Back to the clash: Even before Badenoch asked her first question, Starmer said “reasonable people could agree or disagree” on having another inquiry — but that survivors of abuse “want action.”
Make a u-turn: The PM urged Badenoch to withdraw what he called her party’s “wrecking amendment” to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill later Wednesday calling for an inquiry. The gambit, tacked on to existing, largely unrelated legislation, won’t pass due to Labour’s huge parliamentary majority — but the Tories want to draw a dividing line.
In the detail: Badenoch stressed the urgency of another inquiry. She said the previous national probe mentioned Rotherham — a town at the center of the grooming scandal — just once. She argued that “no one has joined the dots” between different towns where abuse has taken place and “is almost certainly still going on.” One victim from Telford told Badenoch, in her account, that a new probe will “hold people accountable in a way that previous inquiries have not.”
Speak up: Starmer shot back, accusing the Tories of delaying justice for victims and jumping “on the bandwagon” of social media. He turned the tables on Badenoch. Had she raised the topic as a minister in parliament? The Tory leader couldn’t say.
Here we go again: Undaunted, Badeonch asked the PM whether rejecting an inquiry would mean “people start to worry about a cover-up.” That’s language which echoes the conspiratorially-minded Musk. Starmer retorted that “lies and misinformation and slinging of mud” doesn’t help victims.
Rule of law: Starmer highlighted his record as Britain’s top prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, stressing he’d “put Asian men in the dock” and tried to remove barriers that stopped victims of abuse coming forward. Badenoch urged him to “be a leader, not a lawyer,” and said the government could implement existing recommendations while cracking on with a new inquiry, taking on a “weak excuse” from the PM.
