Musk accused of ‘politicising’ rape of young girls in UK to attack Starmer
Elon Musk has “politicised” the rape of young girls in the UK in an attempt to attack Keir Starmer, a former health worker who exposed a major paedophile ring has told the Guardian.Sara Rowbotham, who gathered evidence that led to the imprisonment of nine men in Rochdale, said the tech billionaire had launched a “political swipe” at the prime minister that overlooked the plight of abuse survivors.The Tesla owner, who will have a key role in Donald Trump’s incoming administration, on Friday called on King Charles to step in and dissolve parliament after Labour rejected a call for a national inquiry into child grooming.Musk triggered the row on Thursday over Starmer’s handling of child abuse in Oldham after he suggested the prime minister had failed to bring “rape gangs” to justice when he was director of public prosecutions.Rowbotham, who made hundreds of referrals detailing the abuse and sexual grooming while working for the NHS in Rochdale between 2005 and 2011, said: “What is [Musk’s] motivation for interfering? It seems very political.
The person he is trying to go after is Keir Starmer – it is a political swipe that is nothing to do with the women and girls who have been abused time after time,”Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, has used the social media site to post or repost about child grooming in the UK more than 40 times over the past 24 hours,Several posts are from UK MPs including Reform UK’s Rupert Lowe and the Tories’ Robert Jenrick, while others include a video featuring the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who in October was jailed for 18 months for contempt of court,On Friday, Musk shared a post asking whether the king “should dissolve parliament and order a general election … for the sake and security” of the UK,He retweeted the X thread with a one-word comment: “Yes.
”The safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, previously said in a letter to Oldham council that instead of the government leading an investigation, Oldham must follow in the footsteps of other towns such as Rotherham and Telford and commission its own inquiry into the historical abuse of children.A national inquiry by Prof Alexis Jay concluded in 2022, and investigations into Greater Manchester police’s handling of child sexual abuse cases in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale have also been carried out.Rowbotham, who was played by Maxine Peake in the award-winning BBC drama Three Girls, dismissed Musk’s calls for another public inquiry, but said the UK still needed to get to the bottom of the motivations of paedophile rings, which she said were often dominated by Asian men.“We need to discover the motivations, not just sexual, behind this abuse, if we are going to prevent it from happening again and again,” she said.In a further intervention, the father of a woman who was a main prosecution witness against the Rochdale paedophile gang said it was “strange” that a US billionaire was attempting to intervene in the UK.
The man, whose eldest daughter was known as Girl A during court proceedings, said: “It is strange that the richest man in the world has got time to start getting involved in UK politics.”Girl A was groomed and abused in Rochdale by at least 50 men from the age of 12.Her family discovered the abuse after she smashed up a restaurant at the age of 14.While being interviewed by police, she told detectives how she and other girls had been plied with drugs and drink and repeatedly raped and trafficked around nearby towns and cities.The comments follow criticisms of Musk from two other key figures in the Rochdale inquiry.
Asked about Musk’s comments on Friday, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, told ITV News the criticisms were “misjudged and certainly misinformed”.“Some of the criticisms that Elon Musk has made, I think are misjudged and certainly misinformed, but we’re willing to work with Elon Musk, who I think has got a big role to play with his social media platform to help us and other countries to tackle this serious issue.“So if he wants to work with us and roll his sleeves up, we’d welcome that,” he said.
Radical plan may result in two England-Australia Ashes series every three years
England and Australia could play two Ashes series every three years from 2027 onwards under a radical two-division plan that is reportedly being considered for Test cricket.According to the Melbourne Age, the chairs of Australia, England and India, plus Jay Shah, the new head of the International Cricket Council, are due to meet this month to discuss splitting the 12 Test nations into two divisions, allowing the “Big Three” countries to play their hugely lucrative series more often.It follows a bumper Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India that saw the hosts prevail 3-1 amid huge crowds. It was Australia’s fourth-best attended series – the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne drew a record 373,691 spectators over its five days – and was reportedly the most-watched Test series ever played in the country. The arrival of England’s Bazballers for the Ashes next winter could well challenge those numbers
British teen Mia Brookes wins back-to-back snowboarding World Cup titles
Mia Brookes produced an incredible display of big air snowboarding in Klagenfurt on Sunday to seal back-to-back World Cup victories. The 17-year-old Briton, sitting in third spot after her first jump, was able with her second and third runs to leap above Japan’s Mari Fukada into the gold medal position.Brookes, who became the youngest ever snowboard world champion in slopestyle in 2023, clinched victory after claiming the best run score of the day with her final attempt (95.75), mirroring what happened in Beijing last month.She finished with a total score of 184
The NFL’s bogus playoff seeding system penalizes the more deserving
The 14-3 Vikings and 12-5 Commanders will open the playoffs on the road because the NFL insists on giving a home game to even the most middling of division winnersThe injustice of the NFL’s playoff seeding system rears its ugly head once again.Now that we know how the 2024 NFL playoffs are seeded from top to bottom, it’s time once again to complain about the league’s ugly secret: its system for awarding playoff position, and thus which teams will have postseason games at home or on the road, is seriously flawed.The primary culprit is the league’s insistence that every division winner gets at least one home game. That would be somewhat equitable if every division winner was above average, but the process of elimination tells us a different story. Since 2010 alone, there have been three division winners with losing records: The 2010 Seattle Seahawks (NFC West, 7-9), the 2014 Carolina Panthers (NFC South, 7-8-1), and the 2020 Washington Football Team (NFC East, 7-9)
A vision of sport in 2050: robot leagues, chips in brains and players in their 50s | Sean Ingle
Back in 1997, artificial intelligence and robotics experts in Japan came up with an intriguing challenge. Could anyone, they asked, build a humanoid football team capable of beating the World Cup winners by the middle of the 21st century? It sounded more than a little out there. In truth, it still does. Yet when it comes to forecasting the future of sport, it serves as a useful lodestar. Before we know it the outlandish will become the new normal
Having conquered the cricket world Pat Cummins must now bridge the generations | Jack Snape
After a hard-fought fifth Test victory over India to clinch the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a 3-1 margin, the post-series press conference with Pat Cummins, wearing a weary grin under a pink brim, began with a juicy full toss of a question: “As a captain,” the journalist asked, “do you feel you have completed cricket now?”It was in some ways justified. Having become the first Australia Test captain since Mark Taylor on the 1997 Ashes campaign to turn a 0-1 deficit into a five-Test series triumph, Cummins’ side now hold the trophies in every one of their bilateral Test series. They also won the 2023 ODI World Cup in India and will defend their World Test Championship mace against South Africa in the final at Lord’s in June.But the contest in Sydney was hardly a coronation. The Test hung on the batting contribution of Test debutant Beau Webster and the absence of injured India superstar Jasprit Bumrah in the final innings
Let’s champion our mentors as well as sport’s trophy-winners in 2025 | Cath Bishop
As we anticipate what sport will bring us in 2025, we might be tempted to look ahead to the major international tournaments in rugby, cricket and football. But there’s another space to consider, less glamorous but absolutely vital, where sport is making an increasingly significant contribution to society – the growing cadre of sportsmen and women working as mentors in support of young people facing challenges and disadvantages.Organisations such as the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust (DKHT), Dallaglio Rugbyworks, Football Beyond Borders and Streetgames use sportsmen and women to provide support, encouragement and a trusted connection for young people trapped in complex adverse situations around the country. Just turning up at a sports session isn’t enough; it’s about creating a relationship with a trusted mentor within that setting.Successive governments constantly rediscover that there is no straightforward solution to support those “hardest to reach”
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