The debate is still about Rotherham where, at a very conservative estimate, some 1400 children were abused. Not allegations of abuse, they were abused.
Heads are being demanded on a platter now, from the Police Commissioner to social workers: they all must go. That’s fair enough because there must be some accountability but where does it begin and end?
As with Baby P and other monstrous cases, the search for blame goes deep and wide. Why didn’t someone do this, someone else do that? But who committed the abuse?
The way things are going, and this is not a flippant comment, we might as well demand that David Cameron resigns over Rotherham and make it clear that Gordon Brown has some questions to be answered. Cameron, after all, is Prime Minister, the most powerful person in the land. He leads a government that decides priorities and holds the purse strings. What on earth was he doing whilst all this was going on?
And Nick Clegg, whose constituency is not a million miles away: what did he know? We must be told. And Ed Miliband is leader of the Labour Party and its his party that controls Rotherham. It’s on his watch too.
I have issues with Cameron and Clegg who are presiding over the destruction of vital frontline services which will, I am certain, contribute to future catastrophes like Rotherham. Not exactly the same, perhaps, but ugly and tragic for sure. But Cameron and Clegg, for all their negative sides, did not abuse children in Rotherham: a bunch of perverted men of Pakistani origin did that.
I do not believe there is such a thing as political correctness. It’s meaningless rhetoric. If there was a cover-up in Rotherham, there was nothing correct about it, and I doubt that it was anything to do with politics either. But if it was fear of saying something apparently unpalatable like that the perverts were of Pakistani origin, then it’s purely and simply cowardice. You can’t not say something when child rape is going on. It’s vile, it’s evil and those who are found guilty in a court of law need to be banged up for the rest of their lives.
We have different levels of guilt here. We have those in positions of power who make policy and oversee it. We have those on the ground who implement policy. And we have the filthy perverts who rape children.
You deal with those who are negligent and allow awful things to go on during their watch and those who are accountable must explain their actions.
But in the league table of evil, the sick perpetrators, the child rapists and abusers are at the very top and as things stand no one seems to be talking about them.
I’m afraid we need more resources in these areas, not less, and if it means cuts elsewhere or higher taxes to pay for it, then surely that’s what we must do?
I can’t get it in my head what has happened to the poor children of Rotherham but whilst we are sorting out the mess of governance and a lack of local leadership, let’s remember the evil bastards who did the crimes.
