Grooming gang row overshadows Keir Starmer’s NHS speech

Keir Starmer spent a significant time this morning arguing that the last thing we need is another review and report when the government just needs to act.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about social care reform, but grooming gangs, which ended up dominating the question and answer session after his big NHS speech. The NHS staff who had been plonked behind the Prime Minister looked increasingly weary as question after question turned out to be about the accusations levelled at the government by Elon Musk, rather than the elective recovery plan. As well as being an unfortunate distraction from what Starmer wanted to talk about, it also provided an inconvenient contrast between the ‘we need another review’ argument presented by the government on social care, and the refusal to set up another inquiry on sexual exploitation because ‘we don’t need another review’.

Starmer’s justification for not just getting on with it on social care was this:

Social care is such an important issue in its own right, and obviously it’s also linked to the question of what happens in our hospitals, because it’s got a huge impact, but we’ve got to get it right which is why we put Louise Casey in charge of this, who is renowned for getting to the bottom of things and coming out with really good, strong, recommendations.