Rotherham, Oxford, Aylesbury, Newcastle, Rochdale, Bristol, Keighley…and now Telford.
It’s only been a few days since the latest story of yet more industrial scale sexual abuse and establishment complicity made headlines, only to tumble down the news ladder just as suddenly as it had surfaced.
Maybe we’re all abused out. Maybe just another run-of-the-mill, conveyor-belt story of organised exploitation and police paralysis is no longer shocking enough to hold our attention. It’s old hat and we’ve heard it all before. Besides, there’ll be another one along in a minute.
Just let that sink in for a moment. As a nation and a community, we are no longer shocked that organised gangs of mainly Asian men can prey on some of our most vulnerable young girls, while our once proud police cower in the shadows, ever fearful that the dark magic of the R-word might be cast against them. Welcome to Britain in 2018, a nation with a hollowed out and inverted value system, where fear of a false accusation allows real crime to go unpunished.
It’s instructive to compare the damp squib of what’s been called the “worst ever” abuse scandal in our nation’s history against the explosion of media coverage surrounding the alleged predations of Harvey Weinstein and other Hollywood figures. There the response was immediate and very, very loud indeed. Hashtags, black dresses, bully pulpit speeches and unlimited airtime on tap.
Away from the glitter and the spin and the faux moral outrage, Telford and Rotherham actually do have something in common with Hollywood. In both cases, everybody knew what was going on but nobody was willing or able to challenge a rotten and degenerate status quo. Those few brave or desperate souls who pulled their heads out of the sand were swiftly crushed by a legal and media machine driven by those self-same abusers and their establishment enablers.
Where Telford does differ from Hollywood is the way the world at least pretends to give a toss when Tinseltown gets upset; although whether the world really cares about the problems of famous and influential multi-millionaires is debatable. A movie star speaks and millions of us hear her voice, whether we want to or not, and regardless of how vacuous and self-serving her moral outrage and finger pointing may turn out to be.
The girls of Telford and Rochdale are far less fortunate, mostly because they’re forced to place their trust in social services and the police. Where once we believed those flawed institutions at least tried to uphold the law without fear or favour, we now know that fear and favour are the only factors when deciding who may or may not receive justice and protection.
I lost all respect for our mendacious cultural and media elites long ago, but I never thought I would lose my respect for the British police. I used to believe they were a positive force in this nation, but that was before they turned their energies to harassing thought criminals on the internet and actively working to hide the arrogant criminality of organised groomers and sexual abusers.
When the police collude with criminals, they lose all moral and social authority. All that’s left is the strong arm of the law.
As an aside, I wonder what the wives of these organised abusers think about it all. There must be quite a few out there, so I guess we’ll find out one day…maybe. I also wonder if any retired police officers, social workers and civil servants will ever face real repercussions for their duplicity in what is by far the biggest social scandal of our age. Perhaps some will resign, lose their jobs or even be hauled in front of committees; but rest assured that pensions will be protected with a passion that was vindictively denied to those vulnerable girls in our grey industrial towns.
Never mind, it’s kind of a boring story anyway and we’ve heard it all before. Better log in and see how #metoo is doing.
That’ll show ’em!
Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
