Do you think adults convicted of sexually Âassaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t. Is that enough to make you think differently about our Prime Minister? Does it make you want to vote Labour? Or does it simply encourage you to turn your back on the lot of them?
While we don’t yet know the date of the next general election, we can now be sure the campaigning has begun. And it’s already turning dirty.
Labour launched a series of “attack ads” over the Easter break, focusing on some of the most egregious failings of the Conservatives record in office.
So far, party strategists are delighted that the adverts, due to their controversy, have been viewed more 20 million times.
You would struggle to buy that kind of “reach” and they’ve done it for free with a particularly caustic tweet.
But at what price?
There’s so much wrong wrapped up in this one image, it’s hard to know where to begin.
Perhaps with the facts.
For one, the statistics they use to back up this claim may be accurate. But they date back to 2010, pre-dating Sunak’s time in office and indeed his time as an MP. Is he really responsible for 4300 sex offenders avoiding jail?
Secondly, even if he had been in office and in charge, it’s judges who determine who goes to jail and how long for.
That’s a fairly major detail that you’d think the former head of the English prosecution service, now leader of Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer would know.
Which of course he did. And yet Labour chose to steam roller onwards with these attack ads regardless.
Why?
Labour attack ads are a threat to Starmer’s integrity – and election prospects
Perhaps it’s because the Labour leader has concluded that after three years in the top job, he has to play the Tories at their own dirty game.
That he has to circumvent traditional media and communicate the messages he wants to get out there by other means.
Particularly the message that the Tories are soft on crime with those voters Labour lost in the last general election across those now infamous red wall seats.
There’s some growing evidence that it’s working, that Keir Starmer is slowly gaining popularity in those vital areas he needs to regain if he is going to make his way to Number 10.
Yet for me there are two huge gambles at play here.
By playing this fast and loose game, Starmer is trading away one major part of what makes him different. His integrity.
He’s a serious man for serious times, with an exemplary career pre-politics behind him.
Starmer can speak authoritatively about making criminals pay and making the justice system work.
I worry that’s too big a trade-off for a few days of a trending Twitter hashtag.
Voter turnout is key for Labour
Labour were rightly outraged when the Tories’ Dominic Raab smeared Keir Starmer for not doing enough to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
It was a baseless claim but it pushed every button Labour are pushing now.
Labour’s vile attack ad on Rishi Sunak is still up on its Twitter account, despite being condemned across the party. Perhaps the most alarming part of it is that it’s been tweeted by Keir Starmer’s Director of Strategy. Sinking to the levels of others is never a good idea.
— Matthew Stadlen (@MatthewStadlen) April 7, 2023
Backbench Tories at the time, tweeted in disgust that the strategy was dangerous and would corrode trust.
They were right. Just as many Labour MPs and members are rightly uneasy now.
Secondly, what if voters also conclude, as they’ve been known to before, that “they’re all the same”?
Such a view might manifest itself in them just not bothering to show up on polling day.
Turnout has long been, in my view, the greatest threat to Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes of being Prime Minister.
The public need to see there’s a clear choice. That their lives will get better. That their leaders are deserving of their votes, as well as their clicks.
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