Sir Keir Starmer hits out at politicians who ‘shout and scream but do nothing’ over grooming gangs

Published

6 months ago

June 17, 2025

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Sir Keir Starmer has said he gets “frustrated” with politicians who “shout and scream but do nothing” as he defended past comments about a grooming gangs inquiry.

Speaking to Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby, the prime minister was asked if he regretted saying in January that those calling for a national probe into paedophile rings were “jumping on a far-right bandwagon” – given he has now agreed to one.

Politics latest: Baroness Casey asks people to ‘keep calm’ about grooming gang ethnicity data

Sir Keir said he was “really clear” he was talking about the Tories, who were demanding an inquiry they never set up when they were in government.

He said: “I was calling out those politicians.

“I am frustrated with politics when people shout and scream a lot and do nothing when they’ve got the opportunity to do it. It’s one of the worst aspects of politics, in my view.”

Sir Keir also said there “must be accountability” for authorities who “shied away” from talking about the ethnicity of perpetrators for fear of being branded racist, as exposed in a report by Baroness Casey published on Monday.

Asked if he is happy for “social workers, policemen and people that failed” to be held accountable, the prime minister said: “Where the inquiry uncovers failure or wrongdoing, then there should absolutely be accountability.

“That is amongst the purposes of an inquiry, and it’s a statutory inquiry… which will therefore mean there is power to compel evidence of witnesses because it’s important that it is comprehensive and important that it gets to every single issue. And as part of that process, there’s accountability for individuals who did wrong.”

Baroness Casey was asked to produce an audit of sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales in January, when comments by tech billionaire Elon Musk brought the scandal back into the spotlight.

The government initially resisted calls from the Tories for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying they wanted to focus on implementing the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s seven-year review into child abuse.

The review concluded in 2022 but the Conservatives did not implement its recommendations before they lost the election last July.

The government’s position has changed following Baroness Casey’s audit, which recommended an inquiry.

Her report found that ethnicity data is not recorded for two-thirds of grooming gang perpetrators.

However at a local level in three police forces – Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire – “there has been a disproportionality of group-based child sexual exploitation offending by men of Asian ethnicity”.

The cross bench peer said instead of looking into whether ethnicity or cultural factors played a part, authorities “avoided the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist”, and this warranted further investigation.

Politics

Prediction markets bet on Coinbase-linked Hassett as top Fed pick

Published

7 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Prediction markets bet on Coinbase-linked Hassett as top Fed pick

Prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi view Kevin Hassett, US President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council director, as the favorite to replace Jerome Powell as the next Federal Reserve chair.

The odds of Hassett filling the seat have spiked to 66% on Polymarket and 74% on Kalshi at the time of writing. Hassett is widely viewed as crypto‑friendly thanks to his past role on Coinbase’s advisory council, a disclosed seven‑figure stake in the exchange and his leadership of the White House digital asset working group.

Founder and CEO of Wyoming-based Custodia Bank, and a prominent advocate for crypto-friendly regulations, Caitlin Long, commented on X:

“If this comes true & Hassett does become Fed chairman, anti-#crypto people at the Fed who still hold positions of power will finally be out (well, most of them anyway). BIG changes will be coming to the Fed.”

Kevin Hassett’s crypto credentials

Hassett is a long-time Republican policy economist who returned to Washington as Trump’s top economic adviser and has now emerged as the market-implied frontrunner to lead the Fed.

His financial disclosure reveals at least a seven‑figure Coinbase stake and compensation for serving on the exchange’s Academic and Regulatory Advisory Council, placing him unusually close to the crypto industry for a potential Fed chair.

Still, crypto has been burned before by reading too much into “crypto‑literate” resumes. Gary Gensler arrived at the Securities and Exchange Commission with MIT blockchain courses under his belt, but went on to preside over a wave of high‑profile enforcement actions, some of which critics branded as “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”

A Hassett-led Fed might be more open to experimentation and less reflexively hostile to bank‑crypto activity. Still, the institution’s mandate on financial stability means markets should not assume a one‑way bet on deregulation.

Supervision pushback inside the Fed

The Hassett odds have jumped just as the Fed’s own approach to bank supervision has received pushback from veterans like Fed Governor Michael Barr, who earned his reputation as one of Operation Chokepoint 2.0’s key architects.

According to Caitlin Long, while he Barr “was Vice Chairman of Supervision & Regulation he did Warren’s bidding,” and he “has made it clear he will oppose changes made by Trump & his appointees.”

On Nov. 18, the Fed released new Supervisory Operating Principles that shift examiners toward a “risk‑first” framework, directing staff to focus on material safety‑and‑soundness risks rather than procedural or documentation issues.

In a speech the same day, Barr warned that narrowing oversight, weakening ratings frameworks and making it harder to issue enforcement actions or matters requiring attention could leave supervisors slower to act on emerging risks, arguing that gutting those tools may repeat pre‑crisis mistakes.

Days later, in Consumer Affairs Letter 25‑1, the Fed clarified that the new Supervisory Operating Principles do not apply to its Consumer Affairs supervision program (an area under Barr’s committee as a governor).

If prediction markets are right and a crypto‑friendly Hassett inherits this landscape, his Fed would not be writing on a blank slate but stepping into an institution already mid‑pivot on how hard (and where) it leans on banks.