An official inquiry into 'child rape gangs' reported in October 2022 but the Tories showed no interest

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Elon Musk has demanded an inquiry into 'child rape gangs',  now his acolytes in Reform and the Conservative Party have followed suit.

This demand ignores the fact that one of the streams of the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse was into "Child sexual exploitation by organised networks" and covered just this ground.

The report from this stream was published in October 2022. You can read its executive summary on the IICSA webpage. It includes the following recommendations:

We recommend the strengthening of the response of the criminal justice system by the government amending the Sentencing Act 2020 to provide a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing those convicted of offences relating to the sexual exploitation of children.

The government should publish an enhanced version of its Child Exploitation Disruption Toolkit as soon as possible. We recommend that the Department for Education and the Welsh Government should update guidance on child sexual exploitation. This should include the identification and response to child sexual exploitation perpetrated by networks or groups and improve the categorisation of risk and harm by local authorities and other institutions. The toolkit and guidance should specify that the core element of the definition of child sexual exploitation is that a child was controlled, coerced, manipulated or deceived into sexual activity.

We recommend that the Department for Education should, without delay, ban the placement in semi-independent and independent settings of children aged 16 and 17 who have experienced, or are at heightened risk of experiencing, sexual exploitation.

We recommend that police forces and local authorities in England and Wales must collect specific data – disaggregated by sex, ethnicity and disability – on all cases of known or suspected child sexual exploitation, including by networks.

But having set up the IICSA after pressure from all sides of the Commons, the Conservative government proceeded to ignore its conclusions. Notably, there was no progress with bringing a legal duty to report suspicions of child abuse.

And you will recall that Boris Johnson, a few months before becaming prime minister, described this inquiry as "£60m spaffed up the wall".

The Joy of Six 1307

'Graham', a victim of John Smyth, explains why the attitude of the Church of England means that he cannot move on: "victims have no closure. We do not yet have the truth. We do not yet have personal apology. We do not yet have justice. We do not feel that anything has changed."

"Cottesmore Hunt were about to be forensically challenged - and in real time.  Along with Chris and Megan was Fabian who, armed with a live broadcast camera, captured all the action as it happened and shared it via a live social media stream. The only veil of secrecy the Cottesmore could call upon was the thick mist which shrouded the killing fields."  Northants Hunt Saboteurs are joined for a day by Chris Packham and Chris Packham and the zoologist Megan McCubbin.

Will Tavlin on the strange economics of streaming services: "For a century, the business of running a Hollywood studio was straightforward. The more people watched films, the more money the studios made. With Netflix, however, audiences don’t pay for individual films. They pay a subscription to watch everything, and this has enabled a strange phenomenon to take root. Netflix’s movies don’t have to abide by any of the norms established over the history of cinema: they don’t have to be profitable, pretty, sexy, intelligent, funny, well-made, or anything else that pulls audiences into theatre seats."

J.J. Jackson explores East Anglia's hidden man-made and explosive dangers.

A tour of some of the grandest interwar public houses of East and South London in the company of Modernism in Metroland.

"Coming away from a light-hearted festive flick often feels like being sloshed on a cocktail of capitalism and corporate greed. Can’t connect with your children? Just buy their affection with an expensive toy, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Jingle All the Way. Want a turkey but there’s hardly any left in stock? Fight with a rival shopper, as per Jamie Lee Curtis in Christmas with the Kranks." Sam Quarton suggests a Christmas horror flick for the anti-festive film lover: The Legend of Hell House.

Well done to Charlotte Cane for being an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Classics

When I posted a short blog supporting the teaching of Latin in state schools, I ended it:

A few weeks ago, Liberal Democrat MPs were posting about their belief in choice in education as a way of justifying their opposition to VAT on school fees. If choice is good for those who can afford private education, then it is good for everyone.

So I hope to see them posting in favour of giving state schools the freedom to offer a diverse curriculum - including natural history and Latin.

One of those Lib Dem MPs I noticed making such posts was Charlotte Cane, the newly elected MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire.

So I was pleased to learn today that Charlotte became an officer of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Classics back in October.

I learnt it from an article in the Guardian where Professor Arlene Holmes-Henderson from Durham University writes about her mission to ensure that all children in the UK have equal access to classical education.

Nick Clegg gets the push from Meta for being too sane

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The British media now have the story, but the American website Semafor claims this as a scoop:

Meta is revamping its global policy team, with President Nick Clegg stepping down and being replaced by Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company’s most prominent Republican, people familiar with the matter said.

Kaplan, who was White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, has been one of the most forceful voices inside Meta against restrictions on political speech, arguing internally that such policies would disproportionately mute conservative voices. Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister and ex-leader of the country’s Liberal Democrats, joined Meta in 2018 to lead its policy and lobbying efforts and was named president in 2022.

The shift, three weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, comes as US companies are embracing the president-elect, courting his inner circle, and backing away from progressive stances many had embraced in recent years. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whom Trump previously threatened to jail — dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and congratulated the president-elect on his win, one of many big tech executives to do so.

Poor Nick. He's now too sane to be a tech-bro.

Labour loses control of Broxtowe as 20 councillors leave the party

Twenty Labour members of Broxtowe District Council in Nottinghamshire have resigned from the party.

The Guardian report says:

In a statement, the councillors – who will now sit as part of a new Broxtowe Independents party – said: "It is with a heavy heart that we can no longer be in a party that has abandoned traditional Labour values under Keir Starmer's leadership."

They were particularly critical of the cut to the winter fuel allowance, the bus fare increase and Labour’s plans to scrap two-tier county and district councils, which are to be merged to create large unitary authorities.

Radulovic said: "I believe the concentration of power in the hands of fewer people, and the abolition of local democracy through the current proposals of super councils, is nothing short of a dictatorship, where local elected members, local people, local residents will have no say over the type and level of service provided in their area.

"I have therefore been left with no alternative. I cannot support and will not support another centrist government intent on destroying local democracy and dictating national policy from a high pedestal."

It may be significant that the person the Guardian found to speak in favour of the Labour Party was Anna Soubry, the former Conservative MP for Broxtowe. Readers may also recall her as a leading member of the failed centre party Change UK, even if they couldn't remember which of its several names that party ended up using.

I am pleased to see that Labour's proposals for local government are meeting with opposition, at least within the party itself. 

Major breach in the Bridgewater Canal at Dunham Massey

The Bridgewater Canal has suffered a major embankment collapse at Dunham Massey in Cheshire. You can see the damage caused in the video above.

With the inland waterways under financial pressure since the scrapping of British Waterways by the Coalition, there are fears that some canals could be lost to navigation.

The Bridgewater, certainly, will be closed for months while repairs are undertaken.

Later. I'm told that the Bridgewater was never owned by British Waterways. It's currently owned by the company that also owns the Manchester Ship Canal,

Liberal Democrat History Group meeting on our performance at last year's general election

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These days the Liberal Democrats don't just talk about history: we make it.

The outcome of the general election on 4 July 2024 was extraordinary. Compared to the 2019 election, our share of the vote rose by less than 1 per cent, to 12.2 per cent, but our number of MPs jumped from 11 (plus 4 by-election gains) to 72, the highest number since 1923.

The Lib Dem History Group is holding a meeting to discuss this remarkable performance at the National Liberal Club, London SW1, on Monday 27 January.

You can find full details of the meeting on the group's website - you don't have to be a member to attend and you can watch it on Zoom too.

The panel for the meeting will be Professor Paula Surridge (Bristol University) and Dave McCobb (director of field campaigns for the  Lib Dems), with Lord Wallace of Saltaire in the chair.

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"Some strategists are agonising about us reaching a peak, because we’re only first or second in 99 seats - I’d say that’s a nice problem to have, considering where we were in 2015." Matthew Pennell looks at how the Liberal Democrat fared in 2024.

Maria Kuchapska says Russia is reviving Soviet-era punitive psychiatry in occupied Ukraine: "In the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, Pavlo Lysianskyi, the director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security, stated that 31 minors had been sent to forced psychiatric detention this year alone. Echoing the 1971-5 Five Year Plan, new psychiatric penal institutions are being erected in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions."

Why were so many of last summer's rioters in their 40s and 50s? Sara H. Wilford studies the overlooked phenomenon of middle-aged radicalisation.

In 1968, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were the world’s most famous teens. In 2023, they sued Paramount for abuse. Lila Shapiro on the ethics of filming young actors.

Colin Speakman makes the case for reopening the railway from Skipton to Colne: "A youngster living in Colne or Nelson wanting to go to Leeds or Bradford University, or for a job in Skipton at Skipton Building Society, has exactly the same need for a fast, frequent train service as a kid in Ealing or Woking."

Rosemary Hill reviews a field guide to stone circles: "Prehistory moves constantly in dialogue with archaeology, which, until about 2000, was primarily concerned with excavations undertaken by bearded men with monosyllabic forenames who courted publicity."

Happy New Year to all our readers

Last 1 January it was Martin Carthy's recording of January Man, so I've given him the night off this time round.