How Not to Write About Rotherham

Sexual violence against women and girls comes in all skin colours, all languages, all forms of religious belief. One would hope its tacit acceptance by institutions laying claim to the protection of the most vulnerable lies in the distant past. But the report into the institutional silence, if not silencing of the victims of a Pakistani-descent paedophile gang shows this appalling abuse is not part of our uncomfortable yesterdays. It's contemporary, it's here, and lives are still being broken by sexual predators who rape children with seeming impunity.

Evidently, a lot of serious questions have to be asked in Rotherham. For instance, while our gutter press are playing up the Muslim/Pakistani connection I think more pertinent is a shared misogyny between the abusers and those tasked with enforcing the law and child protection. There's an obvious case for council officials and police officers to be investigated, for digging up the roots of this casual attitude to grooming and rape. Sackings should follow and, if the CPS deems it appropriate, prosecutions where there is evidence the law has been broken. The 1,400 girls and young women victimised by the paedophile gang deserve nothing less, as do children everywhere at risk because of lackadaisical institutions. The last thing needed is political point scoring. That is exactly how not to write about child sex crimes.

This is why I'm going to pick on Louise Mensch. From the salubrious surrounds of her upper westside apartment, last night our failed Tory MP-turned Murdoch shill proclaimed in a series of tweets everything that was wrong in Rotherham.

Labour has many questions to answer as a party. I will not shrink from saying Rochdale Rotherham Bradford all Labour, Trojan horse bham Lab
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 26, 2014

Now we have local Rotherham Labour MP @sarahchampionMP calling 2013 abuse "historic" not calling her Labour Cllr colleagues to be prosecuted
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 26, 2014

Where the hell is John Healey MP? Where is Kevin Barron MP? Not talking b/c holidays? 1400 Rotherham children raped, councillors blamed
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 26, 2014

When a number of tweeters pointed out that by her logic the Tory party also has some very serious questions to answer about Jimmy Savile et al, the reply came:

Don't whataboutery on Jimmy Savile please when children doused in petrol at 11, gang-raped and trafficked in racial/religious hate crime
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 26, 2014

If you're going to roll in muck, don't be shocked if you attract a few flies.

Mensch's line of argument has been picked up in the press today, and UKIP are running with it - as you might expect. After all, force a police and crime commissioner to step down and they have a reasonable chance of picking up the position and the patronage that comes with it. There are a couple of things worth noting with here. One is a shift in how social services work. As Paul from Though Cowards Flinch put it last night:

I see everyone on twitter is now an expert on Child Sexual Exploitation, including those who'd never heard the term this morning #Rotherham
— Paul Cotterill (@Bickerrecord) August 26, 2014

The CSE horror in #rotherham coincides entirely with the rise of managerialism and allied loss of professional autonomy is social work.
— Paul Cotterill (@Bickerrecord) August 26, 2014

Sadly, #rotherham will bring moves to further remove professional autonomy and enhance managerialist doctrine.
— Paul Cotterill (@Bickerrecord) August 26, 2014

Paul is, of course, right. Social service departments across the land have been stripped of professional autonomy. The judgements of expert specialists have been trumped by a tier of local authority managers for whom their real concerns are the bottom line and career advancement. It's not just social services or councils. Teaching, nursing, social security, everywhere you look the public service ethos is being stripped out in favour of arbitrary targets, be they assessment scores, turn around times, or semi-official application caps. Against the backdrop of such a culture the needs are service users come second and perverse priorities - such as not being seen to be racist, as per Rotherham - come to the fore. As the crucible of this horrifying case things at the local authority and the police need looking at very carefully. But this is not enough: nothing less than a public inquiry and consultation into the prevailing culture of how our services are run is sufficient.

On the transparent attempt to damage Labour nationally by making out the local party in Rotherham was up to its neck in paedophiles, it is worth remembering that political parties do not run local authorities. They do not make day-to-day operational decisions or manage staff. Their job is to set the strategic priorities of a council, provide political direction, hold the officers (i.e. senior management) to account, and ensure the casework brought to their attention by residents is done. During my time scrutinising a local authority up-close, I lost count of the times senior officers circumvented elected member decision-making, and manipulated it by misrepresenting facts, telling porkies or failing to pass information on to the councillor nominally overseeing their area of work. Thankfully, none of these matters were especially serious in the grand scheme of things. Therefore what was the political culture like in Rotherham? Did senior officers inform the politicians that a sex abuse epidemic was happening in the town? I don't know, that is something to be established. If that was not passed on then appropriate action must be taken against officers who so acted.

Likewise, if any Labour councillors were aware of what happened and turned a blind eye, or took part in a cover up, then they should be prosecuted under the law. It really is that simple.