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| Newcastle Grooming Gang |
Is Sarah Champion as opportunistic as she looks? It seems like only yesterday that we were looking at the video of Ms Champion in her constituency (Rotherham) giving an impassioned speech to some sort of committee, mainly consisting of Pakistani gentlemen. A council meeting or something. Ms Champion was demanding that Israel must immediately stop slaughtering Palestinian children. Under the circumstances it seemed quite odd that she was sitting at the head of the table with a disconcerting amount of bare flesh on show. I mean, tut tut. A little modesty, surely.
Condemning Israel must have seemed the most appropriate way to serve the interests of her constituents at that time.
When the Pakistani grooming cases were coming to light, Rotherham in particular having occurred under her nose apparently without her noticing, Ms Champion switched her attention from the children of Gaza to the children in her own constituency and became the people’s Champion, with the welfare of children 'closer to home' as her area of special interest.
On the Today programme, having courageously announced that the latest scandal concerned mainly Pakistani men, she thought it was time someone did a study to find out what is going on. Are these cultural issues? Why are we not commissioning research to see what’s going on?
“Do we need the research?” asked Humph. “We know what’s going on.”
“We don’t know why it’s going on though” countered Ms. Champion as if she hadn’t seen any of the headlines that screamed: “ NEWCASTLE GROOMING GANG ‘White women are good only for people like me to use as trash’ "
Of course the BBC has been playing its usual tricks with this story, trying to make the main issue about the police using a convicted child abuser and rapist as an informer, and paying him a tidy sum for doing so. I’d say it’s pretty obvious to (almost) everyone but the BBC that in this particular case the end (very probably) justified the means. (I don't want to stick my neck out here because I don't know all the facts) but this unfortunate side issue shouldn't be allowed to eclipse the main story.
The only thing ‘new’ is the fact that people are naming ‘Pakistani’ rather than Asian. This might seem like progress, were it not for the fact that people are reminding each other that some of the infamous 17 were from countries other than Pakistan. No-one has so far mentioned anything else that the men might have in common.
Poor Ms Champion is losing sleep over it. “because I know every time I talk about it the level of Islamophobia increases.” Hmm. Since no-one has specifically mentioned the religion of peace, why should that be?
Another Sara (without the H) was interviewed towards the end of the Today programme. Speaking to John Humphrys were the real life heroine of BBC one’s “Three Girls” dramatisation of the Rochdale sex abuse case, (played in the drama by Maxine Peake) health worker Sara Rowbottom, and Nazmin Akhtar, vice chair of the Muslim Women’s Expert (.....when it’s at home.)
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| Rochdale Grooming Gang |
The one common factor, opined the latter, is that the perpetrators are all men, targeting women. This is about misogyny, and nothing to do with you know what.
You absolutely couldn’t make it up.
