Jess Phillips has said she has “more important things to be thinking about” than Elon Musk after he accused her of being a “rape genocide apologist”.
The safeguarding minister has hit back at the billionaire’s criticism of her for the first time, telling Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that his claims are “ridiculous” and she will be led by what victims have to say, not him.
Mr Musk made the comments after Ms Phillips denied a request for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, saying it should be done at a local level.
The town in Greater Manchester was one of a number of areas wheregirls as young as 11 were groomed and raped over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.
Mr Musk’s comments have sparked a political row – with the Tories and Reform UK now calling for a new public inquiry into grooming gangs.
Ms Phillips said that the world’s richest man, who owns SpaceX and is the CEO of Tesla, should “crack on with this ‘getting to Mars'” instead of wading into UK politics.
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“You know, Elon Musk is going to [do] Elon Musk. I’ve got bigger and more important things to be thinking about,” she added.
She said she has dedicated her working life to combating child exploitation and it was “painful” to watch it become a “political football”.
There has already been a seven-year national inquiry into child abuse in England and Wales, which the Conservatives commissioned in 2015 and which looked at grooming gangs, as well as abuse in places like schools and the church.
The investigation, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, concluded in 2022 but none of its recommendations have been implemented.
Image: Elon Musk. File pic: Reuters
Child exploitation becoming ‘political football’
Ms Phillips, who has sat in courtrooms with girls who were groomed, said she was “really angry” at people “now claiming to be the virtuous flag bearers of these victims”, having not spoken on the issue before.
“These sudden demands by the Tories, ridiculous statements made about me and my government by a man thousands of miles away, it’s really painful when you know what I know,” she said.
“It’s painful to watch it become a political football rather than an actual attempt to really do something.”
She specifically called out Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for declaring 2025 as the year victims should get justice, given her party spent the past 14 years in government.
“Funnily enough, this all started about an Oldham inquiry, which a government she was part of also said should be done locally.
“And the fact that Kemi Badenoch is reacting to something that Elon Musk has said… I am reacting to things that victims say to me.”
Taking aim at other senior Tories pushing for a national inquiry, she added: “I’ve never seen Kemi Badenoch, Chris Philp, Robert Jenrick in any of the meetings that I’ve been in over the years trying to advance policy on this.”
Image: Jess Phillips
Summit of council leaders announced
Ms Phillips went on to announce that the Labour government is planning to hold a summit of council leaders in areas where a local inquiry on child exploitation, such as that which happened in Telford, may be needed.
The Birmingham Yardley MP said this would “ensure that what I saw that worked [in Telford] can happen everywhere”.
“I’m interested in children being safe tomorrow, not whether my political seat is safe,” she added.
On the government announcing a new victims and survivors panel to sit within the Home Office, Ms Phillips said this was always part of their plan but the Musk “furore” has elevated it.
It was among a package of measures unveiled by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Monday, including making it a criminal offence if professionals who work with children fail to report claims of abuse.
This will be introduced in the spring as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, and was a key recommendation of the Jay Review.
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PM: People ‘spreading lies’ are ‘not interested in victims’
Other suggestions from the review to be implemented include making grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences and creating a new performance framework for policing exploitation.
However, there is no timeline for when all 20 recommendations will be put in place, Number 10 admitted today.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said the final 2022 report was “not acted on by the last government” so this one is “working at pace” and “will provide any updates in due course”.
Prof Jay earlier told the BBC that victims “clearly want action” and do not need a new national inquiry into grooming gangs, as she too hit out at the “politicisation of child sexual exploitation”.
And on Monday Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Musk and others of “spreading lies and misinformation”, about grooming gangs, saying “a line has been crossed” with the attacks on Ms Phillips, who has received threats.
Later in the podcast interview, Ms Phillips said Mr Musk’s comments had put her safety at risk, saying there was a difference between “robust debate” and spreading misinformation.
“If you have misinformation, you have to think about the consequences of what that does. And one of those consequences is a risk to members of parliament.”
You can listen to Beth’s full interview with Jess Phillips in Electoral Dysfunction on Friday.
Welfare versus warfare: for decades, it’s a question to which successive prime ministers have responded with one answer.
After the end of the Cold War, leaders across the West banked the so-called “peace dividend” that came with the end of this conflict between Washington and Moscow.
Instead of funding their armies, they invested in the welfare state and public services instead.
But now the tussle over this question is something that the current prime minister is grappling with, and it is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges for Sir Keir Starmer since he got the job last year.
As Clement Attlee became the Labour prime minister credited with creating the welfare state after the end of the Second World War, so it now falls on the shoulders of the current Labour leader to create the warfare state as Europe rearms.
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UK to buy nuclear-carrying jets
Be it Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, arguing last year that Europe had moved from the post-war era to the pre-war era; or European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen calling on the EU to urgently rearm Ukraine so it is a “steel porcupine” against Russian invaders; there is a consensus that the UK and Europe are on – to quote Sir Keir – a “war footing” and must spend more on defence.
To that end the prime minister has committed to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, raiding the overseas development aid budget to do so, and has also committed, alongside other NATO allies, to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035.
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What is NATO’s 5% defence spending goal?
That is a huge leap in funding and a profound shift from what have been the priorities for government spending – the NHS, welfare and education – in recent decades.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Carl Emmerson said the increase, in today’s terms, would be like adding approximately £30bn to the 2027 target of spending around £75bn on core defence.
Sir Keir has been clear-eyed about the decision, arguing that the first duty of any prime minister is to keep his people safe.
But the pledge has raised the obvious questions about how those choices are funded, and whether other public services will face cuts at a time when the UK’s economic growth is sluggish and public finances are under pressure.
This, then, is one of his biggest challenges: can he make sure Britain looks after itself in a fragile world, while also sticking to his promises to deliver for the country?
It is on this that the prime minister has come unstuck over the summer, as he was forced to back down over proposed welfare cuts to the tune of £5bn at the end of this term, in the face of a huge backbench rebellion. Many of his MPs want warfare and welfare.
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Starmer and Merz sign deal on defence and migration
“There’s been a real collision in recent weeks between those two policy worlds,” explains Jim Murphy, who served both as a welfare minister under Tony Blair and shadow defence secretary under Ed Miliband.
“In welfare, how do you provide for the people who genuinely need support and who, without the state’s support, couldn’t survive? What’s the interplay between that and the unconditional strategic need to invest more in defence?
“For the government, they either get economic growth or they have a series of eye-watering choices in which there can be no compromise with the defence of the state and everything else faces very serious financial pressures.”
He added: “No Labour politician comes into politics to cut welfare, schools or other budgets. But on the basis that defence is non-negotiable, everything else, unfortunately, may face those cuts.”
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7:02
‘There are lines I will not cross’
While the PM sees this clearly, ask around the cabinet table and ministers will admit that the tough choices society will need to take if they genuinely want to respond to the growing threat from Russia, compounded by the unpredictability of Donald Trump, is yet to fully sink in.
There are generations of British citizens that have only ever lived in peace, that do not, like I do, remember the Cold War or The Troubles.
There are also millions of Britons struggling with the cost of living and and public satisfaction with key public services is at historic lows. That is why Labour campaigned in the election on the promise of change, to raise living standards and cut NHS waiting lists.
Ask the public, and 49% of people recognise defence spending needs to increase. But 53% don’t want it to come from other areas of public spending, while 55% are opposed to paying more tax to fund that defence increase.
There is also significant political resistance from the Labour Party.
Sir Keir’s attempts to make savings in the welfare budget have been roundly rejected by his MPs. Instead, his backbenchers are talking about more tax rises to fund public services, or even a broader rethink of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules.
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
Anneliese Dodds, who quit as development minister over cuts to the overseas aid budget, wrote in her resignation letter that she had “expected [cabinet] would collectively discuss our fiscal rules and approach to taxation, as other nations are doing”, as part of a wider discussion about the changing threats.
In an interview for our Electoral Dysfunctionpodcast, which will be released later this summer, she expanded on this idea.
She said: “I think it’s really important to take a step back and think about what’s going to be necessary, looking 10, 20 years ahead. It looks like the world is not going to become safer, unfortunately, during that period. It’s really important that we increase defence spending.
“I think that does mean we’ve got to really carefully consider those issues about our fiscal rules and about taxation. That isn’t easy… nonetheless, I think we will have to face up to some really big issues.
“Now is the time when we need to look at what other countries are doing. We need to consider whether we have the right system in place.”
Image: Anneliese Dodds quit the government over cuts to the overseas aid budget. Pic: PA
For the Labour MP, that means potentially reassessing the fiscal rules and how the fiscal watchdog assesses government spending to perhaps give the government more leeway. She also believes that the government should look again at tax rises.
She added: “We do, I believe, need to think about taxation.
“Now again, there’s no magic wand. There will be implications from any change that would be made. As I said before, we are quite highly taxing working people now, but I think there are ways in which we can look at taxation, not without implications.
“But in a world of difficult trade-offs, we’ve got to take the least worst trade-off for the long term. And that’s what I think is gonna be really important.”
Those trade-offs are going to be discussed more and more into the autumn, ahead of what is looking like an extremely difficult budget for the PM and Ms Reeves.
Image: Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are facing difficult choices. Pic: PA
Not only is the chancellor now dealing with a £5bn shortfall in her accounts from the welfare reform reversal, but she is also dealing with higher-than-expected borrowing costs, fuelled by surging debt costs.
Plus, government borrowing was £3.5bn more than forecast last month, with June’s borrowing coming in at £20.7bn – the second-highest figure since records began in 1993.
Some economists are now predicting that the chancellor will have to raise taxes or cut spending by around £20bn in the budget to fill the growing black hole.
Image: Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt says Labour’s U-turn on cuts to welfare risk trapping Britain in a ‘doom loop’
Jeremy Hunt, former Conservative chancellor and now backbencher, tells me he was “massively disappointed” that Labour blinked on welfare reform.
He said: “First of all, it’s terrible for people who are currently trapped on welfare, but secondly, because the risk is that the consequence of that, is that we get trapped in a doom loop of very higher taxes and lower growth.”
‘This group of politicians have everything harder ‘
Mr Murphy says he has sympathy for the predicament of this Labour government and the task they face.
He explained: “We were fortunate [back in the early 2000s] in that the economy was still relatively okay, and we were able to reform welfare and do really difficult reforms. This is another world.
“This group of politicians have everything harder than we had. They’ve got an economy that has been contracting, public services post-COVID in trouble, a restless public, a digital media, an American president who is at best unreliable, a Russian president.
“Back then [in the 2000s] it was inconceivable that we would fight a war with Russia. On every measure, this group of politicians have everything harder than we ever had.”
Over the summer and into the autumn, the drumbeat of tax rises will only get louder, particularly amongst a parliamentary party seemingly unwilling to back spending cuts.
But that just delays a problem unresolved, which is how a government begins to spend billions more on defence whilst also trying to maintain a welfare state and rebuild public services.
This is why the government is pinning so much hope onto economic growth as it’s escape route out of its intractable problem. Because without real economic growth to help pay for public services, the government will have to make a choice – and warfare will win out.
What is still very unclear is how Sir Keir manages to take his party and the people with him.
With the trial of the Tornado Cash co-founder ending its eighth day, a witness testified Roman Storm had control over some of the funds connected to the mixing service.
Lawmakers are expected to break in a matter of days, but there are still items on the legislative agenda to address, including two crypto bills passed by the House.