Minister slams Musk's meddling in UK politics as 'misguided'

Wes Streeting criticizes Elon Musk's comments on UK child abuse cases, calling them misjudged and misinformed.

LONDON:

A senior British government minister on Friday criticised Elon Musk's latest intervention in the country's politics as "misjudged and certainly misinformed".

The tech billionaire accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer a day earlier of failing to bring "rape gangs" to justice when he was director of public prosecutions.

In a string of posts on his X platform, Musk also suggested that Jess Phillips, minister for the prevention of violence against women and girls, "deserves to be in prison" for refusing a request for a national public inquiry into a child sexual exploitation scandal in the northern English city of Oldham.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told ITV News television that Musk's comments were wide of the mark and that the government took child sexual exploitation "incredibly seriously".

"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," he said.

"So if he wants to work with us and roll his sleeves up, we'd welcome that," he added.

The widespread abuse of girls in a number of English towns and cities including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oldham, which emerged more than a decade ago, has long stirred controversy.

A series of court cases eventually led to the convictions of dozens of men, mostly of South Asian Muslim origin. The victims were vulnerable, mostly white, girls.

Subsequent reports into how police and social workers failed to halt the abuse found that officials in some cases turned a blind eye to avoid appearing racist.

The scandals have been seized upon by far-right figures, in particular Tommy Robinson, a prominent extremist agitator.