I was pondering over quite how disgracefully cynical the Tories attempts to wreck the children's safety bill on an amendment just to try and use the suffering of girls raped, and I realised that it is too easy to get licked into a form of habitual behaviour. Note I don't think that excuses their behaviour but it did make me reflect on mine, and hence I think I owe an apology to Prof D, and any posters reading the exchanges yesterday between us, for falling into a groove of 'knockabout stuff' that I could have got ChatGPT to do.
Thank you for your reflection and apology. I did feel that last night we ended up arguing for arguments sake, while my instinct was that there was very little difference in our views on the matter.
I think there should be a further inquiry, with a remit focused on the overall reaction to 'grooming gangs", and I don't think this stops action being taken on the 2022 report.
What do you mean by
"overall reaction to 'grooming gangs'". I don't understand and the Jay inquiry clearly included investigation of the grooming gangs (or organised groups, as they were described in the inquiry's remit). So what would this new inquiry cover that Jay's didn't. That is important as were it to cover the same remit, then we are back into the territory where a new inquiry (covering the same ground) precludes taking action on the recommendations of the earlier inquiry.
So to my mind, for a new national inquire to have any validity it must:
1. Cover ground that was not covered by the earlier inquiry (unless you think the previous inquiry was flawed, in which case you are back to 'no action until the new inquiry is concluded')
2. Be of national scale - either by looking at national issues or where the outcomes and recommendations have national reach.
3. Be proportionate - in other words that the time (and delay to taking action) and cost are justified by the importance of the remit of the inquiry (this loops back to 1, as the remit cannot be just what Jay's was, but something distinct).
I am genuinely struggling to see what would be covered by those three requirements. I understand there is a call for an inquiry specifically into Oldham (I think), as that wasn't a focus topic for Jay, not the topic of an earlier local inquiry. So that would look at specific local issues, but the broader issues of grooming gangs was considered by Jay. So this fails on 2 above, and should therefore be a local inquiry, not a national one. And my understanding is that the government has no issue with a local Oldham inquiry, but that this cannot be a statutory national inquiry (for the reasons I've mentioned).
I think there's a valid issue raised by Prof D on the cost of such inquiries but I think that should encourage us to look at how we make them more efficient, perhaps we need an inquiry on inquiries 
. I think we have to be careful though that cost shouldn't simply be used as a determinant factor else we go down the Johnson complaining about the money that was being used in the child sex abuse inquiry being staffed against the wall - something that the story party have been happy to ignore then and now.
Sure you could trim down inquiries and reduce cost and time. But to do that you'd need to restrict the numbers of people whose voices can be heard in that inquiry and good luck with that.
Anger is an energy on such matters but it's also too easy to become, like love, a drug, and distract from the deep tragedies involved in the systematic abuse of girls and women that has gone on.
I agree anger is a driving raw emotion, and one that often leads to 'I am angry over this issue, there must be an inquiry'. Or 'there was an inquiry, but I wasn't called to give evidence, so there must be another inquiry'.
Completely understandable, but inquiries are not there (just, perhaps not at all) to calm the anger of victims. The key remit of an inquiry is to determine what, if anything, went wrong and to make recommendations to changes in legislation, practice etc to avoid that issue happening in the future.
