Chris Philp leads his PMQs response on grooming gangs.
He urges Angela Rayner to reassure survivors and campaigners that the national inquiry will investigate at least 50 towns and prosecute both abusers and those who covered up the abuse.
Female Islamic scholar: "Allah allows Muslim men to rape non-Muslim women to humiliate them.
A Muslim man can have sex with his slaves just like he has sex with his wives."
This is how terrorist groups like ISIS/Hamas/Hezbollah justify raping innocent women!
Foreign nationals are responsible for more than a quarter of sex assaults on women successfully prosecuted in Britain despite being just 11% of the population, official figures obtained via FOI have revealed. https://t.co/Db7mYxb6Iq
@adam_ldr@BristolTreeFora So basically, the nature and wildlife in Bristol will be destroyed. Not good news if you are one of those creatures being destroyed, but at least it makes someone sound compassionate to other nature and wildlife, which i'm sure they will find comforting! 😉
Longish summary of responses to points offered on my timeline for full decriminalisation of abortion, even up to birth, using at-home abortion pills for non-medical reasons (which has just been voted for, absolutely crazily imo, by UK MPs)
a) You may not be able to know or say at what precise point some grains make a heap but you still know unambiguously when you can see a heap. Same goes for cells, and for baby. Late-term abortions kill babies. Viable babies. This position does not require there to have been a baby/human/person there all along. Pushing back on full decriminalisation is not arguing for no abortions ever. (Which obviously could be done, but I'm not doing it).
b) Babies at late term have unambiguous interests of their own. They are not just narcissistic extensions of mother. They are not parasites or invaders. They are human beings. They are dependent human beings and is weird to see feminists who talk about value of care and dependence become psychopathically detached about the value of the life of a dependent, viable baby because the mother doesn't want it. It sounds dementedly callous to try to deny the interests of babies in this sort of issue by defining them out of existence, or just ignoring the fact they do exist at all. If you said "yes, babies have been/ will be killed by use of at-home abortion pills for non-medical reasons, but that is less important than that their mothers don't face the stress of prosecution" I would at least respect the honesty.
c) The law against late-term abortions acts as a deterrent against mothers killing their babies. If you lift it, you will get more deaths. You say it’s only a few - is that really supposed to be an argument? And; If I am not supposed to care about “only a few” baby deaths, why am I supposed to care about only a few prosecutions?
Again, if you are reasoning like this, and especially if you are weighing it up only against the mother's alleged right to non-prosecution, then you have your priorities badly skewed, and have conveniently forgotten that deaths of babies are also involved. And while we are at it: how do you know it will only be a few baby deaths in years to come? Do you know what happens when new social norms get embedded around new technology, and other ones – say, around contraception – shift? The use of at-home abortion pills is relatively new, who knows where it will be in ten years time?
d) If you have to excuse the death of a baby by hyperbolically depicting the only sort of women who would ever have a late-term non-medical abortion as "desperate" and otherwise blameless, it's a tell for motivated reasoning. There are many kinds of women in the world, who act for many different kinds of reason. Do you think all infanticides or child murders are only carried out by "desperate" and otherwise blameless women? (If you do, probably stop reading, there is no hope for you.) There are also, of course, men in the world who can get their hands on abortion pills and force women to take them. Your backing of decriminalisation is making that more easy too.
e) It is fascinating that some of you think both of these things are true at the same time: a) “women should never be prosecuted for carrying out their own late-term abortions, even for non-medical reasons ’ and b) “people providing assistance for late-term abortions for non-medical abortions should still be prosecuted” (as they will continue to be). So you *do* think there is something wrong with these abortions then, do you? What? Could it be that *a baby dies*?
f) The idea that it is really important we repeal this law because of the possibility of false prosecution of women is bizarre (and again, the histrionic depiction focusing on "women who have suffered miscarriages being dragged away from their children in police vans in the middle of the night" etc is a tell, like you have to amp up the drama to make the point. Also, how interesting: suddenly it's ok to care about the interests of young dependent children again, is it? But I digress…) Anyway, let's apply this logic to rape law. We must repeal rape laws because falsely accused men are being dragged away from their children in the night.. um, no? The law has a point, it has a deterrent function, and that point is more important than the inevitable possibility of false prosecution given the existence of any law in the first place.
f) Those telling me that academics and NGOs have done all the thinking on this already and I should just outsource my brain to them are really having a laugh. I've looked at their arguments and do you know, it's really weird, but they don't talk about the baby's interests, even in late-term abortion for non-medical reasons. They just act like that issue isn't there. And it is.
g) The UK is not the US. With best will in the world, Americans reading their own issues into the UK situation is unhelpful.
There is no good case for full decriminalisation as voted for today. And there is no genuine political will for it either, because most people haven’t been slowly boiled in a vat of hyperliberal feminism and progressive technocracy like overheating frogs, until they can't tell which way is up. All this will do is further undermine the legitimacy of feminism generally (by association, even if some feminists are actually against it) and also undermine public trust in lawmakers (How could this have been decided so quickly without any proper consultation or discussion of a wide range of views? Why wasn’t it in the manifesto, if it is so important?).
.@WestofEnglandCA committees are back. Time to ask Scrutiny whether CEO Stephen Peacock has taken medical tests after his moment of forgetfulness on @GrantThorntonUK report. People will still want to know what Kevin Slocombe was paid £20k a month for (and who sanctioned that).
Illegal migrants have been given free TV licences and trips to go trampolining, bowling and to the cinema funded by the taxpayer, a Reform UK 'DOGE' audit has found. https://t.co/qjJz5YqUnZ
Big day in British politics yesterday. The ability of the media elite / admin state to decide “the narrative” shattered (on the question of Pakistani predatory gangs).
But on all topics - immigration, multi culturalism, net zero, tax - the ability of the elite to control opinion has gone. Opinion forming has been democratised.
Tommy Robinson now has more legitimacy than Emily Maitlis. Mahyar Tousi a bigger audience than Newsnight. The Pimlico Journal is more credibly informative than any Home Office publication.
Many of the things I forecast in “The End of Politics & the birth of idemocracy” are coming to pass
Well, imagine my surprise! You just never know what might be dredged up … or brought down …
‘SNP Government refuses to launch Scottish grooming gang inquiry’ https://t.co/a1oNk0uAz5
The national inquiry into the rape gangs should be televised.
The Grenfell, Covid, Leveson, and Post Office inquiries were all live streamed and featured extensive, ongoing coverage.
So should this one.
Imagine a future where ancient woodlands are bulldozed for profit. Where otters, owls & badgers lose their homes overnight.
That’s what the new Planning Bill threatens. Help stop it—sign the petition now! ✍️
👉 https://t.co/kCzVQPqKtK
The post I was responding to with this thread on ethnicity data has now been deleted.
Lots of journos pushed this myth based on shoddy data. It suited established biases and was used to punish those who challenged the false narrative.
Keir Starmer is set to count rural broadband and Heathrow’s third runway as defence spending to circumvent NATO rules as the Government makes plans to redraw the definition of national security. https://t.co/H49PHFIAYw
Nick Lowles on Pakistani grooming gangs.
Nick, 2023: "The Home Secretary singling out British Pakistani men…irresponsibly stirs up hate."
Nick, 2025: “For too long the victims have been ignored, not believed, and let down”.
The audacity of some people. Never let them forget.