The hidden problem with Labour’s attack ads

If they go low, must we always go high? That is the question currently consuming the Labour Party. Though the Conservatives have rarely had any qualms about landing low blows against the opposition, Starmer’s party had, until recently, only really played it straight.

This truce of sorts ended last week. “Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison?”, the Labour ad asked on Twitter. “Rishi Sunak doesn’t”. It went on: “Under the Tories, 4,500 adults convicted of sexually assaulting children under 16 served no prison time. Labour will lock up dangerous abusers.”

On a purely tactical level, it is fair to say that the attack has been a success. It was released at the beginning of the long weekend and, with no other significant political news coming out since then, has become the main show in town. I am writing about it now and, as far as I can tell, every other commentator robbed of their bank holiday has also had to opine on it.

It has also been darkly amusing to witness outraged screams from corners of the Conservative Party and Fleet Street, given how often they dish it out. If you had no problem with Boris Johnson linking Keir Starmer to Jimmy Savile and the Daily Mail branding judges “enemies of the people”, you don’t exactly have a leg to stand on.

It is also striking that Starmer has refused to back down, writing on Monday that he will “make absolutely zero apologies for being blunt”, and will “stand by every word Labour has said on this subject”.

That doesn’t mean he’s managed to convince everyone on his benches. Though frontbenchers Emily Thornberry, Peter Kyle and Steve Reed have publicly stood behind their leader, other prominent figures – such as David Blunkett – have attacked the ads.

The question is: who has it right? Both parties have mounted personal campaigns against their opponents in the past; what’s different this time?

The answer, I think, lies away from the Westminster bubble. The difference between now and, say, 10 or 15 years ago is that our ecosystem has changed and grown, and not necessarily for the best. As we saw during and after the pandemic, misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread at a horrifying pace online.

They often begin with a sliver of truth; a comment made by a mainstream figure which is twisted or taken out of context, then snowball into full-blown nonsense. Though Britain has thankfully not reached the American highs – or, well, lows – of QAnon and assorted movements, it is not immune to fake news.

As noted in this paper recently, even members of parliament have fallen for the “15-minute cities” and “73 genders” conspiracy theories. Given how prone these circles are to believe that international political elites either are or at the very least knowingly shelter paedophiles, it seems unwise to imply that, for example, Rishi Sunak doesn’t care about sexual assault against children.

Of course, this is a frustrating state of affairs. If politicians never used words that could be twisted in any way by malevolent forces, they’d never say anything at all. Those who seek to paint everyone in Westminster as evil will also always find ways to do so.

Still, mainstream politics no longer exists in the vacuum it once inhabited. The internet has changed everything, and this is no exception. Attack ads will realistically never go away – they have been around for, presumably, as long as there have been elections – but not all of them are created equal.

Starmer should be free to attack the government’s record on convictions and prison sentences, but there should be ways of doing so that won’t fan the flames of conspiratorial thinking. Otherwise, everyone will lose out in the long run.