Once Jess Phillips was the queen of Twitter, harrying and hounding the Tories at every chance. But these days it’s a very different story. Having been handed government responsibility for safeguarding back in July, the Home Office minister swiftly parked a social media back lash after suggesting she got better NHS treatment for her Gaza vote. She then was accused of ‘making excuses’ for a masked mob in Birmingham.
And today she has found herself the face of another Twitter/X storm after GB News reported that she has formally rejected repeated requests for a Home Office-led inquiry into historic child abuse in Oldham. Phillips wrote that ‘it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene’.
Various Tory politicians took to the social media platform to express their dismay, with Ben Houchen – the Mayor of Tees Valley – writing:
Labour MPs spent years calling for investigations and inquiries into anything and everything, but now the minister for ‘safeguarding and violence against women and girls’ has REJECTED an inquiry into the Oldham Grooming scandal.
