Don't Vote Labour (Part 4)

Attack Ads

Attack ads

The Tories are often accused of fighting dirty. The current bout of dirty campaigning was started, however, by Labour when they released an attack ad about Rishi Sunak in April. It said, without any kind of qualifiers or hedging, that Sunak thinks adults convicted of sexually abusing children should not go to prison. If this isn't libel it comes very close to it. It's as good as saying Sunak is a paedophile sympathiser, or worse.

Of course you can criticise a government's record on law and order, and of course you can use rhetoric. But here there is nothing to cover Labour and protect them from being libellous. All they had to do was put 'it seems Rishi Sunak does' or something to that effect - still dramatic but not as brazen. The advert immediately drew criticism, from the right and left. Die-hard Starmer supporters, New Labour admirers and EU rejoiners were of course fully in favour - a common attitude being 'they've done it to us so we should do it to them'. Such an approach disregards notions of not stooping to your opponent's level, and overlooks the especially egregious nature of this attack ad. Nevertheless the 'Starm-troopers' could not see anything wrong with the Sunak ad, or at least they wouldn't admit it.

I cannot recall the Conservatives publishing such a nasty and irresponsible advert (this side of the 1960s), and even in their recent reprisals they have not gone quite so low. The closest to the knuckle was their recent 'Better Call Keir' graphic, which drew attention to Starmer having represented a now-proscribed Islamist group when he was a barrister. That is pretty below the belt, but is more based in fact than the Sunak ad. Unlike most of Labour's attempts at memes, it is actually quite amusing. Another example is them clipping Sadiq Khan saying 'Labour needs to be anti-racist and anti-Semitic'. It was an amusing slip of the tongue, but they should have showed his immediate correction.

Back to the Sunak ad, like his supporters, Starmer would refuse to back down. Asked if he should apologise for it, lawyer-mode kicked in and he said "I make no apologies for highlighting the failures of this government". He went on to waffle along these lines before the journalist could press him further. He would not engage with the specific issue at hand. Other Labour figures did the same. Once again, this is cowardice. If Starmer were the sensible and compassionate man we've been led to believe he is, he would have admitted the advert was a bit over the top and pledged not to repeat the tactic. After all, he may not have signed off on it personally, and it would have looked like he was taking command of the situation. Instead he seemed evasive and fully in support of what amounts to gutter politics.

The intention of the attack is not to 'highlight' an issue - you can do that in a direct way without being personal or committing something akin to libel. It is to leave a hook in the public consciousness - people might think 'wasn't there something about Sunak and paedos?' and that might be in their head as their pencil poises over the ballot paper. It is of the gutter, and is the type of populism the centre-left usually decries. 

Some critics went even further and contended it was an attempt to appeal to anti-Asian prejudice, given the issue of Asians (Pakistanis rather than Indians) being in 'grooming gangs' and raping young British girls. This is a stretch, and accusing racism is often a tactic the modern left use whenever an ethnic minority on their team is criticised. It's not a good game to play. You never know, though, in the cynical world of power politics - there might be something in it. It would certainly be ironic, given most of these outrages happened under Labour councils, and Labour has been accused of covering them up or turning a blind eye.

Starmer's lack of apology was compounded by a whole series of adverts in the same format. We were also informed that Rishi Sunak believes thieves shouldn't be punished and people possessing guns with violent intent shouldn't go to prison. Another, slightly fairer, focussed on his wife having non-domiciled tax status. It is unclear whether doing a series was always the plan, or was an attempt to cloud the issue.

Labour are pursuing a pretty lowbrow campaign in general. Sex crimes are a recurring theme for them. Back in 2021 they claimed in a graphic that “under the Tories rape has effectively been decriminalised”. They based this on the fact a tiny percentage of rapes that are reported to police actually end up in charges being made. It's fine to lament the lack of charges, and to question whether the police or CPS are functioning properly. However, you cannot claim that the serious crime of rape has been 'decriminalised'. Decriminalisation is when restrictions to an illegal activity are removed and not enforced. Nobody has done this, even if the statistics around rape are worrying. Another point is the government cannot interfere with the decisions of the CPS or courts. If there is insufficient evidence to charge someone or convict them (especially with a crime notoriously difficult to prove), then you can't do it. A government cannot set quotas for something like that, because it could lead to miscarriages of justice.

At around the same time as that graphic, Labour repeatedly referred to the Delta variant of the Coronavirus as 'the Johnson variant'. Delta was the first major variant that occurred before Christmas 2021, leading to the second lockdown. They justified this by saying Johnson's actions had caused Delta - a questionable claim to begin with - but really the intention was to liken the PM to a virus. 'Tory Sewage Party', a hash-tag campaign waged since 2021, is another example. The Conservatives are not really to blame for sewage being released from combined outflows during periods of high rainfall  - it has always happened and would happen under Labour too. But this finger pointing is an excuse to not-so-subtly insult the Tory Party by implying they are sewage, or the less technical term with four letters.

All of this is psychological. If you associate Johnson with a virus, or the Tories with rape and sewage and all things foul, then it's going to stick in some people's minds, engaging with their 'lizard brain'. It is also an offering to meme culture, the modern phenomena harnessed by Donald Trump and everyone since. If something is entertaining, controversial or eye-catching, that is a more important factor than the quality of the argument. This was always the case, but the internet has amplified it. 'Memeability' allows for something to not necessarily be true but to 'speak a wider truth'. It provides the thrill of giving offence because 'it's just a meme' and if it goes viral, even if its author retracts it or changes their tactics at a later date, the damage is done. If it has staying power it will resurface again and again.    

All parties and political groups now seek the holy grail of a successful meme. Labour's efforts have so far have been rather lame, with the Tories not far behind. Day after day provides ample material for more memes, however, so it may yet happen. For now we must make do with Labour graphics like the one depicting Liz Truss as the lettuce that 'outlived' her premiership and another showing a laughing Sunak floating on a lido over sewage (yes, sewage again) .

There is also some use of insults and swearing in their Tweets and speeches. I don't intend to be pious on the last point, but it is a noticeable choice they are making, probably to try and appeal to 'the youth' and crass leftist accounts that proliferate on social media. It's similar to the Lib Dems and their 'Bollocks to Brexit' tagline.  

Lest we forget, also, the infamous remarks of Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner. In a conference speech on September 26th 2021, she referred to the Conservative Party thus:  "We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute vile … banana republic, vile, nasty, Etonian … piece of scum”. After the backlash that followed, she expressed some contrition in a rather unconvincing manner, blaming her 'anger and frustration' and her working-class roots. Starmer and others distanced themselves from it, but Rayner stayed in post.

Misgivings about the comments increased a few weeks later when Sir David Amess MP was murdered at a constituency surgery. Although Amess was killed by an Islamist, it was a reminder of the tense political atmosphere that has existed since Jo Cox's murder in 2016, and the need for Parliamentarians to use responsible language. Labour are always talking about this need when provocative rhetoric is used against their MPs, or judges or civil servants, and they always invoke Jo Cox. But apparently the standard doesn't apply to them.

See also the almost total Labour support of Gary Lineker, when he broke BBC impartiality rules to say the Conservatives were using language 'similar to 1930s Germany' in pursuit of their 'cruel' asylum policies. 

Rough campaigning is the reality of modern politics - or even all politics, since physical violence became unacceptable. Within reason, you do what you have to do to win, and I'm not so hypocritical or holier-than-thou to condemn this. However, material like the Sunak ad is going too far, being distasteful and objectively untruthful. On top of that, Labour do profess to be the principled 'adults in the room', and when somebody attacks them they get up in arms, accusing their critics of 'far right conspiracy theories' and saying they've abased the public discourse. This happened when Johnson pointed out (admittedly in a rather blunt way) that as DPP Starmer had decided to not prosecute Jimmy Savile. They are certainly hypocrites, and certainly have a dark and unpleasant side.