Systemic failure: PMQs 8th January 2025

The great boil of UK child abuse has been lanced and has spattered its contents over all three major political parties. Now, said Sir Keir numerous times in this session, is the time for “action”.

What action? Why a Bill, of course: the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, receiving its second reading this afternoon. How dare the Tories introduce a wrecking amendment (requiring a national enquiry into ‘grooming’ gangs) when the Government is so keen to get this sorted fast!

It is not clear why it should be necessary to complete such an enquiry before doing anything to prosecute and punish those who have broken existing laws. But it is clear why a full historic investigation into police and local/national government negligence and collusion would be embarrassing – and not just for Labour.

Political parties have a will to survive, just like living organisms. Self-protection ranks above public service. So when Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) ended PMQs by asking Starmer why the latter, when DPP, had not instigated a prosecution for rape and sexual abuse against Mohamed Fayed, the PM took refuge in proceduralism: “That case never crossed my desk.” No time for a supplementary question as to why not – curtain down and off to the green room, quick!

All the laws and administrative arrangements in the world will not solve problems if there is no will to do so. Let’s look at an existing plan that can help the young but has sometimes failed.

Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were introduced in 2014 to coordinate the work of professionals in safeguarding and promoting the interests of children. They came into being in response to the slow parental murder in 2000 of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié; yet despite the new arrangements, ten-year-old Sara Sharif was killed in 2023 by her father and stepmother. I was involved from their beginning in putting EHCPs together for some SEND children and, within a couple of years, as the Local Authority’s budget became tight, the educational psychologists (typically the gatekeepers for practical help) seemed to become more of an obstacle than a leg up in the process of assessment.

Now, the proposed new Bill will grant officials more powers to intervene, especially with (allegedly) home-schooled children – but how and why will those powers be used? Will there be some fresh disaster, lessons learned, a line drawn under, a moving-on? A cover-up, a scapegoating? Or effective and consistent action?

How much would be happening even now about the rape gangs without Elon Musk sticking his oar in is moot, bearing in mind that this has been going on for decades and our Civil Service has been careful not to collect relevant data for fear of controversy. Musk has not only called Sir Ed Davey a “snivelling cretin“, but connected Jess Phillips’ opposition to a national enquiry with the need to insulate Starmer.

Phillips is politically between a rock and a hard place. She did much good work for women and girls as a local councillor and safeguarding them is now her brief as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary; yet in July’s General Election, she was very nearly unseated by an Islamist playing on local Muslims’ feelings about Gaza. Calling for a thorough investigation into the rape gangs might alienate enough of her constituents to see her out of Westminster in due course.

Because of issues not addressed, our systemic problems have grown. Labour thought it could rely on Asian voters, provided it let sleeping dogs lie; now, we see the beginnings of a political separation. Did no-one among the powers-that-have-been since 1997 have any concept of the implications of bringing into this country a culture and religion so different and so vigorous? How much history is taught on a PPE course?

Labour is so last season in political fashion, still pursuing its passion for conflict on the basis of class war. Its real programme is to complete the Blairite project that Peter Hitchens calls Eurocommunism, though in Sir Keir’s case we might term it Bureaucommunism – mutating our Constitution into a cat’s cradle of faux devolutions that will leave the people disempowered. The Mayor of London answers questions ten times annually, but does not get the democratic bullyragging we see in the Commons; that is the future we face elsewhere.

Delegating budgets and power will allow the PM to rise above blame and become more presidential, after the model of France, where the operator at the next level down is traditionally described as a ‘fuse’. So when Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) asked about the withdrawn Winter Fuel Allowance in Scotland, he was told (and I paraphrase) that the SNP had been given the tools and it was for them to get on with the job.

The theme of insulation from the people extends to Labour’s dealings with the EU. Sojan Joseph (Ashford) hooked his question about restoring Ashford’s Eurostar service onto this.

Those who are concerned about the revolutionary assault on democracy should follow what is going on in Switzerland, where their Federal President Viola Amherd has just negotiated a systematic rearrangement of Swiss-EU relations with the EU’s controversial President Ursula von der Leyen. The hundred Lilliputian threads tying Gulliver down will eventually, if the EU succeeds, be replaced by a stout rope. For now, the Schengen demand for free popular movement across borders has been resisted, but voluntary financial contributions to Brussels’ coffers will become compulsory and the general tendency is unmistakable.

The deal has yet to be officially validated and the frequently-exercised Swiss right to a referendum is likely to be employed – certainly, the ‘hard-right’ Swiss People’s Party (SVP) will call for one. Watch that space over the next year or so.

But the sane eye peeping out of the delusional mask of Europe may find its lid drooping, if the people forget their love of liberty.

Will we remember ours?

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster