Downing Street Can’t Say If Starmer Has Even Watched Rape Gang Documentary – Guido Fawkes

Downing Street Can’t Say If Starmer Has Even Watched Rape Gang Documentary

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In today’s Lobby briefing hacks asked Starmer’s spokesman a series of questions about Commons leader Lucy Powell’s comments. Describing the Channel 4 documentary Groomed: A National Scandal as a ‘little trumpet’ and a ‘dogwhistle’…

Downing Street refused to say that Starmer was disappointed in the remarks, just that his “position is on the record” on rape gangs and that he is “determined to get justice.” On Powell the line is that she has “addressed this, clarified and apologised for her comments”…

The PM meanwhile is confirmed to have accepted her apology. Starmer’s spokesman could not say if Keir had watched the harrowing documentary despite it having been out for a week, because you “don’t have to watch a documentary to be educated on this scandal.” But Starmer does have time to watch fictional Netflix drama Adolescence, talk about it constantly, and make policy off the back of it…

Downing Street says Starmer has “full confidence” in Powell despite her remarks. Some actual victims have a different view. One, Sarah Wilson, says Powell “totally dismissed survivors and our experiences of [being] groomed. I was an 11-year-old little girl been raped and trafficked all across England… trying to blow the ‘dogs’ whistle and be saved but instead they chucked us to the dogs and left us to be tortured.” Is that “point-scoring”?