Oh dear. It seems that, in their earnestness to make capital out of tragedy, Labour have slipped up again. The party yesterday sought to exploit Lucy Letby’s refusal to attend her sentencing, tweeting that ‘Rishi Sunak has dragged his heels over changing the law to make criminals attend their court sentencing. We believe victims deserve better than this. Agree? Add your name below.’
What Labour should also have known, if it didn’t already, is that nearly two hours beforehand Alex Chalk, the Secretary of State for Justice, had tweeted a few hours earlier that the government was already ‘looking to change the law so offenders can be compelled to attend sentencing hearings.’ And as a former DPP, Sir Keir Starmer would have known that CPS guidelines already allow prisons ‘to use reasonable force to bring a defendant before the court.’ Naturally, such a ploy was designed to get voters to hand over their email addresses to Labour to harvest their data.
Helpfully, some Twitters used have now slapped Labour’s tweet with a community note explaining the existing rules in place. It’s not the first time such a fate has befallen Labour in their eagerness to attack the Tories. Mr S just wonders how many more times it will happen before the election. So much for post-truth politics, eh Sir Keir?
Comments