Wes Streeting angrily brands Elon Musk ‘ridiculous’ in grooming gangs | Politics | News

Wes Streeting has taken a swipe at Elon Musk’s “ridiculous” remarks about the government’s response to grooming gangs.

The Health Secretary angrily rebuffed the tech billionaire’s social media postings, saying he was “not interested” in what he says on the issue.

In a series of social media posts on X, Musk suggested Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute gangs and said Home Office minister Jess Phillips “deserves to be in prison”.

His outburst came as the Home Office defended its decision to reject a request for it to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.

The Conservatives and Reform UK have called for a wider national inquiry.

Asked about Mr Musk’s comments on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News he said: “It’s a ridiculous thing to say. It’s ill-informed, it’s not fair on either of their records.

“As director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer opened up historic cases so that people who got away with it, we went after them.”

Pressed again about Musk’s comments, he added: “I am not interested in what he has to say. I am interested in what we are doing as a government which is taking the record commitment that both the Prime Minister and Jess Philips and the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have made on this issue to deliver the change that the victims deserve.”

Mr Musk’s latest incendiary intervention on UK politics came after Ms Phillips, a safeguarding minister, instructed Oldham Council to launch its own local inquiry into historic child sexual abuse in the town, similar to inquiries set up in Rochdale and Telford.

The local authority had called for a government-led inquiry.

The tech tycoon suggested Sir Keir had failed to properly prosecute rape gangs while director of public prosecutions (DPP), and has repeatedly shared posts from Reform and Conservative MPs calling for a national inquiry.

Mr Musk, who is a key advisor to incoming US President Donald Trump, called the prime minister “two-tier Keir” and accused Ms Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist”.

There have been several investigations into grooming gangs in various parts of England, including Rotherham, Bristol, Cornwall and Derbyshire.

An inquiry into abuse in Rotherham found 1,400 children had been sexually abused over a 16-year period, predominantly by British Pakistani men.

An investigation in Telford found that up to 1,000 girls had been abused over 40 years – and that some cases had not been investigated because of “nervousness about race”.

Police figures from 2023 reveal that group-based child sexual abuse accounted for 3.7% of all sexual offences against children reported to police.

According to the data, 26% of group-based child sexual abuse happened within families, compared with 17% involving groups including grooming gangs.