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'Starmer must go' Favourite topics of 'pub bore' Musk
The Guardian
|January 04, 2025
While Keir Starmer was trying to enjoy a family holiday in Madeira over the new year, Elon Musk was trying to spoil it.
The world’s richest man has been using X to lob insults and slurs in the direction of the prime minister, while teasing the prospect of donating tens of millions of dollars to Reform UK.
This potentially game-changing sum means his comments - compared to those of a "pub bore" by some on his own social media platform - have provoked political reaction and media debate. So what issues have been enraging Musk?
Grooming gangs
It was New Year’s Eve and 5:48 a.m. in London when Musk turned his attention to the "Pakistani-ancestry grooming gangs," an issue to which he seems to have been new. An account on Musk’s X platform, with just over 1,500 followers, had posted a screenshot of the sentencing remarks of Judge Rook in June 2013 following the conviction of five men involved in the exploitation and horrific abuse of young girls in the Oxford area. The screenshot showing details of hideous crimes had been reposted by an account with a larger following, with the added comment that "out of political correctness the government did everything it could to cover up the crimes." It is unclear what government involvement it was referring to. Past criticism had focused on Oxfordshire County Council and the local police.
This story is from the January 04, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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