From “Horrific” to “Dogwhistle”: Lucy Powell’s Change of Tack About the Rape Gang Scandal
“Horrific details of systematic child abuse in Oxford,” tweeted Lucy Powell in May 2013. A vile Oxfordshire grooming gang had just been convicted of the rape and sexual torture of six girls aged as young as 11, all of them in care; the following month, five of the seven men would receive life sentences. Their crimes had a “resonance [with] cases in Rochdale, Rotherham & elsewhere”, noted Powell – as she would know, having been elected the Labour MP for nearby Manchester Central the previous year. The horror – and the grisly pattern of clearly racialised abuse it reflected – showed the political system urgently needed to act: “[These] issues need wider inquiry now,” was her clarion call.
It was the depraved details of that very trial which earlier this year brought the rape gangs to global attention, sparking a national debate that was long overdue. Back in 2013, Powell had been a mere opposition backbencher; today she’s the Leader of the Commons and Lord President of the Council – and in a position to do something about the rape gangs. Yet she seems to have decided that her one-time call for justice isn’t as urgent as it was. The Labour Government she is a part of is blocking a national public inquiry and instead – after political pressure – committing just £5 million for a handful of ‘flexible’ local inquiries. Lacking the authority to compel witnesses, the inquiries are expected to be toothless. And this will barely scratch the surface of a problem that has blighted more than 50 towns and cities across the UK – and, shockingly, is still afflicting them today.
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a Donor will also entitle you to comment below the line and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Up to 1 millon white girls raped by Muslims.
And this ‘feminist’ dismisses it.
30 years of abuse by Muslims. Yes say it loud and proud. Muslims. Muslims. Muslims.
Feeling enriched yet?
She is a criminal and worthless sack of shyte.
I hate, absolutely detest, abhor people like her.
There is a screenshot somewhere on the net showing a front page of a Rotherham local paper. The article talks of a ‘well used’ young girl raped by a Pakistani immigrant. The article is from 1972. At the time the NF and skinheads were derided for their racism. The truth seems to be that they saw it in their communities and reacted. We owe them and those women a huge apology.
Lucy Powell and her loathsome kind true are representatives of the Anti-White Party (formerly the Labour Party) as it has evolved over the last fifty years. As we all know, the bourgeois Left has abandoned the white working class. But the Left still needs a subservient “progressive” group in order to hold onto power. To this end the madleft has attempted to create such a group by merging gays, transgenders, racial minorities, women, illegal immigrants, invaders, colonists, criminals, Muslims, drug addicts, and anti-whitists into a single “progressive” group. This is why the “progressive” madleft has turned a blind eye to third-world rape gangs rampaging through our country.
What Steve Sailer calls “the coalition of the fringes” with reference to the US “Democratic” Party, which has followed a similar trajectory.
Note that both here and in the US, the left’s hold on power is ultimately only enabled by the intelligensia – the “educated”, virtue-signalling middle classes both as voters and in the media and the establishment generally.
Suppressed scandals (in this case scandals about epidemic atrocities) need to be weaponised as an end in themselves.
Her remarks were like suggesting that Churchill was weaponising the rise of Nazi militarism in order to score political points off the government – in fact, the government was (and is) a lot less significant than the problem, which requires all the weapons that can be mustered.
I’m torn on this one.
Her comments on AQ did not seem scripted, they came very naturally – so I don’t think she’s been coached on this by the Party; told to dismiss the rape gangs cover-up scandal. She did not “mis-speak”, she said what she thinks.
That must mean that former outrage was entirely false, “weaponising” the issue against the then government.
That’s exactly as I read it. Her previous concern for the abused girls was mere virtue signalling and political point-scoring.
A thoroughly objectionable person.
100%
It would be charitable to say that Lucy’s concern was genuine – until it had to become political.
Or maybe her “concern” was politically expedient in the first place?
Sorry, but I can’t find a way to excuse her so easily
Not knowing right from wrong is not optional for someone with their hands on the reigns of power
Sticking with your morals and values should not be up for political grabs
She blows in the winds of political agenda just like all the other empty vessels that make up the labour party
She is a total and utter non entity and should resign her post in disgrace!
“. . . Labour’s head-in-the-sand approach to the scandal is “so obviously political” – born of a desire, above all, to avoid offending Muslim voters.”
And to minimise the risk that those in the Labour Party guilty of ignoring the crimes or protecting the perpetrators aren’t brought to justice.
2008-2013
Director of Public Prosecutions
A certain…
Sir Keir Starmer
The desire not to offend Muslim voters may be part of it, but going back a
long long way to when Labour made a better job of seeming to represent the working class (1960s) they have been hell bent on making sure that the huge influx of people from alien cultures continues. They maybe knew back then that the socialist revolution was not going to happen so they changed focus/opened up a second front of attack.
Labour – party of the Far Wrong, weaponising all opposing views as “Far Right.”
Labour – Party of the Far Gone…
It’s not at all difficult to appreciate the bind that the political class are in, not just Labour or our Jess. The female victims of these gangs can be represented generically as women. The males can be represented generically as men. The left habitually sees people in terms of group identity. The abuse can be presented generically as misogyny. However, if it were acknowledged that there were an ethnic element to this atrocity of the rape gangs, it would be impossible for progressives to claim that the presence of ethnic groups in Britain was always beneficial to society in and of itself. (This claim is explained by Ben Cobley in his book, The Tribe). When Kate Lam read out the court transcripts in the Commons, the objection from the Labour front bench was that she was ‘creating hierarchies’. The stated intention in carrying out these attacks on the girls and women as expressed by the convicted perpetrators in these transcripts revealed their sense of superiority, and not as men. Either Labour have to admit that this abuse came from that source and that multiculturalism has not achieved equality, or else claim that the source of inequality is coming from somewhere… Read more »
I suspect Labour’s appalling reaction to the Rape Gangs and refusal to hold a National Public Inquiry is a significant factor affecting the latest poll which has them on only 20% (CONs on 16%) and Reform on 33%.
https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/voting-intention-7th-may-2025/
Is Two-Tier really going to destroy the Labour Party in order to appease the “Special Community which must not be offended?”
I see a future in which the middle class vote Lib Dim, the working class vote Reform and the benefit class vote Labour.
Hopefully no room for the Unconservatives.
I concur. I think the Not-a-Conservative-Party will fracture, with most of the LibCONs going to boost Ed Davey and most of the few remaining real Conservatives moving to Reform.
Labour will retain the Welfare Class and the heavily unionised Public Sector.
Rachel Reeves, exposed as a serial teller of falsehoods, and a person that through her post has ruined the economy, still in position. Ed Milliband Net zero fanatic who will stop at nothing to get the tick in the box to Net Zero, our heavy industry gone, if there was a war we cannot even make the steel to build our own defence needs, the price to heat and eat is going through the roof, there will be blackouts, and we are being led back to the dark ages. He is still in position. David Lammy a man who is supposed to foster good relations with the world regularly abusive to the leader of the free world once our ally, along with other major cringe worthy faux pas. Still in place. Yvette Cooper shutting people up with menaces for speaking truth, but allowing rapists, ilegal migrants, and child killers an easy ride. Still in place. Need I go on? Starmer has the same atitude to the indigenous citizens of this country as Powell has to the girls who suffered at the hands of the grooming/rape gangs. Arrogant, contemptuous and dismissive of the people. We have at least another 4 years… Read more »
I have been told that Embassies make daily reports to their home governments as well as periodic thematic analysis. I wonder what the Pakistan embassy reports and other Muslim ones too.
Do they regard the issue as of the same importance it would be back home. Do they reassure their governments of continued subordination by the UK elites.
Just what do they say.
And in embassy receptions do UK diplomats and Ministers say nothing and the Ambassador and his staff the same. Do they chat away ignoring the elephant in the room.
How do people like this get power and how can it be prevented?
It’s because the rest of us don’t enter politics. So we get to be ruled over by those in society who were full of lust for power but incapable of achieving it in the outside world.
When politicians were expected to have a job and then give their time as MPs freely it attracted a genuine type who wanted to improve things.
No longer the case now it’s a comfortable existence for those who otherwise would be at the bottom of the supervisory ladder in the private sector.
It can be prevented as follows: Introduce a system whereby nobody is allowed to declare himself a candidate for election. No-one is allowed to perform political campaigning. The voters are then encouraged to vote for anyone – yes, anyone – they think should have the power to write laws, based on that person’s real world achievements. You would find out the moment the votes are counted who got the most votes. If it was you, you would be obliged to take up the post. You would be obliged to cut down your professional engagements such that you spend at least 50% of your hours working as an MP. The pay would be less than what you would normally earn in your normal engagement. The result would be that the people who are most successful in their communities will be the people getting the power and they would also be the people least desirous of having the power. They would want to do as little as possible, and then only what is strictly necessary, in order that they may return as quickly as possible to their normal work. Such a system exists. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better.… Read more »
“Defending Powell in the media, Health Secretary Wes Streeting claimed she had simply made a “genuine mistake” in a “heated debate”.
It wasn’t a “heated debate”, Tim Montgolerie was aksed a question about Reform UK stance on DEI and he started to answer how DEI could create situations that allowed the rape gangs to go unchecked.
Powell interupted with her snide, derisory remarks – nothing “heated” at all.
These vile people, words (mostly lies) are their stock in trade, she didn’t mis-speak, the mask slipped.
Powell?
Obviously, no relation.
Powell, Reeves , Creasy and their ilk are typical of the mid-wit female mediocrities, who along with ethno-charlatans like Humza Youseff have colonised the left parties. They have no identification with disadvantaged working class white girls. Her “dog whistle” comment is really a sound designed to be heard by her fellow Fabian globalists. Its also to coin a phrase a howl of outrage and fear that Reform are on the case.
“It seems in trying to decry as racist any right-winger who raises the rape gangs,..”
It shouldn’t matter what political leanings anyone has – let me fix this.
“It seems in trying to decry as racist and right wing anyone who raises the rape gangs,…”
Just another grotesque, egocentric, self promoting, political mediocrity. No different from nearly all the others in Parliament. Sell anyone out for advantage, starting with themselves.