Dan Hodges: 'Starmer has known about the appalling abuse for a decade'. What a putrid homunculus he is.

 

I live in Romania and don't follow British politics closely enough to know about the findings of the Casey report. This was written a year and six days ago by the extremely antiracist (that's how he lost his eye) Dan Hodges, a Blairite-Cameroon liberal conservative or conservative liberal.

Starmer has known about the appalling abuse for a decade. Yet he opposed a national rape inquiry because he knew it would damage Labour

By DAN HODGES, DAILY MAIL COLUMNIST

16 June 2025 

Keir Starmer knew. Senior Home Office minister Jess Phillips knew. They all knew.

Today the wall of deceit, corruption and confusion the government attempted to buttress around the rape gang scandal finally collapsed. The 'audit' produced by Baroness Casey at the behest of Downing Street – clearly in the forlorn hope it would cement the cover-up of the worst sexual abuse crisis in British history – instead brought the entire crumbling edifice crashing down.

Children and women had been abused on an industrial scale, Casey confirmed. A disproportionate number of the vile assaults were perpetrated by men of Pakistani origin. The race of the abusers had been a major factor in the failure to intervene or prosecute them. A national investigation was now required.

If you believe the Prime Minister, all this came as a bolt from the blue. On Saturday, as he expeditiously jetted out of the country to attend the G7 summit, he claimed to reporters to reporters "I have read every single word of her report, and I am going to accept her recommendation. That is the right thing to do on the basis of what she has put in her audit."

But no one does believe Keir Starmer. Rightly so.

The deceit finally collapsed

The pretence he was unaware of the compelling moral, legal and political need for an inquiry into the rape gangs until Casey's report landed in his ministerial red box is a ridiculous, self-serving fiction.

In 2014, when he was not yet even a Labour MP Starmer, penned an article for The Guardian in response to the Jay Report into the Rotherham rape gangs.

"The patterns of sexual abuse and exploitation described in the report are not new, unique, or spefic to Rotherham", he rightly wrote, "nor are the inadequate responses". Inevitably he skirted racial component of the crimes. But he acknowledged that in Rotherham, the abuse and exploitation uncovered by Professor Alexis Jay went on for 16 years, involved at least 1.400 victims and was the subject of a number of previous reviews that barely improved matters.

Starmer knew appalling scale of the abuse a decade ago. He knew about the appalling nature of the crimes. He knew about the appalling conspiracy of silence that attended them. Yet he now seriously wants us all to accept it wasn't until Saturday the seales finally fell from his eyes.

Remember, it wasn't simply that the Prime Minister resisted a national rape gang inquiry. He sanctioned his ministers to embark on a campaign to gaslight, and openly abuse, those who advocated one.

Starmer has known about the for a decade. Yet he opposed a national rape inquiry because he knew it would damage Labour

When Tory shadow minister Katie Lam read out in the House of Commons the harrowing testimony of one rape victim, who had been taunted by her attacker "We're here to f*** all the white girls," Jess Philips replied: "I think it is a shame that she referred to only one sort of child abuse victim, when the statement is clearly about all child abuse victims. There should be no hierarchy."

When commentator Tim Montgomery dared to raise the issue on the BBC's Any Questions, Leader of the House Lucy Powell sneered: Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now do we... Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we?" Powell later apologised. But she knew what was doing. Just as Phillips knew. Just as they all knew.

Some people are now attempting to argue that the stonewalling that preceded the Government's latest humiliating capitulation doesn't matter. All that really counts is eventual justice for the victims.

But it does matter. Not least because the victims have been the last people to factor in the Prime Minister's calculations.

The sole reason Keir Starmer has fought tooth and nail to oppose and obstruct a national rape gang inquiry in cold, cynical politics.

The majority of councils where the abuse occurred, and was covered up, were Labour councils.

The disproportionate number of Pakistani heritage men perpetrating the crimes came from Labour's fracturing Muslim base.

The seething resentment the crimes have fostered in white, working-class communities is Labour seen by Labour strategists as being a component of the surge in Reform's - and collapse in their own party's - support.

..... The Prime Minister had no need to wait for Louise Casey's findings. He already knew the truth. His ministers knew the truth. And now - to Sir Keir's eternal shame- so does the country.

Victims have been the last to factor in the Sir Keir's calculations.