit the entire Labour Parliamentary Party down and oblige them to watch 'Groomed: A National Scandal.' Twenty-one years ago, producer Anna Hall was the first person to expose the pattern, now familiar as gang grooming, in her groundbreaking, Edge of the City. In this new film, Hall focusses on five women who survived unimaginable abuse and trauma over 20 years. Sir Keir Starmer and other senior Labour figures were accused of covering up the scandal by Elon Musk - Stefan Rousseau Jade had a lovely mother, but her alcoholic dad turned to heroin and started leaving his young daughter with the men who sold him drugs. Jade was taken into care and met a Pakistani man, an abuser she thought of as her boyfriend. After the initial blandishments, Jade was passed around like a ragdoll. Seven of the abuser's relatives took turns with her in a toilet when the child was so drunk she could barely stand up. She was trafficked to so many towns, she couldn't remember all the names. Finally, in 2009, in High Wycombe, police and social workers became concerned about Jade and put a protection order on her. One night, Jade left the home to go and meet her abuser and took another girl with her. Police arrested Jade for inciting sexual activity on a minor. 'I didn't even know what those words meant.' Jade, who was supposed to be under police protection, was the one who was arrested under grooming charges, while the foul fiend who groomed her got off scot free. Jade ended up with a five-year jail sentence and was put on the Sex Offenders' Register if you can imagine such a thing. Miraculously, now in her early thirties Jade has turned her life around. She is a devoted mother to her children, although it upsets her she is not allowed to accompany them on school trips because a CRB check still brings her up as a sex offender. Jade comes across as a strong, warm, thoughtful woman. But when Anna Hall asked her how many men she thought had abused her, Jade's face sort of collapsed and her mouth became a gash of grief. She looked like a little girl howling. 'It's in the hundreds, but I try not to go there.' All five – Jade, Chantelle, Erin, Scarlett and Steph – told essentially the same story. Innocent, trusting girls fallen among a pack of wolves, and judged by the authorities who were supposed to protect them. In the early 2000s, in West Yorkshire, Erin was being controlled by one man who pimped her out. On one occasion, he and his cousin used her to have vaginal and anal sex at the same time. 'It really hurt. When they was done with me, I was crying and screaming. He said he'd kill me if I spoke about it.' Erin's desperate mum took her to the police station with a pair of her daughter's knickers covered in semen. Erin's mum pointed out her child was covered in bite marks from head to toe. Police did nothing. Social services said: 'Erin who had been raped frequently puts herself at risk.' Erin had made a 'lifestyle choice', police said. The Children's Services Assessment Board wrote: 'Erin is a very promiscuous girl'. Erin was 13 years old. Chantelle, who looks like a Botticelli painting of an angel who has spent a thousand years in hell, was only 12 when it started. Eleven men taking turns. Like thousands of others, she was called a child prostitute, even though the police knew full well sex with a child is illegal. Anna Hall produced a chilling video of young Pakistani males who were asked why the girls they groomed were so young and one explained, 'It's 'cos the younger girls you can take advantage. They can never get out.' In 2002, when Jayne Senior, a wonderful youth worker in Rotherham, helped with a Home Office report which found that 268 girls known to Jayne and her team were definitely being raped, with a further 63 possibles, no charges were brought. 'They didn't want to hear what we had found,' Senior recalls. 'I was told I needed to stop rocking the multicultural boat.' Dog whistle, see? Must be racist. Maggie Oliver, today a formidable champion for the abused girls, then a Greater Manchester police officer working on Operation Augusta, reported 'dozens of men – Pakistani men – sending younger boys to pick up girls from the care homes. Just like cannon fodder.' Asked about reports that things are better today, Maggie snapped, 'Bulls---. It's happening now.' Jade agrees: 'Probably some other little girl today.' Steph recalls that one of her abusers worked for Greater Manchester Police. She identified him, but he was never investigated because they said he'd left the force. Don't want to open that can of worms, do we, Lucy? The Augusta report ('The perpetrators are almost exclusively Asian males') never saw the light of day. Countless reports, apologies from the police and social services, politicians promising inquiries they'd rather didn't happen. Back in January, when Elon Musk intervened, hardly able to believe the epidemic of depravity which had been allowed to flourish in the UK and accusing Keir Starmer and other senior Labour figures of covering up the scandal, a coldly furious PM made a statement. 'Those who spread lies and misinformation, they're not interested in the truth; they're interested in themselves.' How dare he. How dare Labour accuse others of lies and disinformation when they are so desperate to avoid a national inquiry which risks getting to the truth. Lucy Powell inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. Disgracefully, Downing Street has accepted her apology. Health Secretary Wes Streeting also defended Powell saying politicians sometimes say things 'in the heat of debate' that 'come across badly... We all make mistakes'. It wasn't a mistake. It was an admission. A dismissive, degrading comment that belittled all the terrified girls who suffered multiple gang rapes while giving covering fire to their rapists. (It's only racists who bang on about grooming gangs, isn't it?) And Lucy Powell, a mother with a daughter of her own, put defending her party's indefensible policy above defending children from those devils. Just listen to what Scarlett had to say, Lucy. 'They kept me in a flat for two days where they took turns with me.' Is that a dog whistle? A blow on that little trumpet about the Pakistani brutes who tortured and raped because the English girl was not human to them? And that's the awful truth you don't want exposed. Labour will not be able to postpone a national inquiry which will upset their Muslim client group forever: their obfuscation over the rape gangs has been infamous. In centuries to come, historians will still be writing about the monstrous injustice and cover-up. Resign, Lucy Powell, resign if you have any shred of feeling for all those mothers' daughters. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Time of India
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Who is Lucy Powell? UK Labour MP under fire for her remarks on grooming gangs
Lucy Powell , Labour's Leader of the House of Commons, is facing mounting pressure to resign following controversial remarks she made about grooming gangs during a BBC Radio 4 debate. Her comments, widely criticised by Conservative politicians and commentators, came in response to a question referencing a Channel 4 documentary, Groomed: A National Scandal, which detailed harrowing accounts from victims of sexual exploitation. During the broadcast of Any Questions, Reform UK's Tim Montgomerie asked Powell if she had seen the documentary. Powell retorted, 'Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we?' Her use of the term 'dog whistle' triggered a backlash, with opponents accusing her of belittling the suffering of thousands of victims. Powell has since sought to clarify her remarks, insisting that she was criticising political point-scoring on the issue, not the seriousness of child grooming itself. 'I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself. As a constituency MP I've dealt with horrendous cases,' she said. Senior Conservatives, however, were not satisfied with the explanation. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called Powell's remarks a 'shocking outburst' and said they 'belittle the thousands of girls and women who were raped by grooming gangs.' Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said her words were a 'disgusting betrayal of the victims,' while Reform UK said Powell's comments showed Labour was 'out of touch. ' Despite the backlash, the Prime Minister's Office is understood to have accepted Powell's apology, and she remains in her Cabinet post for now. Fellow Labour MP Wes Streeting defended her, saying Powell was 'mortified' and that the comments had come 'in the heat of debate'. Who is Lucy Powell? Lucy Powell is the Labour MP for Manchester Central, first elected in 2012. She currently serves as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council in Keir Starmer's government. Powell has previously held several shadow cabinet roles, including in education, business, and digital policy. Known for championing working-class communities and promoting investment in Manchester. As Leader of the House, she manages the government's legislative agenda and liaises with Parliament. She has led efforts to modernise Parliament and improve working conditions for MPs and staff. Powell has secured funding for local priorities, including healthcare, housing, and public safety.
Times
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Labour minister sorry for ‘dog-whistle' remark over grooming film
A cabinet minister has been forced to apologise after suggesting that people who raised concerns about grooming gangs were engaged in 'dog whistle' politics. The Conservatives called for Lucy Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, to resign after she appeared to dismiss the victims of sexual abuse during a BBC debate. Powell interrupted Tim Montgomerie, the political commentator and Reform UK supporter, when he raised a recent documentary about women who had been groomed and abused by gangs during an edition of BBC Radio 4's Any Questions. • Groomed: A National Scandal review — enraging, harrowing stories 'Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we?' she later apologised, saying
Telegraph
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Calling the rape gangs a ‘dog whistle' issue is utterly disgraceful
It's when under pressure that people reveal what they think and who they truly are – and Labour's Lucy Powell was clearly feeling the heat on the BBC's Any Questions this week. When journalist Tim Montgomerie (full disclosure: the founder of ConservativeHome, where I work) made a reasonable point about the dangers of allowing oversensitivity to community cohesion to trump things like child protection, as it had in places such as Rotherham, Powell said this: 'Oh, you want to blow that little trumpet now, do you? Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we, yeah?' Perhaps, like Sir Keir Starmer, she would have been more comfortable talking about Adolescence, the recent smash-hit fictional drama about a crime which, as seen in the show, has never taken place. The Prime Minister spent weeks happily playing an unpaid role in Netflix's publicity campaign, referring to the series as a 'documentary' and calling for it to be shown in schools. Yet he refused to be interviewed for Channel 4's actual documentary Groomed: A National Scandal, nor has he even confirmed he watched it. Powell is not some random backbencher. As Leader of the House of Commons, she's an important minister in this Labour Government. But perhaps therefore her outburst should not surprise us, for Starmer's ministers have given no impression so much as that they just wish the rape gangs scandal would go away. Why else would they be fighting tooth and nail against calls for a proper national enquiry? Or more targeted investigations such as into specific allegations of collusions between the gangs and local police forces, as called for by Conservative MP Nick Timothy. Politicians normally love holding inquiries. In this country they're so slow and so expensive that they've become the preferred way for ministers to look like they're taking action whilst kicking an issue into the long grass. Not here though. Labour insists that the existing inquiries have been sufficient. But again, Powell showed what they really think: the case Montgomerie was making on any questions, which she dismissed as a 'dog whistle'? Literally just the conclusions of the 2014 Jay Report. It isn't difficult to see why the Government is acting this way. Just look at Thursday's local election results, which saw sectarian Muslim candidate taking council seats in Labour heartlands. Or the last general election, where four 'Gaza independents' were elected and senior figures such as Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips almost lost their seats. The Labour Party has until recently been happy to have this bloc inside the tent, and is frightened of the electoral consequences of losing it. If keeping such voters happy means suppressing an inquiry into the rape gangs – or selecting MPs more interested in a new airport in Mirpur than rubbish piling up on the streets in their own constituencies – then so be it. Perhaps there is also an element of straightforward denial, too. If you built your entire politics on the idea that Britain is an integration success story and only bad people would attack our 'diverse communities', as have politicians like Powell, you too would be very wary of collecting the evidence. She herself is probably doomed, if for no other reason that this row means the nation is once again talking about Rotherham. But the Government's actions – or inactions – speak louder than words, and it's clear that Powell has only said what other ministers are content merely to think.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Calling the rape gangs a ‘dog whistle' issue is utterly disgraceful
It's when under pressure that people reveal what they think and who they truly are – and Labour's Lucy Powell was clearly feeling the heat on the BBC's Any Questions this week. When journalist Tim Montgomerie (full disclosure: the founder of ConservativeHome, where I work) made a reasonable point about the dangers of allowing oversensitivity to community cohesion to trump things like child protection, as it had in places such as Rotherham, Powell said this: 'Oh, you want to blow that little trumpet now, do you? Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we, yeah?' Perhaps, like Sir Keir Starmer, she would have been more comfortable talking about Adolescence, the recent smash-hit fictional drama about a crime which, as seen in the show, has never taken place. The Prime Minister spent weeks happily playing an unpaid role in Netflix's publicity campaign, referring to the series as a 'documentary' and calling for it to be shown in schools. Yet he refused to be interviewed for Channel 4's actual documentary Groomed: A National Scandal, nor has he even confirmed he watched it. Powell is not some random backbencher. As Leader of the House of Commons, she's an important minister in this Labour Government. But perhaps therefore her outburst should not surprise us, for Starmer's ministers have given no impression so much as that they just wish the rape gangs scandal would go away. Why else would they be fighting tooth and nail against calls for a proper national enquiry? Or more targeted investigations such as into specific allegations of collusions between the gangs and local police forces, as called for by Conservative MP Nick Timothy. Politicians normally love holding inquiries. In this country they're so slow and so expensive that they've become the preferred way for ministers to look like they're taking action whilst kicking an issue into the long grass. Not here though. Labour insists that the existing inquiries have been sufficient. But again, Powell showed what they really think: the case Montgomerie was making on any questions, which she dismissed as a 'dog whistle'? Literally just the conclusions of the 2014 Jay Report. It isn't difficult to see why the Government is acting this way. Just look at Thursday's local election results, which saw sectarian Muslim candidate taking council seats in Labour heartlands. Or the last general election, where four 'Gaza independents' were elected and senior figures such as Wes Streeting and Jess Phillips almost lost their seats. The Labour Party has until recently been happy to have this bloc inside the tent, and is frightened of the electoral consequences of losing it. If keeping such voters happy means suppressing an inquiry into the rape gangs – or selecting MPs more interested in a new airport in Mirpur than rubbish piling up on the streets in their own constituencies – then so be it. Perhaps there is also an element of straightforward denial, too. If you built your entire politics on the idea that Britain is an integration success story and only bad people would attack our 'diverse communities', as have politicians like Powell, you too would be very wary of collecting the evidence. She herself is probably doomed, if for no other reason that this row means the nation is once again talking about Rotherham. But the Government's actions – or inactions – speak louder than words, and it's clear that Powell has only said what other ministers are content merely to think. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
