As I’ve mentioned in previous articles about this, the Tories are trying to spin the continuing scandal over the Pakistani grooming gangs as a uniquely Labour problem. The gangs were allowed to get away for decades with the horrendous crimes by Labour councils and local police forces, who were afraid that if they acted, with they would be charged with racism. But the Labour MPs Sarah Champion, Simon Danczuk stood against them, as did Rochdale Muslim councillor, Amina Lone. Mark Pattie, one of the commenters here, posted this remark also debunking this idea of a unique culpability by Labour and the Pakistani community overall:
‘Thanks for the mention. I kind of wonder whether her courage helped her keep her seat Labour, otherwise Rotherham would’ve gone Con in 2019? As for the “Labour councils…” smear, that can be easily debunked. Not all Labour councils with significant Pakistani-origin populations have problems with these gangs- I’ve never heard of any operating in Preston, Ashton-under-Lyne or Bolton (which I think is now Con anyway) for instance. Plus Telford has been Tory for a good few years I think now.’
Oh dear! Who would have thought of grooming gangs operating in a Tory-run town! Well, not Mahyar Tousi, a very right-wing Brexiteer YouTuber, who posted a video attacking Jess Phillips for Labour’s supposed silence over the grooming gangs. It was a tit-for-tat attack because Phillips quite reasonably asked why the various candidates for the Tory leadership kept their mouths well shut when Bozo was guzzling wine and canapes. But as this comment shows, the reply really doesn’t stick.
And we have to make sure it doesn’t to stop the Tories using it to keep themselves and their awful polices in government.
Tags: Amina Lone, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Bolton, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Conservatives, Grooming Gangs, Jess Philips, Labour Party, Mahyar Tousi, Mark Pattie, Muslims, Pakistanis, Preston, Rochdale, Sarah Champion, Simon Danczuk, Telford
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
July 20, 2022 at 12:37 pm |
Crime is always worse under a Tory government due to their ideologically-driven savage spending cuts to public services; Policing, Judiciary, Probation, Prison services, Youth services, along with cuts to incomes, wages/Benefits, a punitive inaccessible Social Security system. The resulting rise in crime is no surprise in a dysfunctional society that itself is a result of Tory policies.
July 20, 2022 at 12:54 pm |
Interesting perspective, Trev, but you’re absolutely correct. The Tories, like the Republicans, claim that they’re the party that’s hard on crime. But we saw a massive rise in it under Tweezer thanks to the Tories taking 20,000 or so cops off the force.
July 21, 2022 at 8:33 am |
It’s interesting how the Tories always portray Labour as the party of high crime and themselves as the “party of law and order”. Never mind that the *Tories* cut 20,000 police officer jobs and certainly haven’t recruited enough new PCs to balance out the deficit. As for the “Labour gets the Muslim block vote” canard- that is also largely BS. Many constituencies with large Muslim populations went Tory in 2019 (Dewsbury, Peterborough, Accrington to name a few) or if they went Labour, their majority was in the very low 1000s. By contrast, my local constituency is around 95 percent White British, and Labour got a rare (by 2019 standards) outright majority.
July 21, 2022 at 10:03 am |
I was certainly no fan of “New Labour” but I read somewhere that under Labour, convictions of grooming gangs were far higher under them than under The Tories.
Let’s also not forget Johnson’s “staffing” comments and the alleged closeness of Jimmy Savile to Margaret Thatcher.
Also worth remembering that it was a Muslim, Nazir Afzal, who convicted many gang members.
As for Tousi, well, for someone who regularly gets his “news” from the Guido Fawkes blog, he has a cheek to call any other news outlets for bias and fake news.
He is also another one who deletes reasonable comments that disagree with him or correct his “news stories” an example being the young man who allegedly was kicked off his college course, in Burnley I think. There were, of course, two sides to this story and Tousi deleted or ignored comments putting across the other side.
Free speech but only if you agree with me again.
July 21, 2022 at 10:04 am |
“staffing” should read “spaffing” auto correct at its finest.
July 21, 2022 at 10:24 am |
Thanks, Jim – this is more information I want to use to refute these allegations..