Adele Bailey

The UK government have published the terms of reference for the statutory local grooming gang inquiries. They promise to "explicitly examine the role of ethnicity, religion and culture, when considering the factors that drive and enable" the abuse. But it is likely to be another limited hangout, like every report and inquiry promised by previous governments. They are chaired by Labour Baroness Anne Longfield, the former Children's Commissioner, who praised a 2012 report which blamed white men for the crimes, and defended its author, Sue Berelowitz, receiving £134,000 in severance pay, before rehiring her on a consultant's fee of £960 a day to write another report. The inquiry will only examine three of the over fifty affected towns and cities, ignore any crimes before 1996, and will conclude after the next general election in 2029. The accompanying Parliamentary research briefing does not mention the state's knowledge of the gangs before 2010. But the Home Office knew by 1998, local authorities knew in the mid 1990s, and the police and press knew in the late 1970s. This inquiry seems designed to delay and deny justice, and let the scandal drop conveniently out of the headlines. The perpetrators must pay. Their collaborators, who knew and did nothing, must be deported. Every public sector employee complicit in the cover-up should be sacked, stripped of their pension, and given prison time. But until a patriotic force winning to do that wins a Parliamentary majority, we can only continue to document the extent to which the state has covered up these crimes, and press onwards with private inquiries and prosecutions.

Breaking: Andy Burnham launches revised bid to become Makerfield’s MP.

BREAKING James Murray has been appointed as the new health secretary following the resignation of Wes Streeting Some had expected Starmer to appoint someone from the left in a bid to try to unite the party - he's elected not to do so

How on Earth can they claim that whale skeletons in the Sahara Desert remained exposed on the surface for 30 million years, while the pyramids and the Sphinx, which according to them are only 4,500 years old, became buried in sand? The Sahara was not even a desert 6,000 years ago. Something doesn’t add up.

As someone with a worm’s eye view of the legislative process, it really irritates me that Starmer’s spin for the poor local election results is that his Govt hasn’t been moving fast enough. There were 40 bills in the first parliamentary session and there are 37 in the second, as set out in yesterday’s King’s Speech. Starmer has created 96 peers – a higher rate per year than any previous Prime Minister. He could not be going any faster. The fact that the legislation the Govt has rammed through has not delivered growth or reduced the tax burden on working people or lowered the cost of living – delivered the ‘change’ that Labour promised – is because they’re not designed to do that. They’re designed to placate the Party’s ‘stakeholders’ – backbench Labour MPs, trade unions, NGOs, think tanks, lobby groups, allies in the legal profession, cheerleaders in the media, etc. It’s been bleedin’ obvious to everyone on the opposition benches – and probably some on the Govt benches too – that the legislation was introduced in the last parliamentary session – particularly the Employment Rights Act – will impede growth, not accelerate it. We’ve told the Govt’s ministers this in the chamber again and again and everything we’ve predicted would happen has happened – rising unemployment, rising inflation, accelerating borrowing costs, an unmanageable welfare bill, exodus of high income-earners, thereby increasing the tax burden on the rest of us, etc. The idea that if the Govt had been going *even faster* – which is just straightforwardly impossible – the country would be better off, is for the birds. Even as a piece of spin, it’s pathetic. The reason we’re in an economic doom spiral is because this Govt is only interested in pandering to its ‘stakeholders’ and their only motive is to line their own pockets and advance their own narrow sectional interests. Changing the leader will make no difference. We need a Prime Minister and a Govt who are going to prioritise the national interest. I don’t see anyone in the pack of hyenas stalking Starmer who’s going to do that.

No IDF soldier has ever raped any Palestinian. Period. End of story. And if you think a dog can rape a person, you’re different level ignorant. The entire blood libel of sexual violence by the IDF is the mother of all projections. Like many other things, want to know what Israel’s enemies are guilty of? Look what they accuse Israel of. Full stop. It never happened and never will. - The end