This is Northumberland Calling 10.1.25

The Things are moving without inquiries but there may be one edition

Hello America (Particularly Central Ohio) this is Northumberland Calling

This last week saw the rape gang scandal explode once again. It is good that Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) in Britain is far higher up the national and indeed international news agenda thanks to Elon Musk. It is a terrible scandal. Work has been done but more needs to be done. The Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has backed calls for a limited national inquiry to join the dots such as Kemi Badenoch had called for. He had commissioned an inquiry in 2017 which has reported, but said more needed to be done because various people refused to give evidence etc. Several victims have also backed the call. Indeed the Children’s Commissioner and Jess Phillips both obliquely have indicated that it might happen. I suspect that this will happen in due course. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/09/grooming-gangs-survivor-urges-government-launch-inquiry/ or https://archive.ph/zkToT

If you wish to read about why inquiries can be used to stimy things, I highly recommend Mick Herron’s spy-tainment thriller The Secret Hours. It is part of the Slow Horses universe, but not specifically about the Slow Horses (the next novel in that series comes out in September 25). And it is very much a satire on the way the British government operates.

One of the actions which has been done is the collation of statistics as a result of the Jay Inquiry aka the Hydrant Programme. So yes, despite what the current Labour government and others have claimed, some of the recommendations from that inquiry were followed through in a timely fashion by the previous government. It is now possible to say that yes, rape gang offending is still happening in England and Wales with 717 cases recorded. The scale of Child Sexual Abuse in Britain is also significant (115,489) . CSE forms a subset of only 3.7% of all CSA cases (4228) and only 17% of these can be attributed to rape gangs. 26% of the CSE cases involves 2 or more members of the same family. The ethnicity data is not nearly as good as it could be as it is only recorded in 30% of the cases. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/10/grooming-gangs-two-offences-every-day/ or https://archive.ph/boi8G

What we do know is that many countries such as Pakistan have a significant problem with child marriage with 3.6% of girls being married before the age of 15. Indeed although sex is forbidden outside marriage, there is no age of consent in Pakistan. The lowest age of consent is 11 in Nigeria. The highest is 21 in Bahrain. https://www.ageofconsent.net/highest-and-lowest Every immigrant into the UK now must pass the Life in the UK test in order to lawfully settle here or indeed obtain citizenship. However, a quick glance at my copy of the handbook from 2018 shows that there is no mention of the age of consent (16) or indeed that polygamous marriage is unlawful in the UK. A start would be to ensure that these facts are included in the test and do come up frequently. It could help with the problem of British schoolgirls being taken to Pakistan and other countries to be ‘married’ as well. There are sections on domestic violence and female genital mutilation (fgm) btw so there is precedence. It will not solve everything but it might raise awareness amongst the immigrant population.

The Times has looked at some of the people in authority when the various cases became known and what has happened to them. Some have thrived such as Tom Harding, the police superintendent in Telford who called the claims ‘sensationalised’ before the convictions and who is now in charge of operational standards at the College of Policing. His tweets and indeed his account in which he appeared to minimize the scandal has now been deleted. He claims his remarks were ‘taken out of context’. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-chief-defends-sensationalised-grooming-scandal-remarks-0x30pwgdz or https://archive.ph/iYxqR

Others from Rotherham are mentioned in this article, explaining how they re-invented themselves. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/how-rotherham-bosses-have-reinvented-themselves-since-grooming-scandal-6rl0gpd3m or https://archive.ph/zE7BX

The Tulip Saddiq scandal keeps bubbling along. Questions are being asked about why Starmer has not sacked her – basically because she is one of his firmest supporters and a friend. But the papers are digging into her relationship with her aunt’s party in Bangladesh. It is perhaps a measure of the other problems which this government faces… Today the Times reports that the government is quietly interviewing other people for the ministerial position. Tulip Saddiq did not accompany Rachel Reeves and others on a trip to China. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/downing-street-considering-candidates-to-replace-tulip-siddiq-7x65s225p or https://archive.ph/4Nbbb

The Royal Society of Literature is busy imploding. The top tier of the leadership has resigned after the diversity drive went pear-shaped ahead of the AGM. The RSL is supposed to be elitist btw. It is about significant works of merit in literature. It really has little to do with commercial publishing but instead focuses merit or significant works of literature. All kudos to the so-called rebels who complained. https://www.thetimes.com/article/6fb49f10-8ae5-4c8d-a5e0-a5aa8da95a45 or https://archive.ph/C8ZE2

Some of the warriors buried in the Anglo-Saxon graves at Sutton Hoo may have had significant links to the Byzantine Empire and could have served in the army there is an interesting new theory by a leading Angl-Saxon scholar. People do seem to forget that some people did travel, not just objects. There is apparently a significant number of objects from the Byzantine Empire contained within the burial site, mainly related to war but were manufactured quite close to the time they were buried. Trade normally takes a far long time for objects like spoons, bowls and horse harnesses to travel that distance. https://www.medievalists.net/2025/01/sutton-hoo-warriors-byzantine-army/

Here it remains perishingly cold. We had significant snow on Sunday and that has turned to ice. I am very pleased that I put the fondant on the bees and indeed the insulation in the hives. It gives them a fighting chance. The bees will be in a ball and basically hibernating. If the sun warms up the hive enough, they will have ‘cleansing’ flights. Every spring, I clear the debris from the hive because I have varroa mite floors in (varroa is a huge problem in hives in the UK but it is managed through good beekeeping) and the bees also clear out once the mouse guards are removed (I have lost hives to mice to before – they like to hibernate in the warmth and then eat the stores, causing the bees to starve).

Paddy enjoying the snow last Sunday

Paddy enjoys the snow and has been pouncing about.

I am slowly working on my single title (aka not Harlequin) story and have finally figured out why it wasn’t going anywhere. I had made it far too easy for the protagonist at the start and had reduced the possibilities for tension and conflict. Readers want that tension. It is why they read novels. My editor will get back to me on my latest Viking at the end of the month.

If you want to find me during the week, I have started putting things on Celia M’s Jottings in Purple

which is where a number of refuge FP commentators are hanging out as they dislike the current FP policy on comments. The discussion is usually lively as you might expect from former FP commentators. Depending on how firmly my Procrastination Princess tiara is attached (aka how well my actual writing is going), I may end up getting distracted.

Hopefully everyone else’s week was a good one. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.

If you like what you read on here, why not subscribe? It’s free and I don’t have any plans to put in a paywall. If you want to ‘reward me’, why not buy one of my books? Currently a number of them are on special at $1.99. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michelle-Styles/author/B00288QUJM?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1729240286&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true