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It was supposed to deliver justice at last. Instead, Keir Starmer’s long-promised inquiry into child grooming gangs has ground to a halt before it even began – because nobody wants to lead it.

Four months after it was announced, the inquiry has no chair, no agreed remit and no clear purpose.

Survivors who were told they would finally be heard are now watching, yet again, as government officials argue among themselves over what their trauma is even about.

According to reports, senior judges and lawyers have all refused to take the job.

None of them want to spend years presiding over another sprawling, politically toxic process that will almost certainly end up ignored.

The Home Office admits it has not found a chair; “stakeholders” are still debating the terms of reference.

In other words, it is chaos – and entirely self-inflicted.

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Starmer resisted this inquiry for months, saying the issue had already been examined by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) – a seven-year, multimillion-pound exercise that made recommendations which are gathering dust.

He only relented after pressure from survivors, campaigners and even Elon Musk, whose social-media interventions appear to have forced the government’s hand.

Now, the result of that panicked U-turn is a shambles.

The panel of survivors and stakeholders set up to help design the inquiry is divided over its scope: should it cover only street-based grooming gangs, or include wider child sexual exploitation?

Should it look at whole regions or specific cases? Nobody seems to know.

One insider warned it risks becoming “another sprawling inquiry like IICSA’s” — vague, endless, and ultimately toothless.

Meanwhile, those who were abused as children are left to relive their pain while politicians and civil servants play procedural games.

Richard Scorer, a lawyer representing dozens of victims, said he was not surprised. None of the IICSA recommendations have been implemented, so why would any credible figure volunteer to spend years repeating the same process with the same outcome?

The message from survivors is simple: they are being betrayed again.

And what does this say about the Labour government that claimed to be restoring competence after years of Tory dysfunction?

It shows a party terrified of controversy, paralysed by its own caution, and unable to deliver even on its most solemn promises.

This inquiry was meant to prove that Starmer’s government would “get to the truth and deliver justice”.

Instead, it has exposed a truth of its own: that behind the polished speeches and moral slogans lies a system still incapable of protecting those who need it most.

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