New year, new Starmer? Why PM decided to finally take on Musk’s ‘dangerous’ disinformation
For days, the attacks had been raining down from Elon Musk and his supporters on Keir Starmer, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips and the wider government, over handling of the historical sex abuse cases.
The consensus in Number 10, as voiced by another leader subject to Mr Musk’s ire – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – was do “not feed the troll”.
And so, as Mr Musk posted dozens of times about sex grooming gangs in the north of England, and accused Ms Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist” and a “wicked witch”, the government kept out of the fray.
But that all changed on Monday when the PM came out swinging, with the most impassioned remarks I can remember him making, when I asked him to comment on Mr Musk’s abuse of Ms Phillips on social media.
He said the debate on child sex exploitation was based on lies, with politicians “jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention”, as he hit back at not just at Mr Musk but the leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch too.
“We have seen this playbook many times – whipping up of intimidation and of threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it,” he told me on a visit to Epsom Hospital.
“When the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book a line has been crossed.
“I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have. But that’s got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies. Not on those who are so desperate for attention that they’re prepared to debase themselves and their country.”
From a lawyerly prime minister that chooses his words carefully, and is often ponderous in his approach to questions, this was quite a handbrake turn.
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PM on Musk: A line has been crossed
For months, Number 10 has brushed off repeated attacks on the PM and Labour government from Mr Musk and in many respects that made sense.
The tech billionaire is in Donald Trump’s inner circle and about to have an official role in his administration.
He perhaps worries that taking on Mr Musk will anger President Trump and make an already delicate relationship even harder to navigate on critical issues such as tariffs and support for Ukraine. So why, on Monday, did he bite back?
Firstly, I’m told the PM is angered that the abuse and disinformation online has led to threats to Ms Phillips, with one man being charged with malicious communication to the MP over the weekend.
“It crosses the line into MPs’ safety,” said one Number 10 insider.
“There will be people who say ‘don’t feed the troll’ and I think Keir Starmer is of that view and wanted to avoid getting into that side of things,” they said.
But there are times when the responsibility of a PM “is to try to shape these issues”, they added.
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PM: People ‘spreading lies’ are ‘not interested in victims’
“His view was this is a moment where he has a responsibility to say he’s happy to have a debate and stand by his record, but there are some things we can’t accept as a country – and that is misinformation and disinformation around individuals.”
Starmer is frustrated about the disinformation that Mr Musk is spreading online and believes it is “dangerous” not just to individual MPs but to UK democracy.
On Monday, he criticised those who had been defending far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, who the PM said “went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case”.
“These are people who are trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill from street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.”
Starmer defended his record as chief prosecutor, as Mr Musk accused the prime minister of being “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.
Some of the online allegations levelled at Starmer seem to refer to his time at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the failures more than a decade earlier to bring grooming gangs to justice: In 2009 a decision was taken not to prosecute alleged perpetrators in the town of Rochdale after lawyers believed the victim would not come across as credible.
Read More:
Badenoch calls for ‘long overdue’ national inquiry into grooming scandal
Musk says ‘Farage doesn’t have what it takes’ to be Reform leader
“For many, many years, too many victims have been completely let down; let down by perverse ideas about community relations or by the idea that institutions must be protected above all else. And they’ve not been listened to, and they’ve not been heard,” said Starmer on Monday.
Elon Musk. File pic: Reuters
“And when I was a chief prosecutor for five years, I tackled that head-on, because I could see what was happening, and that’s why I reopened cases that have been closed and supposedly finished. I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang – in the particular case it was in Rochdale, but it was the first of its kind.”
He said his record was “not secret” and that he has called for “mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse” when he was at the CPS, which “the Tories did nothing about.”
Third, it is about standards in public life, with the prime minister clearly irritated with Ms Badenoch’s and others’ handling of the affair as he called out politicians for not disavowing the attacks on Ms Phillips.
“He thinks truth matters in politics and while politics is a place of skullduggery, it also needs to be a place based on fact and truth and not smears,” said one aide.
For their part, the Conservatives on Wednesday will attempt to amend the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to require a full national inquiry into grooming gangs, with Ms Badenoch saying on X that her party’s action will “do right by the victims and end the culture of cover-ups”.
There are still questions about whether there should be a wider inquiry into historical sex abuse and the “endemic” abuse Professor Alexis Jay referred to in her 2022 inquiry.
Kemi Badenoch
Calling for it on the back of the Musk interventions in recent days has been the first big intervention by Ms Badenoch two months into her leadership.
The PM on Monday defended his decision not to have another review, saying that the Jay Report published in 2022 was a “comprehensive review” of child exploitation which “doesn’t need more consultation or research. It just needs action”.
The home secretary took such action today by announcing in the Commons that she would strengthen the laws around child sexual exploitation through the implementation of Professor Jay’s recommendations.
But the actions are unlikely to end this row, with Ms Badenoch demanding a national inquiry over this issue as she seizes on grooming gangs and historical abuse as a dividing line with Labour on which she believes she can take on Starmer and go toe to toe with Reform.
It was not the start to the new year that the prime minister intended.
But it is true, too, that Number 10 decided that, after ducking the Musk attacks for months, this was a ground he would not cede, with the PM making a deliberate choice to kick off the new year facing down these attacks.
And it was perhaps the most authentic I have seen him for months as he answered criticisms of his past record as a prosecutor and denounced the vicious treatment of his own MP.
An embattled prime minister since entering Number 10, he’s come out in 2025 fighting.
Politics
Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns says Nigel Farage’s row with Rupert Lowe was ‘clearly a big falling out’ – but insists it will ‘blow over’
Reform UK’s most senior woman has told Sky News the Rupert Lowe row “doesn’t look great” and she doesn’t “want to see it in the news any more days”.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who defected to Reform last year, accepted it was “clearly a big falling out” but suggested these spats do not always cut through to the public.
She insisted she was concentrating on winning as she looks to become the party’s first ever mayor in May.
In an interview with Sky News, Dame Andrea also spoke for the first time about her experience of domestic abuse, denying Reform has a “woman problem” but accepted “we need to start talking more about issues, what women are interested in”.
Having lost her seat as a Conservative in the 2024 election, Dame Andrea briefly quit politics only to return earlier this year as Reform’s newest recruit.
She is now standing as the party’s candidate to become the first Greater Lincolnshire mayor, in a race that psephologists think could be Reform’s best hope of turning itself from a party of protest into one that is governing.
That’s because Reform is on the march in Lincolnshire, which is a key battleground between the Conservatives and Reform in the local and mayoral elections in May.
Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, took the Conservative seat of Boston and Skegness in the last election as Reform came second in a further two of the county’s eight constituencies.
Dame Andrea spoke to Sky News’ Beth Rigby
This farming country has long been part of the patchwork of Conservative England and it is in these heartlands that Reform hopes it can land a significant blow to its political rivals in the coming weeks.
“It’s a worry,” admits one Labour insider who doesn’t much relish the prospect of having to deal with a newly minted Reform party mayor should Dame Andrea win in May against Labour candidate Jason Stockwood, the Conservative Rob Waltham and independent Marianne Overton.
There is also the Lincolnshire council race, which Reform is targeting. All 70 seats are up for grabs and the Conservatives, which have a 38-seat majority, are defending 53 seats. The only way is up for Reform here, while the Conservatives, who have held this council for 10 of the past 13 elections, are bracing for a drubbing.
Tories say Jenkyns is from Yorkshire
The Conservatives make the point that they have a “strong local candidate who is born and bred in Lincolnshire, whereas Dame Andrea is from Yorkshire” when I ask them about the race.
“We are fighting hard, we have a proven track record of delivery in charge of local services whereas Reform aren’t tried and tested,” the Conservatives said.
“And if they’re anything like Reform nationally, who don’t turn up on important votes, then they won’t show up for people locally.”
Dame Andrea is still based in Yorkshire where she used to be an MP, as this is where her son attends school. But she rents a place in Lincolnshire and has vowed to move to the county should she win the mayoralty.
She also points out that she grew up in Lincolnshire and was a local councillor before moving to Yorkshire after her shock victory over Ed Balls in the 2015 general election.
Read more:
Rupert Lowe consulting lawyers over libel action
Police launch investigation into Rupert Lowe over ‘verbal threats’
Dame Andrea is hoping to become Reform’s first mayor
‘Fed up’ farmers eyeing Reform
When we meet her on the road in Lincolnshire, she takes us to meet some farmers whose livelihoods are under intense pressure – be it over local flooding and flood defences or changes to inheritance tax and farming subsidies that are affecting their farms.
There is little love for Labour in the gathering of farmers, who in the main seem to be lapsed Conservative voters that are now eyeing Reform, as a number of them tell me how they are fed up with how the Environment Agency and local politicians are running their area.
“We’re fed up with all of them,” said one farmer.
“We just want some action. As farmers we know drainage is so important, we just want to get it sorted.”
They are also alarmed and anxious about the inheritance tax changes introduced by Labour and are pressing for carve-outs for small farms handed down from generation to generation amid fears they will have to sell up to pay the inheritance tax bills.
But the troubles at the top of Reform hadn’t gone unnoticed by this group. Unprompted, one of the farmers raised the row between the suspended Reform MP Rupert Lowe and the party leadership, telling Dame Andrea that while he “really likes Reform” he doesn’t much like what he’s seeing at the moment.
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Reform UK row explained
‘Spat looks worse because Reform is small’
The farmer said: “I don’t follow politics avidly. But I just look and say [Rupert Lowe] is full of common sense and I really like him and I don’t know what’s happened, but it looks from outside [he has been] chucked under the bus.
“And I’m like, am I getting second thoughts about Reform? I don’t know what’s gone on, but it concerns me about what’s going on with Reform.”
Dame Andrea tries to downplay it and says the “spat” looks worse because it’s a smaller party.
“To me it’s about the movement, the right policies, to carry on. What is the alternative? This will blow over and Reform will keep getting strong,” she said.
Can Jenkyns and Farage co-exist?
Dame Andrea would clearly like the infighting to stop, but it raises questions for me about how she will fit into this very male-dominated party, in which all four MPs are male, with Dame Andrea the only senior woman beyond the former Conservative minister Ann Widdicombe.
She is, like Nigel Farage, a disrupter – Dame Andrea was one of the first Tories to call for Theresa May and Rishi Sunak to stand down, and a conviction politician who fervently backed Boris Johnson and Brexit.
If she does win this mayoral race she will be a big personality in Reform alongside Farage, which leaves me wondering if they can co-exist in a party already at war.
Dame Andrea says she doesn’t think the party has a ‘woman problem’
Jenkyns was in an abusive relationship
Reform does struggle with female voters, with fewer women voting for the party against all age cohorts, young to old. Dame Andrea tells me she doesn’t think the party has a “woman problem”, but she does think it needs to talk about more issues that she thinks women are interested in, citing education, special educational needs and mental health.
When I raise the matter of violence against women and how the party has handled revelations that one of its own MPs was jailed in a youth detention centre as a teenager for assaulting his girlfriend, Dame Andrea reveals to me she has been in an abusive relationship.
“I know how it can break you. I know how you sort of start losing your identity. So I’ve been on that side,” she said.
“And I’ve also helped constituents to fight against this, so it matters, we need to do more in society because whether it’s men or women, one is too much in my view.”
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Out on the campaign trail, even in the Labour territory of Lincoln where Hamish Falconer is the local MP, Dame Andrea gets a warm welcome. She tells me she thinks she can win it: “I might be living in blind hope here. But I’ve got that feeling.”
This corner of England has become a test bed for Reform to see if it can turn from a party of protest into one that has a shot at governing in the form of a regional mayor.
If Reform can succeed in that – what might come next? It would be a remarkable comeback for Dame Andrea and a remarkable victory for Reform too.
Politics
Labour MPs and officials briefing against work and pensions secretary should ‘shut up’, Baroness Harman says
Labour MPs and officials briefing against work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall should “shut up”, Harriet Harman has said.
The Labour peer told Beth Rigby on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast Labour needed to “pull together” rather than descend into infighting.
Ms Kendall said on Thursday she was “determined to fix the broken benefits system” ahead of announcing “radical welfare reforms” next week.
Ministers have been priming Labour MPs and the public for cuts to a ballooning welfare bill since the start of the year.
Baroness Harriet Harman said people criticising Liz Kendall should ‘shut up’
Asked what she thought of briefings against Ms Kendall as welfare cuts loom, Baroness Harman said: “I hate those sorts of briefings.
“I don’t think anybody should be briefing against Labour ministers who are trying to implement the manifesto.
“You know, she is incredibly competent and leads a really dedicated team. So I think they should just shut up and pull together.”
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall. Pic: PA
More and more Labour MPs have publicly criticised the impending benefit cuts, with many concerned they will hit people with disabilities the most.
Downing Street has taken the unusual step of calling all 404 Labour MPs into Number 10 over Wednesday and Thursday for briefings on the changes ahead of the details being released next week.
Baroness Harman said she thinks Ms Kendall is a “rising star” and is “absolutely certain” the PM and chancellor will stand behind her.
Read more:
What welfare cuts could be announced?
Labour MPs criticise benefit cuts
The peer was social security secretary – the equivalent of Ms Kendall’s job now – at the start of Tony Blair’s first term after Labour’s 1997 landslide win.
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‘Government’s plan to cut welfare is terrifying’
She was forced to defend benefit cuts just after they came to power and said there are “lots of parallels between what we were trying to do then, and what the government is trying to do now”.
However, she said the difference is, in 1997 she was making the argument for welfare cuts to help single parents into work by herself, but Ms Kendall is being backed by Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer.
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