Wes Streeting in TV bust-up over Labour MP’s grooming scandal slur | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Wes Streeting has stated Lucy Powell’s feedback that appeared to explain a query about grooming gangs as a “dog whistle” weren’t interpreted as his Cabinet colleague had meant.

Asked if he and his Labour colleagues see the grooming gangs scandal as a dog-whistle challenge or a “coded signal to racists”, the Health Minister stated: “No and I don’t think that’s what Lucy intended to imply in a heated debate on Radio 4, and that’s why she’s apologised for what she said.

“I don’t think for a moment she would have meant or wanted to imply that raising these issues, talking about these issues, is dog whistle.”

“We all make mistakes” and the necessary factor is that “we own it”, Mr Streeting instructed Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme.

Asked if Ms Powell’s job as Leader of the House of Commons was secure, he stated: “I think she’s made a genuine mistake, she’s owned up to it she’s said sorry and we’ll move on.”

Ms Powell, the chief of the House of Commons, was talking on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions to Tim Montgomerie, the founding father of ConservativeHome.

In the midst of a dialogue about councils’ range spending, Mr Montgomerie requested Ms Powell if she had watched the current stunning Channel 4 documentary that adopted 5 girls who had been victims of sexual grooming within the UK.

Mr Montgomerie requested: “I don’t know if you saw the documentary on Channel 4 about rape gangs.”

To which Ms Powell, the Lord President of the Council, replied: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do you? Let’s get that dog whistle out, shall we, yeah?”

Mr Montgomerie responded: “There is a real issue where… There were so many people in local government, in the authorities, who, for good reason, were worried about upsetting community tensions, that those girls went undefended.”

Channel 4’s movie, Groomed: A National Scandal, delved into the tales of 5 girls who had been focused by rape gangs contained in the UK.

The remarks by Ms Powell, who has been the Labour MP for Manchester Central since 2012, drew rapid ire from her political opponents.

Writing on X, Katie Lam, the Tory MP for Weald of Kent, stated: “If the Leader of the House of Commons does not, in fact, think that industrialised child sexual torture is just a “dog whistle” and a ‘little trumpet’, she should take it back and say sorry.

“’If she does actually think that, she has no business being in Cabinet and should resign.’

In an apology Ms Powell, said: “In the heat of a discussion on AQ [Any Questions]I would like to clarify that I regard issues of child exploitation & grooming with the utmost seriousness.

“I’m sorry if this was unclear. I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself.

“As a constituency MP I’ve dealt with horrendous cases. This Government is acting to get the truth, and deliver justice.”

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, stated: “Labour’s Lucy Powell thinks it’s a ‘dog whistle’ to demand arrests and accountability for the rape gangs. What a disgusting betrayal of the victims. They are part of the cover-up.”

A Reform UK spokesman stated: “If yesterday’s local election results weren’t enough, Lucy Powell’s abhorrent comments truly demonstrate how out of touch the Labour Party is.

“She does not take the mass rape of young girls by predominantly Pakistani men seriously. The mask has slipped. After these comments, Keir Starmer should consider if Lucy Powell is fit to serve.”

The Channel 4 documentary revealed {that a} report that recognized greater than 330 younger girls in danger from Asian grooming gangs was deemed ‘poisonous’ and suppressed by the Home Office.

The 90-minute movie reveals that the report into baby exploitation in Rotherham within the early 2000s was a part of analysis funded by Tony Blair’s authorities.