Elon Musk’s attacks on Jess Phillips a ‘disgraceful smear’, Streeting says
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Wes Streeting has said attacks made by Elon Musk on Jess Phillips over grooming gangs are a “disgraceful smear” considering the Labour minister’s efforts to support victims of abuse. The billionaire owner of social media platform X, Tesla and Space X suggested the safeguarding minister “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.
He also said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had failed to bring “rape gangs” to justice while director of public prosecutions. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage defended Mr Musk, saying the South African-born US businessman had used “very tough terms” but that “in public life, tough things get said”.
Ms Phillips said in a letter to the local council that Oldham must follow other towns such as Rotherham and Telford and commission its own inquiry into historical abuse of children. Health Secretary Mr Streeting was asked what he would say Mr Musk after his comments about Ms Phillips.
“It is a disgraceful smear of a great woman who has spent her life supporting victims of the kind of violence that Elon Musk and others say that they’re against,” he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. “And it’s all very well sitting there, and I’m not just talking about Musk – I’m talking about armchair critics on social media – it’s all very easy to sit there and fire off something in haste and click send, when people like Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips have done the hard yards of actually locking up wife beaters, rapists, paedophiles.”.
