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That was a rather odd PMQs because it felt as though Kemi Badenoch had slipped back in time to January, when calls for a national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal were dominating the pages in rightwing newspapers because Elon Musk kept banging on about this on his global disinformation network and the news was not yet dominated by Donald Trump, because the world was still waiting for his inauguration. Most of what Badenoch said today she could have said, and did say, back then. The newish point was that, more than three months after promising five local inquiries into grooming gangs, the government can only say where one of them will actually take place.

If that was the point Badenoch wanted to make, she landed it perfectly well. She told the Commons:

[Starmer] cannot name a single place because nothing is happening. He stood there at the despatch box and promised five local inquires, nothing is happening, on the last day of term he had his minister come out to water down the promise to say they would provide funding – that’s not good enough.

At least 50 towns are affected by rape gangs, places like Peterborough, Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Rotherham, Rochdale and Preston. Is he dragging his heels on this because he doesn’t want Labour cover ups exposed?

And yet – was this really the best and most important issue to raise?

For some people, the answer is yes. There are plenty of voters who think that the systematic grooming and rape of young girls was a horrific scandal (it was) and that a holding a national inquiry would help stop it happening again (which is a lot more questionable). In taking up this issue, Badenoch is very much appealing to the core vote. But it is not even her core vote – it’s Nigel Farage’s. As this YouGov polling from January shows, the people who care most about this topic are Reform UK supporters.

One reading of this is that Badenoch’s PMQs strategy is yet more evidence of the Tories and Reform UK in competition with each other over the same voters. There was an even more bizarre example of this week when Reform UK said they would promise a national grooming gangs inquiry in their election manifesto, only for the Tories to say this was “too important to wait until the next election” and that it should take place now (which of course is what Reform UK also wants).

But there is another reading; that, for all the talk of a potential Tory/Reform UK coalition, the reality is that the merger is already happening.

As well as choosing an issues mostly of interest to Farage supporters, Badenoch also picked an argument today where, on balance, Keir Starmer has a stronger case anyway. He was on tricky ground when Badenoch asked where the other four local inquiries were happening. But he clearly had the upper hand when he pointed out that Badenoch ignored this issue when she was in office, and that multiple recommendations from previous inquiries on this were ignored by the Tories when they were in office.

Starmer set out a plausible strategy for approaching this problem that would achieve more than the inquiry demanded by the Tories.

My position is absolutely clear. Where there’s evidence then police should investigate and there should be appropriate prosecutions. That’s route number one.

Route number two we should implement existing recommendations which did expose what went wrong. They weren’t implemented by the last government, they’re being implemented by this government.

We are providing for local inquiries, we are investing more on delivering truth and justice for victims than the party opposite did in 14 long years.

And he also argued – persuasively – that his record as director of public prosecutions means he has done much more to bring grooming gangs to justice than Badenoch.

I was the prosecutor who brought the first case and when that file was brought to my attention I noticed that one of the defendants had not been prosecuted previously.

Far from covering up, I asked for that file so I could have a look at it. On the back of that I then changed the entire approach to prosecutions, which was then lauded by the government that we were doing the right thing, and brought those prosecutions.

So my record was going after where I thought something had gone wrong and putting it right. She stayed silent throughout their years in government.

Most lawyers believe the changes to prosecution guidelines introduced by Starmer when he was DPP made a considerable difference, because he said it was no longer acceptable to drop prosecutions just because the girls involved did not fit the “model victim” stereotype. The Starmer guidelines are here, and here is the Guardian’s news report at the time.

Badenoch also, of course, missed the opportunity to ask about something much more topical and arguably much more important. This is the verdict on her performance from Henry Hill, deputy editor of the ConservativeHome website.

So Tony Blair puts out a report basically agreeing with Kemi Badenoch about Net Zero… and she doesn’t mention it once at PMQs?