When Rishi Sunak became Tory leader, the party was 30 points behind Labour: that kind of deficit has historically been terminal for a political party. But since then, inflation has slowed, the Northern Ireland Protocol has been resolved and a deportation deal with Albania meant small boat arrivals fell for the first time on record. That Labour lead has fallen closer to 15 points; one poll last weekend put it as low as 11. A Keir Starmer defeat is now at least conceivable.
As one Labour party insider says: ‘Nice doesn’t win elections’
This is the context in which Labour has tried a new tactic: attacking the Prime Minister personally. ‘He is the Tories’ greatest single weapon,’ says one shadow cabinet member. ‘People see him as quiet, reliable and even impressive – even if they think his party is a smouldering wreck.’
Labour is seeking to play dirty in the run-up to May’s local elections. Hence the adverts asking voters if they think ‘adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison’ and claiming that ‘Rishi Sunak doesn’t’. This was only the first step in the new strategy; attacking Sunak’s rich Indian wife was the second. It’s all part of a broader attack plan: crime in week one, cost of living in week two, with health coming next. Inside Labour’s headquarters at 160 Blackfriars Road, the mood is unrepentant, with the local elections being seen as a ‘dry run’ for the general next year. As one Labour insider says: ‘Nice doesn’t win elections.’
Michael Dugher, who was a spokesman in Gordon Brown’s No. 10 before becoming an MP, spoke for many in Starmer’s team when he praised the strategy: ‘This stuff works. Oppositions in particular have to “controversialise” to cut through.’ This is certainly a school of thought: if a claim is seen to be untrue, it will cause a fuss, thereby magnifying the claim. In the 2005 campaign, Brown said the Tories would cut public spending. Michael Howard actually planned a spending increase, just not as much of an increase as Labour. Brown insisted that the Tory plan, therefore, represented a cut.
There has been some mention of Dominic Cummings’s Brexit campaign tactic, in which he claimed that Britain sent £350 million a week to the EU. There were constant arguments over the accuracy of using a gross, rather than net, figure – but the outrage only drew attention to the cost of EU membership. ‘That played into an existing narrative as everyone knew the EU was expensive,’ says one Brexiteer. ‘No one thinks Rishi Sunak is a paedo.’
Some Labour voices agree. They believe that such tactics inevitably backfire as dubious claims strike voters as dishonest and desperate. The trouble for Starmer is that his shadow cabinet is split on the effectiveness of fighting dirty.
As the fuss grew over the Sunak advert last week, a loyalty test was applied to Labour figures: who would share the controversial claim on social media? Steve Reed, Labour’s pugnacious justice spokesman, did so with glee, publishing it multiple times. Others did so only once. But of the 31 members of the shadow cabinet, 13 did not share any of the first three attack adverts. Some MPs privately complained to the Labour leader. Starmer, never the most natural broadcaster, is yet to defend the advert in person.
Britain could well be in a general election campaign by this time next year. The default scenario is the autumn of 2024, but some around Sunak see the appeal of May if things go their way. Many of Labour’s 100-strong army of political advisers, wonks and spinners are familiar with the bitter taste of defeat from the Ed Miliband and Remain campaigns. They have been boosted by training sessions from the teams behind recent Labor and Democratic triumphs in Australia and America.
Sticking with a more confrontational strategy will require, in the words of one Labour source, ‘advisers with enough balls not to stress when things get heated. So many of them haven’t been in government or in the fire of it’.
The Tories, for their part, also welcome the Labour turn, seeing the dirty tricks as a hangover from the Brown campaign which was ultimately unsuccessful in the 2010 election. ‘We’ve always said among ourselves that if we enter the new year with Labour’s lead down to ten points, then we can win,’ says one Sunak aide. ‘We didn’t expect it to be down to 11 points by Easter. We’re betting that Starmer will panic in the heat of an election campaign. We might be seeing that already.’
The current Tory focus, however, is on projecting an image of competence around the Prime Minister, that ‘Rishi gets stuff done’ while Starmer ‘shouts from the sideline’. The Tories see the fracas over the Sunak advert as a sign of a wider Labour campaigning weakness: Starmer’s party is obsessed with social media adverts while the Tories focus on local voters’ concerns about issues such as the Ulez charges for motorists.
Meanwhile, Tory fundraising is going better than expected, with healthy donations for the year’s first quarter. An expansion of the Conservative Research Department – often charged with the darker election–winning arts – is on the cards. ‘There will be a time and place’ to respond to the Labour attack ads, says one senior adviser. ‘A career as a human rights barrister is not a particularly strong footing on which to start a fight like this.’ Likely targets include Starmer’s defence of terror suspects and his time running the Crown Prosecution Service.
Labour says that it is, for the first time in years, ready for combat. One aide dismisses the notion that the Tories were ever planning to play by the Queensberry rules. For 13 years, Labour has lost again and again. The Tories have always been willing, they believe, to bend the truth, from Brown’s smirking face on Tory posters which read ‘I let 80,000 criminals out early’ to the dubious ‘40 new hospitals’ claim in 2019. Next time, Labour vows, it will be different. One thing is for sure: things can only get bitter.
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