After backing down on scrapping an energy allowance for pensioners and confirming cuts to disability aid not foreseen in his campaign platform, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made yet another U-turn on Saturday, June 14, having already created a habit of such moves. Speaking from the plane taking him to the G7 summit in Canada, Starmer confirmed that he would authorize a nationwide public inquiry into grooming gangs. The Labour leader had in fact opposed such a move in January, when American billionaire Elon Musk had fiercely attacked him on X. The head of Tesla and SpaceX accused him of having "been deeply complicit in the mass rapes" after learning of the existence of these gangs of sexual predators who had operated for decades in many towns and cities across central and northern England.

The crimes committed by grooming gangs had been reported in the media since the early 2000s. In the United Kingdom's most disadvantaged areas, men would lure vulnerable young girls with alcohol and free taxi rides, pretending to be their boyfriends before forcing them into sexual relations with other members of the group. Police forces launched belated investigations in Rochdale (North of Manchester) and Rotherham (in Yorkshire). These scandals only gained national attention in 2011, when Times correspondent Andrew Norfolk dared to highlight the ethnicity of a large number of perpetrators, who were often of Pakistani origin, while the victims were mostly white.

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