{"id":34728,"date":"2026-05-12T14:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/34728\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:35:13","slug":"starmer-adviser-accused-of-offering-peerage-to-ousted-council-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/34728\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer adviser accused of offering peerage to ousted council leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Critics interpreted the message as Baroness Harman appearing to offer the prospect of a peerage to the former council leader.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, said it showed that Labour \u201cwill never change\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFresh from the Peter Mandelson scandal, they are now trying to stuff the House of Lords with more of their cronies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd in this case, it seems the target is the ousted leader of Oldham council, where questions remain about the authority\u2019s turning a blind eye to the despicable crimes of the rape gangs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBritain deserves better than this miserable, failing government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The King\u2019s birthday honours list will be published next month. The Financial Times reported that Jim McMahon, a Labour MP and another former leader of Oldham council, is in line for a knighthood.<\/p>\n<p>Oldham council was heavily criticised in a <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2025\/01\/04\/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2022 independent report<\/a> into historic grooming-gang offences in the town. At the time of the report, Ms Shah was not council leader.<\/p>\n<p>The review found that Greater Manchester Police and the council had failed a number of young girls who were victims of child sexual exploitation. It looked into cases from 2011 to 2014.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2025, councillors in Oldham voted unanimously to demand a statutory public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in the town.<\/p>\n<p>Four months later, Sir Keir Starmer announced a <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2025\/06\/14\/starmer-launches-national-grooming-gang-inquiry\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">full statutory inquiry into grooming gangs<\/a>, with Oldham one area prioritised for local investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Shah welcomed the inquiry, describing it as \u201can important step forward for our borough and for everyone who has been affected\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cWe have not shied away from the issue of CSE in Oldham, we are and will continue to confront the issue without prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Critics interpreted the message as Baroness Harman appearing to offer the prospect of a peerage to the former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[62,13978,8042,94,16136,18,330,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-34728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-greater-manchester-police","9":"tag-harriet-harman","10":"tag-house-of-lords","11":"tag-keir-starmer","12":"tag-labour-party-conference","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-standard","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116562108259220365","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}