Rotherham: A quintessentially liberal scandal

This isn’t just a problem with political correctness or multiculturalism. It’s a failure of every component of the modern bureaucratic state, and every element of modern liberalism, from an education system that fails many poor youngsters and a welfare state that traps its dependents in poverty (both of which systems the current Conservative-led government are slowly reforming), to inertia and unaccountability of public sector bureaucracies, and the dynastic and often corrupt culture of the “Old Labour” political machines that dominate the UK’s northern cities.

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One of the many disturbing aspects of the Rotherham scandal is that virtually no one has been held to account for the multiple failings that allowed the abuse to continue for so long. Many of those responsible have simply disappeared into the public sector morass, with some moving to other councils and some still involved in child “protection,” where they will continue to pull down their six-figure salaries before retiring on six-figure pensions.

The poster boy for these shameless public servants is Shaun Wright, a former Labour councillor who was responsible for children’s services in Rotherham between 2005 and 2010, when hundreds of children were being abused. He resigned from the council, only to continue failing the victims in his new post as police and crime commissioner. Wright has so far refused to resign from that position, insisting that he is “part of the solution.”

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