Grooming Gangs – Publish and be Damned
Who’s afraid of Britain First? Quite a lot of people it seems. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to learn just how influential they are in the wake of the latest in a long and wearying line of grooming gang scandals. This particular kerfuffle is a little different though, as the action is taking place right in the heart of Whitehall rather than in some grey, far flung northern town.
It’s hard to know which is worse, the wholesale abuse of vulnerable young girls by grooming gangs, or officialdom’s complicity first in turning a blind eye and then actively suppressing the truth of this industrial scale exploitation.
Now it seems that Home Office Mandarins have determined that not even our elected Home Secretary should be permitted to see her own department’s report into the organised ruination of so many young women and girls. It goes without saying that if the Home Secretary is essentially being told to jog on by her own department, the unwashed rest of us have no chance when it comes to seeing this mythical report. Not in the public interest, you see.
Naturally, the usual suspects in the Twittersphere are happy to endorse this politically motivated suppression, arguing that “far right extremists” (cue scary music) will exploit the report’s findings for political ends. Of course that hoary old chestnut makes about as much sense as defusing a bomb that’s already detonated. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the far right are already exploiting the establishment’s complicity and cowardice by claiming that the institutions designed to protect us from harm are actively conspiring to let that harm to continue. You know you’ve stepped through the looking glass when Britain First actually has a point about something.