The Government has rejected calls for a full national inquiry into grooming gangs (Image: Katie Pugh)

       In at least 50 – 50! – towns in our beautiful country, there are gangs of men who have committed racially aggravated crimes against children.

       These children have been tortured and raped in ways so horrific, so depraved and disgusting, that it would feel indecent to describe them here.

       How many of these men were there? Where did they come from? How have they been punished – how many were arrested, imprisoned, deported? How many are now living among their victims?

       What did the authorities know and when? What did they do about it? How exactly did fear of being called racist, or “inflaming community tensions”, stop people saving these girls?

       Would that still happen now? How is it possible that not one person has been convicted for covering up these industrialised rapes?

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       How has this happened in so many places across the nation? What deeper and darker truths does that reveal about our country?

       And is it still happening – are there little girls right now out there somewhere in Britain being sexually tortured by gangs of men who see them as a lower form of life?

       These questions – the last most of all – keep me up at night. And we have either no answers or very partial ones. The idea that the Government’s reluctant solution of five local inquiries will provide those answers is insane.

       It’s five places and not 50, so almost all towns will get no answers whatsoever. But even a full set of local inquiries wouldn’t be nearly enough.

       Local inquiries have no legal powers to summon witnesses or evidence. They will only be held by local authorities who choose to hold them – those same authorities accused of corruption and collusion in these crimes.

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       Local inquiries can never address central government issues, like what it would take to deport every last one of these perpetrators where they are foreign nationals.

       That’s why the Conservatives have called, and will keep calling, for a national inquiry. We have forced a vote in Parliament to ask the Government to do the right thing, and we will do so again and again.

       Even Labour politicians from the worst affected areas are calling for a national inquiry. This is no bandwagon.

       The British state has failed these children enough already. Nothing – and certainly not causing offence – is more important than protecting them now. That is our priority. What about you, Prime Minister?