GB News claims its first scalp

It was a little over a week ago that Steerpike wrote of Labour’s Rother Valley selection. The constituency party there had chosen local councillor Dominic Beck as their parliamentary candidate. He was forced to quit Rotherham Council’s cabinet seven years ago when a report by Dame Louise Casey made damning findings of the authority. A previous report by Professor Alexis Jay found that the council had presided over a regime in which at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in the local town between 1997 and 2013.

Beck’s selection at the beginning of the month was hailed by Labour activists in the surrounding area of Rother Valley, with many queuing up to express their congratulations. But now, after a significant backlash, Beck has been forced to stand down as a parliamentary candidate. In a statement, he wrote that: ‘I would never wish to do anything that causes further upset to Rotherham’s CSE [child sexual exploitation] survivors, and it was never my intention to cause them distress.