The child sex abuse scandal in Rotherham is a toxic mix of race, class and misogyny. And this was not a handful of girls hidden in a cellar by a particular gang. This was hundreds of young women (and some young men), year on year, being victimised in plain sight. Anybody who took a cab late at night, bought a kebab or knew the families of either the victims or the perpetrators would have had an inkling as to what was going on. But something made them blind to it.
There are people who had no excuse not to know. Attention has centered on South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, who was cabinet member for children and young people’s services at Rotherham council from 2005 to 2010, received three reports about widespread abuse but did nothing.
But another person who should have known is the current Rotherham deputy leader Paul Lakin. According to his website he is cabinet member for children, young people and families services, chair of the children, young people and families strategic partnership, member of the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s board and member of the Health and Wellbeing board. And he is considered such a repository of wisdom on safeguarding children that, not only does he represents Rotherham on the Local Government Association children’s and young people’s board, but he is chair of the Yorkshire and Humber regional network for lead members of children’s services.
But this worthy gentleman, with all his official titles, was on the radio this morning claiming to have no idea about the extent of the abuse. Yet the independent inquiry published yesterday points out that that reports into the extent of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham were published by various bodies in 2002, 2003 and 2006. The inquiry says these studies “could not have been clearer”.
The inquiry also found that seminars were held for councillors and senior police officers in 2004 and 2005 which “presented the abuse in the most explicit terms” It is simply beyond belief that Councillor Lakin and his colleagues did not know the extent of the problem. Not unless, of course, they never actually read reports, but left it to their officers to actually run the council whilst they themselves enjoyed all the pomp and ceremony of being local dignitaries with impressive titles.
But there is more to the Rotherham scandal than local worthies who never bothered to get their head around the issue. There are issues around race. Although it is important to note that only a tiny minority of Muslim men are engaged in grooming and abusing girls, there are issues to be faced up to by the community. Writer Yasmin Alibhai Brown has set them out in her usual clear-eyed way.
And it is too simplistic to claim that it is just a matter of over sensitive policemen worried about offending the sensibilities of black and brown Rotherham residents. Black and Muslim boys, stopped and searched in disproportionate numbers all over the country, have not noticed this delicacy of approach. But, there may be something in the nature of the patriarchal political establishment in one-party towns like Rotherham where party bosses do deals with self-styled community leaders, which made key actors unwilling to disrupt arrangements and prepared to turn a blind eye.
The inquiry also points to a sexist, misogynistic and bullying culture at Rotherham council which “is likely to have impeded the council from providing an effective, corporate response to such a highly sensitive social problem as child sexual exploitation”
Above all one is struck by the class aspect of the scandal. A few of the girls were from middle class homes. But the majority were working class girls, often in care. And it is not just their abusers who thought they were worthless. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the police, councillors and local worthies dismissed those girls as “rubbish” not worth bothering about.
In a world where many of the working class communities of the de-industrialised North have been left behind, these young girls were on the far edge of the marginalised. They were not worth reading reports about, not worth upsetting delicate (and vote-getting) relationships with “community leaders” about and not worth noticing hanging out late at night with older men who clearly meant them no good. When they went to the police they were ignored and when they tried to report abuse they could end up arrested themselves.
At the highest levels of the local establishment nobody cared. So the young people could be victimised and abused in plain sight. And now adults who were paid to know can claim (quite breathtakingly) that they had no idea.
Misogyny doesn’t cause rape.
Rapists aren’t normal people who just happen to have questionable attitudes. They’re perverts.
No one thinks that blokes who molest little boys are anything other than severely warped individuals, but when it’s girls suddenly the left kids itself into thinking that changing society’s values will somehow make this sort of crime go away.
It won’t.
You protect the kids as best you can, do your best to catch the criminals and lock them away for as long as you can.
That’s it. That’s all you can do.
The article wasn’t about the psychology of rapists but I suspect that misogyny sometimes does affect the rapist’s actions although that wasn’t what the reference was about either. It was about the failure of lots of people to respond to what was going on because of their misogyny. I think it’s an entirely fair accusation.
I am not saying misogyny causes rape. My point is that misogyny contributed to young under-class girls being ignored when they tried to draw attention to the abuse that they were suffering.
How do you know this,there’s been many powerful people in the church, rapping boys, and the police ignored it, in the past through far of the power the church had, to say cops ignored this, as they were mysogonists wrong, they ignored them as they were afraid of being called racist.
Nonesense – rapping boys isn’t illegal is it ? Many enjoy rapping. Of course raping is another matter. But more seriously – the police were not afraid of being racist, when have they ever held back on that front (as Dianne says). If you read the report you’ll know why the police didn’t engage in the issue. One CID officer described the sex a 12 year old was having with an adult as “concensual” so there was no case to answer. I think that was the typical attitude of S Yorks police (alledgedly).
We all know the issue the police have had and it seem still has. But whqat we must not forget that children have been abused and attacked and now the whole issue is to help these children to sort our their lives, yes by all means later on get the people involved into court, now the Government has to put forward money and people to ensure these children are given all the help they need. then these Labour Tory and police should answer the question in a court of law.
But these young people are now the priority
I agree about the police, but the council put the researcher who tried to expose the gangs on a diversity course. The first public figure to talk of this was prosecuted twice. 300,000 children on a database for “hate speech”. Children as young as 10 prosecuted. Families whose children were removed for fighting this. While diversity trainers taught non whites cant be racist. Thats not from the Mail, a probation officer friend was taught just that. So of course this couldnt be happening. The left is in this up to it’s neck. Do Left Futures support the repeal of hate speech laws? If not hush your mouths and crawl into the dustbin of history.
Diane, God bless you. I know you are a good woman, I had a friend in distress whom you helped. But Ann Cryer has been raising this since 2003. One girl is gang raped a minute, official stat known since 2012. If this were White British gangs raping women of colour and subjecting them to racial abuse as well as gang rape torture and murder, are you telling me you and the left wouldn’t have been all over it?Don’t be silly you know you would have! I’m been raising this with Liberals for years and they change the subject even if you don’t mention ethnicity. Even the fact that 28% of victims are BME won’t move them. They are too scared by the fact that almost all the gangs are from immigrant or minority groups. I’m not throwing stones. The paedophile gangs in our care homes were white and British. Also covered up. Margaret Hodge who impeded investigation and had to make a court ordered apology to a victim she slandered went on to be Minister for Children. Was that PC? Well, those paedophiles were gay so it’s worth looking at? What about Jimmy Savile? Well here’s the thing! He’s not raping children today. These gangs have raped five in the time it has taken to write this.
Just read the replies,when were the police afraid of doing things for fear of being called racist, plenty of times lately regarding Muslims burning poppies and shouting incitement of violence ,behead Britsh troops at demos, the police were too afraid to arrest them and the EDL was born, too afraid to act over Daminola Taylor for fear of being called racist,too afraid to arrest Bernie Grant for anti white racist remarks through fear of being called racist, arrested Nick griffin for saying a black person killed Stephen Lawrence,which a jury found wasn’t inciting racist hatred, arrested Tommy Robisnon of the aeadL for getting beaten up,
“the police, councillors and local worthies dismissed those girls as “rubbish” not worth bothering about.”
The reality of life under New Labour. No surprise if Champion is out on her ear in 2015. If so, no one should say it wasn’t deserved.
For a start Muslims arent a race its a religion,there are several white Muslims, so bringing up the disproportinate amount of stop and searches for BME compared to the delecate way,that the police were afraid of intervening here, thorugh fear of being called racist doesn’t rate
and secondly you should know that people can only be searched for Section 1 pace, of having forbidden articles, stolen articles ,drugs, weapons,articles to be used in Burglary, or theft,or fireworks,or criminal damge, or under section60 at a football match train station if there’s the possibility of violence, or as it was between 2000 and 2007 S44 under anti terror laws of having implements that may have been used in terror,
there’s no stop and search for possible future grooming.
don’t get the relevance of working class girls (claim),so it was under investigated, there are many middle class groomers (some asians )and middle class kids in borading schools have been subject to abuse form not just Middle class tutors, witness the 60’s when Working class gangsters were intersted in the racket too.
Yasmin Browns’ article again uses the description of these men as Asians, well they were Muslims, has anyone found out if any of them were white
For a start Muslims arent a race its a religion,there are several white Muslims, so bringing up the disproportinate amount of stop and searches for BME compared to the delecate way,that the police were afraid of intervening here, thorugh fear of being called racist doesn’t rate
and secondly you should know that people can only be searched for Section 1 pace, of having forbidden articles, stolen articles ,drugs, weapons,articles to be used in Burglary, or theft,or fireworks,or criminal damge, or under section60 at a football match train station if there’s the possibility of violence, or as it was between 2000 and 2007 S44 under anti terror laws of having implements that may have been used in terror,
there’s no stop and search for possible future grooming.
don’t get the relevance of working class girls (claim),so it was under investigated, there are many middle class groomers (some asians )and middle class kids in borading schools have been subject to abuse form not just Middle class tutors, witness the 60′s when Working class gangsters were intersted in the racket too.
John, if what you are saying is that paedophiles come from all races, religions and classes then yes, of course you are correct.
However, what we are dealing with in Rochdale and at least a dozen other similar sorts of cases (mainly in northern towns and cities) is of a very particular type of grooming and abuse.
The overwhelming number of abusers were men of Pakistani origin (and I am guessing by default if they claimed a religious affiliation it would be Muslim). The overwhelming number of victims were white girls.
Now one of the problems with this, and one of this central issues that has come out in this latest report, is that much of the left or liberals (and the Labour Party covers both political traditions) don’t like to accept these facts. Many local authorities and the police didn’t want to admit these facts. They are all terrified of being accused of racism or Islamophobia by even mentioning it. And so as a result the abuse continued for much, much longer than it should have done.
Indeed, I remember having an argument with a leading member of the LRC about these issues around 2 years ago when another similar abuse ring of Pakistani men had been jailed in another northern town, and I was accused of Islamophobia for even talking about these facts openly.
But surely the role of the left is to be honest about reality, because if we are not the space is opened p for the racists and fascists of the EDL.
And clearly there is a problem in some parts of the country that needs to be addressed. In part it appears cultural – misogyny is not unique to any one area or culture, but it can be particularly barbaric in poorer rural areas of the Indian sub-continent where many of these Pakistani grooming rings have their immigrant origins. In part it can also be religious – the Quran explicitly talks of assaults on uncovered women and girls as being their own fault for tempting men, and then of course we have the example of Mohammed himself who married a 6 year old girl (Aisha) and had sex with her when she was 9.
So in my opinion where you have poorly educated misogynist groups of men who genuinely appear to believe that girls they abuse are ‘asking for it’ at the same time have scriptural excuses for their paedophilia then you are dealing with a very nasty situation indeed – combine that with those in power in places like Rotherham who turned a blind eye to much of this due to fears of being seen as racist and you have a highly toxic situation that has led to the revelations that we are now hearing about.
James can you please quote where in the Quran it says uncovered women should be assaulted as it’s their own fault? As a Muslim woman reading the Quran all my life I seem to have overlooked this! Please also do not talk about religion as though you are a scholarly expert and distort a religion you know nothing about. Rather than taking the moral high ground and directing blame at other races and religion please look to the reasons why the highest number of convicted child abusers are white men! This evil is not a problem of any race or religion, in fact none of these British Pakistani men were practicing Muslims as their actions don’t conform to Islam in any way so I don’t understand why Islam is being dragged into this. Why don’t we associate all the white male child abusing celebrities we’ve been hearing about on the news recently with their race or religion? And I think Dianne’s point about disproportionate stop and search of ethnics is an excellent point and makes it clear to me there was no fear of a racial or religious backlash, it was the apathy and blatant disregard of the powers that be and their desperate and pathetic attempt to find excuses and a divergence tactic for their failures.
I would like to confirm that the Qur’an does not state the things claimed by James. It is a pity that such claims or made without any prior effort to check them.
Also, the word “Muslim” only occurs five times in the Rotherham report and in each case it described the effors of Muslim women’s organisations to combat CSA. It also points out that it is far from the case that white girls are the only or even the predominant victims of this abuse (even though that is the aspect that exercise the press the most):
11.15 The UK Muslim Women’s Network produced a report on CSE in September 2013 which drew on 35 case studies of women from across the UK who were victims, the majority of whom were Muslim. It highlighted that Asian girls were being sexually exploited where authorities were failing to identify or support them. They were most vulnerable to men from their own communities who manipulated cultural norms to prevent them from reporting their abuse.
It is true that most people of Pakistani heritage are, nominally at least, Muslims. But most Americans are, nominally at least, Christians. That doesn’t mean that when an American man rapes a women we immediately put this down to his assumed Christianity.
Having said all that I think that we also have to admit that the long-term cultural denigration of women by the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is still a potent background cultural factor in efforts to establish the equal status of women in society.
Because this is the second big Pakistani attack on children I do not know if they are Muslims or not and it should not be an issue it’s the safety of the children and young people which should be the priority.
But the Muslim faith does have issues of course it does and many of it followers may use the Koran have now taken it changed it and we in this country and around the world are seeing that abuse.
Look at Pakistan look at Saudi Arabia, women are treated as second rate people , you may not like it but sadly the faith is not as you put it.
But again you state that white people attack more children yes I suppose that may be true, but the 1400 plus children who now have been attacked may well have had white people who had sex with them, but the grooming and the pimping have been done by a large Pakistani gang and this is not the first time either is it. and if these ,men turn out to be catholic or Muslims or what ever is not the point the point is the law has been broken and people knew about it.
Now the task is to help those young people and then to ensure these creeps who think children are sexual objects are put away and those that allowed it are removed from their jobs and placed in the same jails.
I really don’t know what the Qur’an and Islam is doing in this discussion. Most Muslims like most Christians, do not read their holy book. In my experience most Muslims, like most Christians have very little knowledge of their holy texts or of the history of their religion. So we should stop trying to pin the blame on a book. I am no more a defender of the Qur’an than I am of the Tanakh or the New Testament. I find a great deal that is objectionable in all of them.
But the important thing is that religious people take what they want to take from these texts. It is not the texts that determine they way they live. It is the way they live that conditions the way they read the texts (the few, that is, who actually do that). I asked a Muslim friend recently why, if alcohol is such a bad thing, the Qur’an promises that there will be rivers flowing with the stuff in heaven. He had no idea that there was such a promise!
Let’s listen to then NT on the status of women:
The head of the woman is the man … For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (Corinthians 11:3 7-9)
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience …. (Corinthians 14:34)
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife … (Ephesians 5:22)
Does this sort of stuff explain why (nominally Christian) white mean beat and abuse women? Of course it doesn’t (beyond being a distant element of background culture). Most of them have never even heard such passages. Some nutty fundamentalist Christians want to hold onto such nonsense but they are few and far between.
I suggest that we leave the holy books out of this and when they are relevant that we discuss them only when we have taken the trouble to read them and learn something of their background and problems of interpretation.
Virtually every serious commentator, of whatever background, is agreed about the Rotherham case. Professionals must do their jobs without fear or favour and should be held to account if they fail to do this (Yasmin Alibhai Brown expresses this very clearly in the link given by Diane Abbot.) The same should apply, and clearly did not, to those charged with democratic oversight.
Oh don’t get me wrong Sophia, I am far from a scholarly expert on religion, although I do hope that my hatred of religion is equal across all of the superstitious bollox spouted by the lot of them, and in fact when it comes to paedophilia any religion has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the biggest organised paedophile ring in history, otherwise known as the Catholic Church.
Do I sound bitter? Well perhaps that is because I have a mate who happens to be an ex-Muslim who had to move 100 miles to escape the attacks he was getting as an ‘apostate’ in his home town (yes, in the UK, in the 21st century).
But anyway, you ask about the Quran. Well the concept of women being ‘fitna’ (causes of sin) if they are not ‘modest’ appears to be fairly widespread in various parts of it. 24:31 for example, or how about 33:59 that states that women should be covered so as not to be abused by men (the obvious implication of this is that uncovered women who are abused only have themselves to blame).
But you know I’m not much interested in trading nasty passages from one ‘holy’ book or another (as bad or worse is in the Torah and Old Testament of course, although this is hardly surprising given all these writings are by nasty, bitter, women hating old men). What I am bothered about is that the liberal left’s uncritical adoption of ‘multi-culturalism’ has allowed such backward nonsense where we even have to reference these things to thrive unchecked in a number of towns and cities.
But there is also a difference between religions here I think. For example, recently we opposed the nasty reactionary Plymouth Brethren Christian sect (‘women should remain silent’) from getting state funding for their private schools via Gove’s Free Schools programme. However it has been a lot harder to get those in the Party to stand up against some of the more reactionary Islamic schools doing the same. Why is this? What are people scared of?
Also of course, I am unaware of those like the Plymouth Brethren being involved in grooming gangs of young girls from outside their culture and religion (although it wouldn’t surprise me if plenty went on inside it). But we have now had a lot of convictions in the past 5 years or so of grooming gangs that are almost exclusively of Pakistani/Muslim origins and whose targets appear to have been almost exclusively white non-Muslim girls. But even now – even now! – to say such a thing upsets people…
It only upsets people because it isn’t true.
Nowhere in the Jay report are the perpetrators described as “muslim”. The report also lists some offenders as white , black, arabic and eastern european as well as “asian”. It is also untrue to suggest that the victims were “almost exclusively white non-Muslim girls”. Many victims are known to be asian as stated in the Jay report and as we see in press reports of actual crimes.
Whilst many of the hysterical press reports are “pakistanis rape white girls” this is hysterical racism that we need to counter. This is at heart about male gangs abusing vulnerable childred. It is not a medieval muslim jihad against white girls as the loons would like us to believe. Cool heads are required to get to the truth of this.
I agree with Diane Abbott’s analysis. One point, though, requires detailed development. She says that
“… it is too simplistic to claim that it is just a matter of over sensitive policemen worried about offending the sensibilities of black and brown Rotherham residents.”
That is fair comment. On the other hand some people, unsure of their own position on race and unable to robustly resist false accusations of racism, can be and are silenced for fear of a likely accusation of being racist.
DA is right to add
“But, there may be something in the nature of the patriarchal political establishment in one-party towns like Rotherham where party bosses do deals with self-styled community leaders, which made key actors unwilling to disrupt arrangements and prepared to turn a blind eye.”
There is an aspect of this which has received little or no attention and that is the question of the way the local Labour Party works, how it relates to its councillors and how they relate to the Council Cabinet.
It is just incredible that abuse on this scale could have gone on for so long with the problems being highlighted by report after report, special meeting to discuss the issue and so on. No one following local events could have been unaware of the issues. Was it ever discussed by Labour’s Management Committee, by Labour Branches, by the Labour Group? If it was what happened? If it wasn’t then why not?
This seems to me to be not only a massive failure on the part of professionals supposed to be protecting vulnerable children but also a massive failure of the democratic processes which also have that responsibility. Given its majority only one party is in the firing line over this and that is Labour.
We all know what a poor joke internal Party democracy so often is in terms of informed discussion and carrying forward of decisions based on such discussion. The Rotherham case illustrates that it can be a very bad joke indeed. We need to hear more about the way in which the Rotherham Labour Party did or did not respond to this appalling affair over the many years in which attention was being drawn to it. It would be helpful if the minutes of all the relevant meetings were to be made available, or at least if an independent person were to go through them and tell us how this scandal was or was not reflected in the workings of Labour Party democracy.
An excellent intervention by Di Abbott who raises some extremely important points about society and blame. Yasmin must be the most annoying woman in britain today and Di Abbott the 3rd most annoying, but they speak sense
We all need to calm down and look at the way society has changed. Part of the blame lies in the permissive society boom in the 70’s, yes liberating but also sowing the seeds of distruction creating a selfish me first culture and that is when community fell apart with drugs and family structure breaking dow. All encouraged by pop icons like The Beatles and Rolling Stones and Liberationists like Germaine Greer and Shirley Conran here in Britain. That culture spread through out the world, and more structured societies started falling apart.
But even these structured socies were as Di says patriarchal male dominated even here in Britain, working class men had difficulty facing up to the change more so in the North.
Alongside the emerging countries struggled with liberation and freedoms; there was mass movement across the worlds Cultures faced each other and had to adapt. Couple of examples Marie Colomie child abuse, people were afraid to challenge the tribal cultures of the Nigerians and their treatment of children here. We were inundated with Nigerians scams and still are. The Pakistani community also found difficulty in adapting and it has to accept fault, but won’t. The Sikh Community also. The West Indian Community had doissues with single parents and lack of role models, and the White community also just couldn’t handle the changes.
I alwas felt sorry for John Major because he tried to raise the point about family valued but was laughed off, unfaily, maybe because he attached ‘Victorian’ to the label, and the victorians had a dark hidden under world and underclass.
So Di is right to point out abuse is all around from every section of society from Catholic priests to immigrant gangs to parliamentary notables.
Its not confined to one group, or one political Party, or one religion. We all need to calm down.
Apart from John mayors family values,and Edwuna Currie coming to mind, dare I ask, who’s the 2nd most annoying person in the UK?, Swt, you rightly say that it’s in all groups of society, so I take it you disagree with Ms Abbots views that it was ignored cos the girls were working Class, but as you’ve said ,certainly among MP and Catholic Church,many victims weren’t working class
Perish the thought! but some people have had the temerity to suggest its moi!
But Yasmin, Di and Moi usually get things right, and know which way the wind is blowing.
I’m no fan of much of the author’s politics, but this is one of the best, if not the best, piece I’ve read on the story. The corrupt relationship between council officers and elected officials and “community leaders” (and the overlap between those groups) has been a feature of other similar scandals, and is a clear feature of the problems in Birmingham schools as well. Labour needs to stop using biraderi community networks to secure votes, as the result is to empower conservative men and marginalise younger people and women. It has to stop.
You need to stop. Put colour, religion of perpetrators to one side and concentrate on the victims of the abuse.
Who are they, what makes them the target and why are they being abandoned by the people whose duty it is to protect them.
This is two fold first the children and young people need help and that means pumping in money to get the resources to help people. These children young people are not the ones who are to be blamed.
Then once that is in place, the people who knew about this and allowed this must be removed from their jobs we have had enough of this and the acceptance of sex with children by large male groups has to end .
But the protection of officials and the cover up by politicians should now end and those who knew and allowed it for what ever reason have to be prosecuted.
Yes well that’s why we can’t put colour or religion to one side isn’t it? Many girls were targeted by gangs (we have evidence from recruiters) because they were white or non Muslim. Others were targeted as Sikhs. Now some gangs also targeted Muslims, but the fact remains it is almost entirely immigrant/minority perpetrators of this type of crime (on street pimping and gang rape). A former head of Barnado’s said its mainly failed asylum seekers. That’s why the left haven’t said peep, except to call Ann Cryer racist. It’s just obvious, especially if you have any experience of talking to lefties on this. Short answer you (the left) don’t care if little girls are gang raped if they are white and their attackers aren’t. Shame on you all.
Let me correct that. You don’t care for girls of any colour if the perps are a minority group. How many prosecuted for FGM under new Labour?
Diane and David have made some excellent points.And what about the previous Labour MP,what did he ever say or do during his long period in Rotherham?You normally could not shut him up, he was always sounding off about something or other.
Denis Mcshane the huge fan of Ken Livingstone did say nothing ,unlike Ann Cryer who when she said it was accused of racism
Good article Dianne. I’m tired of hearing how all this was somehow due to Labour’s political correctness and ethnic sensitivities. The inaction of S. Yorks police was due to their disregard for the victims, focus on more pressing targets and the difficulty in gaining prosecutions. It was seen as a low priority thankless task. The report has a chiling account of how a CID officer classed the sex a 12 year old was having with an adult as “consensual”. Inaction was also due to the self-interest and crony antics of the single-party council that ruled without scrutiny. These reports were clearly career threatenning, hence suppressed. There was also professional arrogance by which the high number of CSE referrals were disbelieved as they were out of the norm, and reclassifations of CSE as “negigence” or “truancy”. Funding is another issue as the high number of referrals from Risky Business couldn’t be handled within the already low bufget. CES was a low spending proprity. Crony macho politics, self-interst and denial were the causes, not Labour “political correctness” gone mad as many are shouting.
Oh dear, the denial never ends, staff threatened with the sack for racism if they spoke out, prosecution for the first public figure who exposed this (yes it was Nick Griffin, yes he is racist) and still more libsplaining. I voted Socialist Alliance in 2001, Lib Dem in 2005 and (on discovery of the pimping scandal) Conservative in 2010. I shall vote UKIP in 2015. My opinions have never changed in this time. I care for the most vulnerable. The only reason for not voting UKIP I had left was that PC robots will call me racist. I won’t stand by while children are raped because we are scared of a word.
“staff threatened with the sack for racism if they spoke out”
Where is that in the Jay report ? Or are you relying on another source of evidence and if so what ?
Staff did have concerns about raising what were seen as racially sensitive issues but that is very different to the accusation you make that staff were directly threatened with the sack if they spoke out. Unless you have evidence I’ll consider it to be heresay.
It wasn’t in the Jay report, it’s what frontline staff have reported since. Like the Home Office researcher who reports she was put on a diversity course when she wouldnt change the data. Sorry I can’t remember which source I first encountered this. Sure feel free to think its all made up by the Daily Mail. That’s been the lefts default throughout. That’s why we are in this mess!
My perspective is this. I became a Socialist at 11. Read the Guardian all my life. And most of that time I have been encountering problems the Left tell me cant be happening and is all made up by the Mail. When I speak out others come to me privately with similar experiences. As I say Ann Cryer has been speaking since 2003. With one girl gang raped a minute (conservative extrapolation from children’ commissioner and Jay reports). Where we’re the left? Admit it, you know why they were missing in action! I speak from the inside, though I defected from the left shortly after uncovering the pimping scandal in 2010 and encountering such a wall of denial and indifference.
The very fact that as a lefty Guardian reader I didn’t see this story till 2010, and then got it from the Times says it all. If anyone thinks PC isn’t a factor they haven’t been raising this topic with Liberals. This is what you should have been talking about while PC zealots were scrutinising the political views of adoptive and natural parents. Child protection is your (the Left’s) racket. Looks like while you make the adoption of non white babies nigh impossible (read Oona King, though the poor woman had to turn to the Mail to get published) the commissars have been pimping children in the name of good manners. No disrespect to the brave souls in child protection who are in it to help.
“The reality is that the problem has not gone away. Ann Cryer was right. Since that time, many more children have been abused because of the failures of the agencies and of the communities to address what was happening.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmhaff/68/6806.htm
Where is the accountability for the past failures by the agencies??
“It was attitudes towards teenagers; it was absolute disrespect that vulnerable young people did not have a voice. They were overlooked. They were discriminated against. They were treated appallingly by protective services”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmhaff/68/6804.htm#a3
Where is the accountability for the neglect??