The first PMQs of 2025 was consumed by the ferocious and intensifying row over historical child sexual exploitation.
The backdrop to the issue’s sudden prominence is well-rehearsed, and concerns the social media antics of one individual above all others: tech industrialist and MAGA efficiency tsar, Elon Musk. In recent weeks, Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) feed has been transformed into a minute-by-minute deluge of twisted conjecture — disseminated, principally, at prime minister Keir Starmer’s expense.
Starmer hit back at Musk earlier this week in the Q&A portion of an already-forgotten New Year speech on the NHS. “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible”, the prime minister insisted, “they’re not interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves.”
The bottom line is this: Starmer is at war with the richest man in the world, and opposition parties sense an opportunity. Indeed, Kemi Badenoch surely had a prized Musk retweet in mind as she prepared her line of inquiry for PMQs this afternoon.
But she began measuredly. Addressing MPs for the first time in 2025, the Conservative leader noted how the grooming scandal “destroyed many lives forever”. She agreed with the government that there has been an inquiry into child sexual abuse — but added: “Is the prime minister confident that we know the full extent of rape gang activity?”
Starmer immediately referred to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) led by Professor Alexis Jay which reported in October 2022. He insisted that “what is needed now is action on what we already know” rather than a further investigation.
“The Jay report called for mandatory reporting”, Starmer said. “I called for it eleven years ago. What we need now is action. What can’t be tolerated is the idea that this afternoon, members opposite will vote down a bill which protects children.”
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The prime minister was referencing the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which faces its second reading in the House of Commons today. The Conservative Party has tabled a “wrecking amendment” to the bill which calls on the government to establish a national inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation.
At this stage however, MPs can only propose amendments that set out their objections to a bill; (committee stage is when MPs propose and vote on line-by-line changes).
Ergo, if the Conservative amendment is passed by the House of Commons this evening, it would kill the bill. But it would not compel the government to establish a national inquiry.
Nonetheless, on an apparent point of principle, Badenoch insisted that a new inquiry is needed to uncover the full extent of the grooming gangs scandal. “He knows full well [that the last Conservative government] accepted 18 of the 20 recommendations in the Jay Inquiry and went further launching a gangs taskforce”, she said.
Badenoch added: “But no one has joined the dots, no one has the total picture”.
Starmer rejected the Conservative leader’s characterisation of the last government’s response to the Jay report. “They’ve been tweeting and talking”, the PM said, “we’ve been acting”.
“The leader of the opposition has been an MP for eight years. Her party have been in government for seven and a half of those eight years. She was the children’s minister, women and equalities minister. I can’t recall her once raising this when she was in power.”
Starmer blasted: “It is only in recent days she has jumped on the bandwagon”.
He closed with a challenge: “If I’m wrong about that… I invite her to say that now and I will happily withdraw the remark.”
Badenoch could not deny the charge. She instead accused the prime minister of being “very specific”, and referred to occasions when she spoke on the scandal outside of the House of Commons “in speeches”.
To jeers and groans from the government benches, Badenoch continued: “Does he not see that by resisting [a national inquiry] people will start to worry about a cover up?”
A visibly affronted Starmer responded: “This is an important issue and we have to focus on the victims and survivors. And this sort of lies and misinformation and slinging of mud doesn’t help them one bit.”
Starmer also sought to contrast his record as Britain’s top prosecutor between 2008 and 2013 with Badenoch’s as a government minister. Starmer stressed he “put Asian men in the dock” and tried to remove barriers that stopped victims of abuse coming forward.
With her PMQs strategy and amendment gambit, Badenoch is playing with political forces that could soon consume her — ones that she shows little interest in meaningfully interrogating. The Conservative Party is immensely exposed to any accusation of inaction or incompetence in government, and the issue of historical child sexual exploitation is no different.
This afternoon, Badenoch dismissed the charge she could have made more of the issue during the Conservatives’ fourteen years in power. But her calls for a national inquiry into the scandal are, nonetheless, strikingly sudden. As Nigel Farage tweeted just ten minutes before PMQs began: “Kemi Badenoch was Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022 to 2024. Why did she not demand a full inquiry then?”
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Meanwhile, Badenoch’s aside on a “cover up” was designed to appease and accommodate political currents to her right, as stirred by Elon Musk in recent weeks. It’s a risky approach. Farage has been burned by Musk. How will the narrative shift if/when Musk learns about Badenoch’s position in the last government — and Farage’s charge of inaction?
This is, in the end, another instance of the Conservative leader failing to come to terms with her party’s vulnerabilities. The response to child sexual exploitation is not a typical political dividing line. But like Badenoch’s recent questions on inflation and immigration, she is still refusing to confront the reality of her party’s reputation — and how her opponents, on both the left and right, can weaponise it.
Starmer is broadly right to suggest Badenoch jumped on a bandwagon with her PMQs interrogation. That characterisation could itself deepen the Conservative leader’s woes.
But more broadly, those already on the “bandwagon” could reject Badenoch’s advocacy, however enthusiastic, on account of her party’s record in government. The Conservative leader might have sensed an opportunity to get into the Online Right’s good graces after the Farage-Musk schism. But it is a dangerous game.
And yet, does the Conservative leader have any choice but to play? Her forceful opposition to the government’s stance on the grooming gangs scandal is borne, in part, of the kind of opportunism that opposition parties are often compelled to embrace. But it is perhaps better explained in terms of an ascendant Conservative anxiety over the rise of Reform UK.
Badenoch has spent most of her tenure as Tory leader embracing rows that, she hopes, will place her party on the right side of public opinion. In turn, there has been no meaningful attempt at soul-searching — and only scant apologies. The polls suggest Badenoch has won little credit. This latest row, one expects, will not be any different.
After all, Reform is making the same arguments as Badenoch on historical child sexual exploitation — but without the baggage of a recent record in government. One can replace the words historical child sexual exploitation with most other issues, and the observation holds. That is the dilemma that Badenoch is failing to confront.
This afternoon, Starmer ended the session by appealing to Tory MPs to reject their party’s amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing Bill. “I urge them to think twice about following this shortsighted, misguided, bandwagon-jumping approach of the non-leadership of the leader of the opposition”, he said.
It may not be reflected in the commons division lobbies this evening — but it’s surely only a matter of time before Conservative MPs begin to express their misgivings about Badenoch’s leadership strategy.
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Lunchtime briefing
Starmer: Conservatives and Reform prioritising ‘retweets’ over ‘safeguarding of children’
Lunchtime soundbite
‘I think we all had a smile on Sunday when [Nigel Farage] said how cool it was to have the support of Musk, only for Musk to say he should be removed just a few hours later.’
— Keir Starmer comments on the Musk-Farage break-up at PMQs. Full clip here.
Now try this…
‘Jess Phillips hits back at Elon Musk and says he should ‘crack on with getting to Mars’’
Sky News reports.
‘Rachel Reeves’ fiscal nightmare’
The New Statesman’s George Eaton on why the Chancellor is set to impose new spending cuts. (Paywall)
‘We still don’t know cause of grooming gangs, says scandal reporter’
Andrew Norfolk, The Times journalist who first revealed the abuse in 2011, says there needs to be proper research into the issues that let criminals flourish. (Paywall)
On this day in 2024:
Government must ‘admit’ things have got worse since 2010, says Conservative MP
