Good morning. Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch will be in the Commons today for the first PMQs of 2025 and the Tory calls for national inquiry into grooming gangs will continue to be near the top of the news agenda. That is because Badenoch is pushing for a vote on the children’s wellbeing and schools bill that would block the legislation and call on the government to set up an inquiry instead. The inquiry element is a procedural red herring because the Conservatives would have voted against the bill anyway. But, if the Speaker does allow a vote on the Tory reasoned amendment, Badenoch will be able to launch a social media campaign accusing Labour of voting against a grooming gang inquiry.

The Conservatives are opposed to the bill primarily because it will restrict some of the freedoms enjoyed by academies. But the legislation also contains safeguarding measures that have widespread support, and Starmer has given an interview to the Daily Mirror saying that, if the Tories vote for their amendment, it will show they are more interested in retweets than children’s safety. He told the paper:

I would implore any right-thinking Tory MP to vote for the bill because [the Conservative reasoned amendment] would kill the bill, this would kill the legislation. It would kill the provisions for a unique identifying number that will stop children falling through the cracks …

No MP should be voting down children’s safeguarding measures. It’s shocking they are even thinking about this as a tactic. It’s the elevation of the desire for retweets over any real interest in the safeguarding of children.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary,has been echoing this message on a morning interview round. More on that soon.

The Conservatives have dismissed claims that they’re just bandwagoning, and that they are only pushing for an inquiry because Elon Musk, Reform UK and GB News have been banging on about this for some time. But Badenoch first tweeted about this on Thursday last week, at which point the bandwagon was already rolling, and last night one of the most senior figures in her team, the shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith, posted a message on X that gave a revealing insight into the party’s thinking. Without mentioning child sex abuse, Griffiths said that Musk was someone who “may have saved humanity”.

The @elonmusk purchase of X may have saved humanity.

With X becoming a true freedom of speech platform, the common ground of public opinion is no longer determined by a left-leaning elite.

Recent political earthquakes in the US, the UK and now Canada are a release of pent up democratic will as citizens regain their ability to speak freely.

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press created the preconditions for democracies to replace bad kings or clerics.

X is now doing the same for unaccountable and failing bureaucratic states.

Badenoch hasn’t been quite this effusive, but last year she did say she was a “huge fan of Elon Musk” because of what he had done to champion free speech. Musk’s critics take a very different view; looking at what has happened to X since he took over, they would argue that the Badenoch/Griffith assessment is only accurate if you define free speech as meaning primarily extremism, misinformation, lies and racism.

Some of this may get thrashed out later in the Commons. Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Andrew Dilnot, who produced a report on social care reform 14 years ago that has never been implemented, gives evidence to the Commons health committee.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: MPs begin debating the second reading of the children’s wellbeing and schools bill. They will vote at 7pm.

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If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

Source: www.theguardian.com