Tories should beware following Elon Musk’s lead

Then there is the other way, fuelling the fears, indulging the hatred, and allowing your politics to be about populism, rather than what is right. This is what the Conservatives have fallen into all too often, whether it be lies about the benefits of Brexit, or spending hundreds of millions on the Rwanda scheme when all the experts said it would not work.

Now Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative party find themselves here again, following inflammatory and untrue tweets from Elon Musk, who accused Sir Keir Starmer of failing to bring rape gangs to justice when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service more than a decade ago.

Following his tweets, the new Tory leader said a full probe was “long overdue”, into the grooming scandals, claiming “no one in authority has joined the dots”. Two of her MPs then wrote to the Home Secretary demanding a national inquiry.

The problem is, there has already been one. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse published its final report in 2022, and described the sexual abuse of children as an "epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake". It found failings. It called them out, and was supported by Labour.

It is also of note that Starmer, while director of the CPS, was the one who began the prosecutions of the Rochdale grooming gang, and also overhauled how the CPS investigates sexual abuse to ensure more perpetrators are brought to justice. His reforms paved the way for historic cases to be reviewed.

It is fair to ask why the government is failing to launch a national inquiry into systemic child exploitation, but it is not an honest debate.

The Tories making this an issue now comes from the back of Musk’s tweets, and raises many questions. Firstly, why didn’t they organise an inquiry when in government, when the scandal was taking place? Secondly, should they be engaging with an issue raised by Musk, a man who defended those involved in the race riots, warned “civil war was inevitable” in Britain and called the Prime Minister “TwoTierKeir”. He also called for the safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to be jailed.

If that’s not enough, he’s now begun endorsing Tommy Robinson, and called for him to be released from prison. Musk is many things, but an authority on the legal system or politics, in any country, is not one of them. Trying to appeal to him and his followers should be beneath anyone with any decency.

The Tories need to rebuild, but do so by meeting voters where they are, not by indulging in the very worst of politics. The abuse was horrendous. An inquiry would be welcome. But it should be done on their terms, not following a billionaire into the gutter.