Martin Narey, The UK’s Modern Matthew Hopkins…

As picked up by Obo and Mark Wadsworth, here's yet another charity in search of a meal ticket:

Sophisticated networks of older men may be grooming hundreds of British children to be trafficked within the UK for sexual exploitation, the charity Barnardo's believes.

And, they may not.

We don’t know. Certainly, Martin Narey doesn’t really know, either. Note the ‘may be’ and ‘believes’ in that article…

Organised criminals are gaining the trust of vulnerable young girls by showering them with gifts and affection, before plying them with alcohol and drugs, according to a report out today. They are then moved from city to city, where they are forced to have sex with numerous other men.

And what about the witches, Martin? I hear they suck the breath from babies at night, and cause our cows to go barren.

Will no-one deal with the problem of witches?

Barnardo's estimates that thousands of British children could be being sold for sex around the country, yet only 20% of local authorities have any specialist services to help them.

And who’d provide those specialist services, or the training for them?

Could it be Barnardo’s, I wonder?

At the time of a snapshot survey last month by the charity, 21 projects were working with 609 sexually exploited children, around half of whom go missing on a regular basis. Ninety of them – spread over 15 projects – appeared to have been "internally trafficked".

‘Appeared to have been’. Well, that’s clearly good enough for Martin!

In the last year Barnardo's, which next month will launch a TV advertising campaign on sexual exploitation, has worked with 1,060 children and young people who had suffered at the hands of abusers, in 20 local authorities. "We don't know the true extent of this problem," Narey said. "But we know, however hidden from the public eye it might be, that it affects many thousands of children."

‘We know. We just do. Don’t ask awkward questions.’

And these are the sorts of people Call-Me-Dave wants to work with to run the country...?