Nick Robinson Accuses Top Tory Of 'Political Opportunism' Over Grooming Gangs Scandal

A BBC presenter has accused a top Tory of “political opportunism” over the party’s demand for a judge-led inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal.

Nick Robinson clashed with shadow home secretary Chris Philp on Radio 4′s Today programme this morning.

In June, Keir Starmer finally threw his weight behind a national inquiry into the rape and sexual abuse of vulnerable young girls by groups of men of mainly Pakistani origin.

However, that ran into trouble in October after four survivors of abuse quit their roles amid claims Downing Street is dragging its feet over the probe.

In a further blow, the man seen as the favourite to chair the inquiry, Jim Gamble, then withdrew from it.

Kemi Badenoch will today publish the Tories’ own terms of reference for a statutory national inquiry into the scandal.

Robinson told Philp: “The man who withdrew from the process of being appointed as chair of the inquiry said: ‘We have a problem with political opportunism and point-scoring’.

“Isn’t that what we’re seeing from you this morning, Mr Philp?”

But the Tory frontbencher said: “No, absolutely not. We have constructively come up with quite a long and detailed terms of reference. We developed it very carefully, consulting with a number of survivors and their families. We’re trying to be constructive.”

Robinson then told him: “But you haven’t achieved the goal of bringing all survivors together, which is the problem, because they have very different views about whether to have a narrow inquiry or a wider inquiry.”

Philp replied: “We’ve brought together all of the survivors and their family members that we have been able to contact, which is a fair number.

’The main point is that it should not have taken half a year to get this far.”