During an election campaign, it’s important – even necessary – to raise burning issues with the people who are running to represent the local area.
But it’s also quite important to make sure you’re asking the right questions.
That’s particularly crucial when it comes to sensitive and extremely heavy topics like the grooming gang scandal.
There are plenty of issues on the matter that might be legitimate to raise with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – just ask campaigner Maggie Oliver, who has brought some up herself.
However, one social media user provided a good example of what not to do in a video later posted to X.
Confronting Burnham on a street amid campaigning in the Makerfield by-election, he says: ‘Andy, can I ask you why you didn’t support the rape gang inquiry?’
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The Labour candidate immediately replies: ‘I did, I ordered one.’
When the man behind the camera disagrees and accuses him of a cover-up, Burnham continues: ‘I ordered one in 2017.’
Still not satisfied, the man asks: ‘Why hasn’t it happened, then?’
Burnham replies: ‘It has, go and read the reports online. One into Manchester, one into Oldham, one into Rochdale, new charges.’
Responding to one of the social media posts featuring the video, the Greater Manchester Mayor claimed the person filming was ‘a Restore supporter from Sheffield’.
Baroness Beverley Hughes was tasked with compiling an initial review of issues relating to child sexual exploitation (CSE) in July 2017, less than two months after Burnham was first elected Mayor.
Her findings led him to commission a independent review into CSE in Greater Manchester, led by Malcolm Newsam CBE and Gary Ridgway.
The first report from that review, which detailed how victims were let down by the police and local authorities, was published in January 2020. The second came out in June 2022, and the third in January 2024.
Oliver, who resigned as a detective constable at Greater Manchester Police over the force’s handling of the case, has praised two of the reports as ‘quite thorough’.
However, she has been heavily critical of the Oldham inquiry that was published in 2022, and resigned over the handling of a fourth report tackling the police’s current approach to the issue.
In January last year, Burnham was also one of the earliest high-profile Labour figures to back a ‘limited’ national inquiry into CSE.
He said: ‘There will always be limitations with what you can do with a local review. The review team could not compel someone to speak to them. That is something I couldn’t do at my level.’
Sir Keir Starmer announced a national inquiry in June 2025, following an audit carried out by Baroness Louise Casey.
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