The prime minister has rarely seemed so passionate as when he answered a question from Sky’s Beth Rigby on Elon Musk’s vitriolic comments about safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who Musk described as a “witch” who should go to prison.
Sir Keir Starmer was speaking at a press conference following a big new year speech on the government’s plans to bring down NHS waiting lists – and while we were expecting him to take the opportunity to rebut Musk’s inflammatory posts on the grooming gangs, he set out his position with all guns blazing.
After days of virtual silence – a vacuum filled online by yet more outlandish, defamatory comments – Sir Keir mounted a passionate defence of his own and Ms Phillips’ actions and launched a blistering attack on Kemi Badenoch, too. It felt like quite a moment for the PM.
He described child sexual exploitation as “utterly sickening” and defended his role as chief prosecutor tackling that “head on” – reopening cases that had been closed, carrying out the “first major prosecution by an Asian grooming gang”, and changing the way the CPS dealt with the issue.
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He praised the track record of Ms Phillips in fighting for the rights of child victims of sexual abuse, claiming she had “done a thousand times more” than any of her critics, and condemning the “poison of the far right” which had led to serious threats against her.
But rather than focus his critique on Musk himself – his real ire was directed at the Tory party.
“A line has been crossed”, he said, criticising “politicians jumping on the bandwagon just to get attention… so desperate for attention they’re amplifying what the far right is saying”.
He later went on to single out the “leader of the opposition” – claiming that “only a few months ago it would have been unthinkable” for someone in Ms Badenoch’s position not to denounce and distance themselves from the comments made to Ms Phillips.
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The Conservatives have clearly been under increasing pressure from Reform UK since the election.
While supporters welcomed Ms Badenoch’s tweet last week calling for a national public inquiry into what she described as the “rape gang scandals”, others saw it as scrambling to catch up with the narrative set by Musk and Reform UK.
That would certainly seem to be the analysis of the prime minister, who sounded genuinely angry in denouncing what he described as the “poison of the far right” infecting politics and calling for a discussion based on “facts and truth not on lies”.
He repeatedly hit out at the Conservatives’ failure to implement the 20 recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, though Labour have not yet done so either. He insisted they’re working at speed to deliver them.
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We don’t often hear the lawyerly Sir Keir speaking with such fire in his belly and it was quite a gear change from the rather more workmanlike speech which preceded it, despite the fact it was his big new year moment to set out his plans for his number one priority – the NHS.
Sir Keir described his work on the NHS as “the cornerstone” of his work “rebuilding our country”, talking at length about his love for the national health service, his plans for expanded community diagnostic centres, the NHS app, the transforming power of AI, and an expanding role of the private sector.
It was a speech about policies which could, if they work, make a real difference to people’s lives across the country.
But, in time to come, what will be remembered will surely be his response to the online storm brewed by Musk and Reform UK – and harnessed by the Conservatives.
