Starmer insults women’s intelligence to blame Sunak for judicial failures when it was Starmer’s CPS that failed to prosecute rapists

@LexMitior "Does Starmer have that personal credibility here to support a diverse collection of voters?"

No he does not. For better or for worse he is overly associated with the Corbyn era and/or seen as a southern/metropolitan intellectual who is not interested in the concerns of ordinary people.

On the plus said he is seen as 'decent' and 'competent' which is a great deal better than the Trad Labour perceptions of Corbyn.

@potniatheron - I think that's a very good point. Does Starmer have that personal credibility here to support a diverse collection of voters? I am not sure about that.

But have the Conservatives got a poor record on crime then yes they do and voters do think this. And it is a bigger concern than Brexit.

It should be part of a strategy- if not, it will not be effective.

There doesn’t have to be nuance but if the main take away is Starmer is an idiot, hypocrite, incompetent, whatever

Then the message can be very simple just not helpful to the ad publisher.

From what I’ve heard and seen there are many saying this

Whether it translates into polls we’ll see.

@LexMitior : "I don't know if the ads are credible. But they are sensible, because you need to incalculate doubt, and enough doubt in voters minds to make them hesitate to vote Conservative"

I think the problem more broadly is that it's not clear which voter group Labour is aligning itself most closely with. These attack ads suggest they are going squarely for the Red Wall voter, blue collar older lower case c social conservatives, people who used to be tribal Labour voters. However, other stances Labour has taken, for example around gender self-ID, suggests that they are still desperate to keep the upper middle class, aged < 40, Uni educated Southern voters who flocked to Corbyn so enthusiastically.

of course any party wanting to win a majority has to be somewhat Janus-faced and triangluate its positions in order to build a colation of voters. The problem is in execution. Blair and Johnson were both really good at appealing to very disparate voter sets by sheer force of charisma and overall vision (however lacking those visions transpired to be when in government). Starmer's Labour is less tactically skilled and so they appear to be flip flopping, and to lack a core value.

The point is not to win the argument. The point is just to attack and make your political opponents vulnerable.

What they aim to do is set a narrative- not a total one either. The theme here is, Conservatives don't care about crime. That's already the public perception and supported by the polls.

Think of it this way, how much do you remember of policy detail? Very little and I'm a politics geek. But voters do remember messages like these. Do they convert everyone? No. But if they hit the target voter they can be highly effective.

I guess we’ll see if the polls show the gap closing more or not.

A listen to LBC and comments below the line in media skew towards being scathing, and that’s not all women nor leftie

Labour supporters will like them whatever they do but time will tell if it’s a good way to go

I don't know if the ads are credible. But they are sensible, because you need to incalculate doubt, and enough doubt in voters minds to make them hesitate to vote Conservative.

Those voters will not be over the nuance of this, and that's the vote Labour want.

They are not after leftie women's votes. They want the floating voter. These ads are sensible because over the next 12 months they will build up to something much more full throated. In a way, I'm relieved because Labour doing this are communicating they are serious about power.

And now the next ad goes after Rishi’s wife 😐

I assume that the Tories are sitting back and letting them stew in this unnecessary own goal.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake and keep your powder dry, to mix two military metaphors.

Lots of great comments here and these capture a lot of it for me:

What's striking to me about these ads is how much Labour is straining to capture Tory ground on crime and other social issues. That implies that Labour is starting to worry about its ability to win over the all-important swing voter in the next GE.

And

These ads would appear to have been put out without any oversight, whatsoever. Which seems to be in accordance, with labour admitting that they don't bother following their own research.

Don't follow their own research, don't ask the shadow cabinet about inflammatory adverts before publication, and don't check with the leader of the party what he thinks about guidelines that he himself discussed, as part of the committee overseeing them.

Who, exactly, is running the bloody party? Because whichever way you cut it up, it's incompetence on steroids.

I remember the New Labour, New Danger advert. It made the Tories look deranged. These recent ones somehow echo what was wrong with that one - in that they seem to be so worried they're coming off deranged. They clearly haven't consulted widely in the party, leading to the question: who is actually in charge? Reed and Rayner? Cooper has actively distanced herself from it (leaking that she wasn't consulted), Blunkett wrote a MoS op-ed attacking it, and almost none of the shadow cabinet including Starmer have retweeted it!

And because they've gone back to 2010, it's brought about lots of valid questions about Starmer and his role on the Sentencing Council, and Thornberry's own criticism of Starmer as DPP which may otherwise have been left buried, not to mention Starmer's signing of a letter about not deporting convicted, violent criminals who went on to commit further violent crimes.

I assume that the Tories are sitting back and letting them stew in this unnecessary own goal.

So Starmer insulting Sunak is Starmer insulting women?

No. Nice try though.

It's gutter politics and it will backfire. Occasionally works if it hits a nerve but if it hits a wrong note people just laugh.

It was also tried by Zac Goldsmith's campaign (Lynton Crosby there I think!) against against Siddiq Khan for London mayor, trying to make him out to be an Islamic fundamentalist. While he has his faults, he's definitely not one of those.

I'm actually pleased Labour are trying this because while normally a natural Labour voter, I don't want them in power until gender ideology is deeply unfashionable all over the world.

More than that I think that there is full blown panic going on as the most recent ratings seem to show that their lead is now at 14%. Not sure how extensive this poll is but it could well show the way that the wind is blowing...

‘Labour isn’t working’ was a simple effective as with image and words

Saatchi I think did those

The incompetence but also the lack of simplicity is evident.

Lynton Crosby definitely didn't invent attack ads! The Tories did the one of Blair looking satanic in 1996. Labour retailiated with one of William Hague with Margaret Thatcher hair in 1999 (to suggest that Hague was the new Thatcher).

Tories relied quite heavily on the idea that Corbyn was AS during the 2019 campaign. Labour in turn made much of Johnson's personal life and failings.

Attack ads in elections have been around since the 18th century I believe.

What's striking to me about these ads is how much Labour is straining to capture Tory ground on crime and other social issues. That implies that Labour is starting to worry about its ability to win over the all-important swing voter in the next GE.

That's interesting Datun. Although from my memory SC minutes don't record individual comments or how they vote or reach agreement. They record issues -
as The Council considers, the Council has agreed, The Council will. Etc etc.

As you can see here -

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/web_14-09-2012.pdf

Yes bloody bigots. Probably all racist and homophobic too.

It's so TIRESOME when the Mummies think they have independent thought and don't just accept our Labour overlords word for everything.

Look they IDENTIFY as competent and BELIEVE they're competent so we're all big meanies (or committing hate crimes, possibly, if Labour actually get in) for pointing out they couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

They are TELLING us they're competent and that's all that matters.

According to the Mail link above.

This all happened on Sir Keir's watch and there is absolutely no evidence that he ever objected to these (on paper) remarkably soft sentencing guidelines, which took effect in April 2014.

At no point did he publicly voice so much as a flicker of concern about the fact that introducing them could result in significant numbers of child sex offenders being spared prison.

And if the earnest Director of Public Prosecutions happened to voice any scepticism in a more private forum – for example during any one of the 21 Sentencing Council meetings listed above – those remarks failed to find their way into any official minutes that were subsequently published, all of which have now been reviewed by the Mail.

These ads would appear to have been put out without any oversight, whatsoever. Which seems to be in accordance, with labour admitting that they don't bother following their own research.

Don't follow their own research, don't ask the shadow cabinet about inflammatory adverts before publication, and don't check with the leader of the party what he thinks about guidelines that he himself discussed, as part of the committee overseeing them.

Who, exactly, is running the bloody party? Because whichever way you cut it up, it's incompetence on steroids.

Yes I look at what the left are doing in Wales and Scotland and I know I don’t want to go in that direction

Very good point. Also Scotland.

You don't even have to look further than Wales. Labour has been in power for 22 years.

In devolved matters it's full-on genderism in things like funding for "women's" services, school and health policies. Have a look at these documents
https://www.gov.wales/lgbtq-action-plan-wales

Senedd members attacking anyone who raises concerns about this.

Same problems as England and worse in the health service.

Some amazingly ill-judged decisions on industrial and commercial investments 0 to look up the Circuit of Wales and the £7.35 million Welsh taxpayers will never get back.

The damage to the economy from Brexit won't change if Labour are in charge - it's a nightmare and will continue to be. What will happen is Self Id - with women's rights being trampled on. I've never voted Tory in my life, but I can't vote for Labour now either. Misogyny has made shocking inroads into main stream politics, and Labour has a massive issue with their TRA support. It doesn't matter what Starmer says now on the issue, Labour can't be trusted with women's rights and I'm sure he'd backtrack on any compromise he announces to calm the waters during an election. I kinda hope that the various women's groups get together and put candidates forward in the next election.

Well said. Have you SEEN what's happened in Afghanistan. The women there were pretty shocked IIRC when a lot of men (Not all men obviously) stood aside and let all their human rights get taken away.

This idea that however incompetent, however steeped in anti-woman and child ideology Labour is that they CAN'T do worse than the Tories is extremely naive.