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The boss of the CBI has warned Elon Musk he will have to “come through me first” in an extraordinary defence of home office minister Jess Phillips.
Rupert Soames, who is the grandson of Winston Churchill, backed the Labour politician days after the billionaire used his X social media platform to accuse her of being a “rape genocide apologist”.
The CBI president told Politico’s Power Play podcast: “If anybody wants to get at Jess Phillips, they’re going to have to come through me first … How is it in this world that you can have somebody who can land a space rocket in between two chopsticks, who can create this enormous car company and then becomes obsessed by throwing darts at politicians and people in other countries?”
Safeguarding minister Ms Phillips has revealed that she faced a “deluge of hate” after the Musk attack.
It followed Labour’s decision to decline a Whitehall-led inquiry into child sexual abuse in Oldham.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy also hit back following the onslaught of posts by Mr Musk over the grooming gangs scandal in recent days. He told BBC Breakfast: “Well, I insist that we focus on the truth, we focus on the facts.
“I recognise that there is a heated debate about free speech and Elon Musk is at one end of that debate.
“But to have free speech it must be based on facts and on truth, and some of what we’ve seen online is peddling mistruth, is creating bad faith, is very unfair to those victims.”
He also defended Ms Phillips saying she had “done a considerable job standing up for women.
“We’ve had this debate. We’re moving forward and we’re dealing with the horrendous, horrific crimes of paedophilia against young people, young children – vulnerable young children often – and going after those who commit it, I’ve no doubt about that”.
On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer suggested the door was open to a U-turn on a national inquiry despite ordering his MPs to vote against initiating one.
After Ms Phillips said a new national probe into the scandal was still on the table, the prime minister’s spokesperson said the government would grant one if victims’ groups called for it.
Labour has previously said any inquiry into grooming gangs should be locally led.
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government would begin to implement Prof Jay’s call for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, with further details expected to be set out in the coming weeks.
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