PM condemns Musk for 'lies and misinformation' on abuse cases

Keir Starmer condemned Elon Musk's increasingly erratic attacks on the government yesterday and suggested that his "lies and misinformation" on grooming gangs were amplifying the "poison" of the far right.

- Pippa Crerar, Rajeev Syal, Aletha Adu

The prime minister also angrily criticised Tory politicians for "jumping on the bandwagon" by calling for a national inquiry into the scandal having failed to implement any of the recommendations of a major report while they were in power. He accused them of being more interested in themselves than supporting victims. Ministers promised yesterday to introduce a key demand of Prof Alexis Jay's 2022 child sexual abuse inquiry so that professionals who worked with children would face sanctions if they failed to report claims of abuse under a law introduced this year.

Starmer, the target of wild criticism from Musk on his social media platform X, said the debate on the issue had now "crossed a line", with threats against MPs, including the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, called a "rape genocide apologist" by the billionaire, who demanded that she be jailed.

Musk has claimed that Starmer was "complicit in the rape of Britain". Responding to his comments yesterday, the billionaire described the prime minister as "utterly despicable" and said he was "deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes".

Starmer's condemnation was part of a growing chorus of European criticism of Musk, including from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who accused the world's richest man of intervening directly in the continent's democratic processes.

Some in the UK government had urged caution amid concerns over the destabilising role that Musk, a close ally of Donald Trump who has been asked to become a special adviser to the incoming US president, could potentially play in transatlantic relations. However, Starmer unleashed his ire on Musk - who has endorsed the far-right activist Tommy Robinson - and Tory politicians in his first public appearance of the new year, a speech in south-east England on the future of the NHS.