Russia. Brexit. Theresa May. Jeremy Corbyn. Customs Union. Vladimir Putin. Are we forgetting something? Oh yes, child abuse. This week it was revealed that the most horrific crimes had been committed in the quiet town of Telford. Crimes that are so uniquely cruel and wicked that it is hard not to think that there is only one way to truly punish the perpetrators.
It was not a case of a single child being molested by a seedy, old pervert, but the mass rape, drugging and pimping out of young, white, working-class girls on an almost industrial scale over several years.
If that was not enough, the authorities, the people that demand the absolute respect of we mere mortals, knew about it and did nothing. You read it correctly, nothing.
These poor girls, some of whom went on to kill themselves and actually were killed, were abandoned by the state as "prostitutes" and the scum of the earth that do not warrant the protection of overpaid council staff and over-mighty police chiefs.
Imagine being so twisted as to think that a fourteen-year-old girl could ever be a prostitute or that the race of the perpetrators should have any bearing on their prosecution. I cannot, neither would any decent person.
And yet, we will readily lap up the usual "We've learnt a lesson" line and the faux outrage from the people who had a duty to know and do something about it.
This story comes at the same time as the Skipral poisoning but, rather than be relegated to the background as it has been, it should be alongside this gruesome case. Every news channel should be covering it, Question Time should be dominated by it and the front pages should be crying out in demand of the truth. Instead, we have heard barely a whimper and so those innocent girls are still denied the justice that they deserve.
An ever darkening world
One of the worrying things about the modern world of 24-hour news and instant communication is the desensitisation of us to horror.
We do not live in an innocent era, it is a time of terror and rape, poisoning and corruption. And yet, I still felt the bile rising in my throat as I read the truly excellent work of the Daily Mirror into this terrifying case.
Child abuse still, rightly, has the power to shock. Every time a new tranche of allegations are made public, it comes under some variation of the headline: "The worst grooming scandal in Britain." How mortifying it is to think that it could easily be our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews being abused by the most evil people. And the response from the Prime Minister? "we have all been shocked." You could almost script it. A lifeless response on an issue that has for too long been ignored for political expediency by all from the upper echelons of the police (the politicians in uniform) to the councils and social workers.
This time, a phrase that I wish I did not have to use in relation to this, it was not in some large town or city, it was in sleepy Telford, a place best known for its glorious scenery and the Iron Bridge. We told ourselves that we had learnt from Rotherham. Never again would over a thousand girls being sexually abused by gangs of men En Masse. We would honour those victims by saving others.
The naivety, in hindsight, is sickening. We haven't improved our prevention services. These beasts still walk our streets, drive the taxis that ferry their victims around and run the kebab shops above which they drug and rape teenage girls. They are still able to bribe and threaten the most desperate of girls into a terrifying downward spiral into drugs, gang rapes, prostitution and abortions (which always seem to go unquestioned).
Delusional
Never again. That's what we'll tell ourselves. We'll feel better about it, until it happens again. And then it'll be the "worst" case in Britain. In the meantime, we can call Tommy Robinson, or someone like him, a bigot for connecting the common backgrounds of these monsters (which is so terribly important when it can justify crime) to the evil crimes they have committed.
But it will happen again, I hate to say that I am almost certain of it. Chief Superintendent Tom Harding of West Mercia Police (the man thrown out in front of the press when the time arises) said that the figure of 1,000 allegations has been "sensationalised." That it happens at all is vile enough, but to argue that it's not as bad because he does not "believe Telford is any worse than lots of places in England and Wales." Isn't that a relief?
In their negative response to suggestions of an independent inquiry into this area, which it is alleged stretches back several decades, the Home Office spokesman expressed the usual platitudes and pointed to increased funding for the National Crime Agency. Because, of course, more money is the solution to everything!
Money stops authorities disregarding young girls, no, children as "prostitutes" and passing off these innocent young girls because they come from poor backgrounds and have never been taught to aspire or achieve. In fact, three people were murdered as a result. But that didn't make the news either. It has gone on for so many decades, as presumably it is going on now, that it is just waiting for the next scandal to blow-up in a big city or a large town.
There is no getting away from the fact that the bulk of the predators involved were Asian (Pakistani) Muslims. The Birmingham Mail reported back in 2014, for goodness' sake, that 75 percent of known groomers on the streets are Asian and that 82 percent of the victims are white and aged between 14 and 16.
Now, you try to argue that the likelihood is that exactly the same thing is happening. You can't. It is alleged, quite credibly being as it crops up in almost all of these cases, that the authorities failed to act for fear of being branded 'racist.'
You can make your own mind up about that, I can only conclude that those who made that decision are as bad as the monsters that perpetrated it and should be ashamed to have ever placed an essentially ideological viewpoint over the safety and well-being of the most vulnerable in society.
How we should long for sensible policy of colour-blind policing, not this modern clap-trap, but a genuine desire to ensure the safety of our children no matter their background. Our society is much darker than we, the oh-so-enlightened lot, like to think. When we have seen more criticism over Nadine Dorries sending an insensitive tweet to Sadiq Khan on this heart-breaking issue, when Question Time doesn't even bother to devote five minutes to it and instead bangs on again about Brexit, and when girls in their thousands right across the country are abandoned to a life of abuse and drugs because of their upbringing, then we should hang our national heads in shame.
Paedophiles only need useful idiots to look the other way, and they have done.
This is an evil crime (I certainly know how I'd deal with them), and we'll pretend that lessons have been learnt. But for all of the bluster and all of the sound-bites, we are still the same, too quick to move on and forget about it, and, I am sick to say, it will keep on happening. The people that facilitated this should be driven from public life and punished, but they won't be and they will never have to face the girls whose lives they did nothing to save.