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

[IwantToRetire]

I am so fed up with politicians and their seedy bully boy tactics.

So Starmer having failed to get personal approval from voters who rate Sunak higher than him, doesn't think maybe I should try harder to be more relevant to voters.

No he decides to roll in the gutter and use personal attacks. https://www.jackfm.co.uk/news/politics/labour-takes-inspiration-from-australia-with-sunak-attack-ads-but-they-need-more-to-pull-off-a-proper-ousting/

I'm not saying the Tories are blameless, but lets face it, it was/is the CPS who continued/s to fail to prosecute rapists even when the police present evidence, because the CPS only want to take on sure fire winning court cases to up their stats.

So not only has Labour tried to make out Sunak (who became as MP the same year as Starmer) personally doesn't want child abusers to go to prison, but now has plagerised women campaign's slogan about how rape has been decriminalised. https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation-of-rape/

And yet Labour still doesn't know what a woman is, nor have they re-admitted women expelled from Labour for saying women are biological females. But think our tiny emotional brains will be overwhelmed by their crass statements about women's issues.

Labour seem to think that because this sort of politcal sloganeering used by the vote leave party were sucessful during the Brexit campaign, that this is how they will win the next election.

Which is worse? That our politicians think voters are such dimwits. Or that they might be right. https://labourlist.org/2023/04/labour-attack-ad-rishi-sunak-crime-twitter-controversial-advert/

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.

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

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.

@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.

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.

@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.

@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.

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.

Yes this is true but Labour is seen as too soft on what many voters believe are the 'causes of crime' currently ie too much immigration, police wasting their time on 'hate crimes', soft sentencing, stop and search etc.

They are not after leftie women's votes

Many 'leftie' women will never vote Labour again - I am one of them. They are making a grave miscalculation here because they have managed to alienate women and will hopefully be punished for this in the polls.

There is always the sense that women's votes don't really matter but I think that they are starting to realise that they do and massively so. Fools.

I can't wait until KJK's POW starts doing ads like this about Starmer.

And unlike this ad, however incredible they seem (e.g. Starmer advocates for male rapists in women's prisons) they'll definitely be true and demonstrably so for anyone who scratches beneath the surface.

Has anyone looked at whether 'woke' police forces are worse at actual crime than 'non woke'? Because all this time spent on KJK's wrongthink is taken away from something else.

The Tories need to sort stuff out but SOME of the crap things that have happened are due to the fact the police have insufficient accountability and have enacted Labour policies (such as self ID) which are not currently law. It's the whole Stonewall policy capture within organisations 'getting ahead of the law' and being 'progressive' (whilst removing rights from 50% of the population). And I can't see how Labour being in power is going to do anything other than make that worse.

@potniatheron - the decency point is important. I don't think if I were advising Kier Starmer I'd be majoring on his personality! I would be going for "competent vs incompetent" and "understands doing the right thing vs gives mates money".

These are perceptions you can work with. Neither Sunak nor Starmer are very charismatic. They both have the same problem. But Sunak has thirteen years to account for. That's lots of "incompetence and not caring" to use.

Still, Labour will need some active policy to win.

I agree that Sunak and Starmer are both charisma-free zones but Sunak is rightly or wrongly seen as competent with the conomy. His popularity got a huge boost during Covid and still has benefits from that.

Starmer's best bet is to present himself as 'boring but competent'. After the shower of idiots Johnson, Truss et al, people want boring but competent.

Straw polls amongst my (Red Wall, trad working class, immigrant, conservative with small c) family and old friends suggest that Starmer is seen as decent but the rest of the front bench is seen as 'clowns', 'student politics', 'toytown politicians' (all direct quotes). I don't know what Starmer does about this tbh. Rayner, Streeting etc are simply nowhere near the level of Mo Mowlem, Robin Cook and the other heavyweights that Blair benefitted from in the mid-90s.

Yes I think that Starmer might well be a different prospect if his shadow cabinet had half a brain between them and were not mired in identity politics.

Well it's a challenge that cuts both ways. The actual cabinet is impeccably third rate!

But it will be the squabble of the technocrats. A very dull election to come, punctuated by ads like these in an attempt to make it have narrative.

I personally don't give Sunak points for spending a lot of money during COVID. Is he better than Johnson or Truss then yea, but it's a low hurdle. Purely on what's in my pocket, I'm paying more tax and getting less, and I've got a new set of mortgage rates thanks to Liz Truss and her nutty policies. Neither the Conservatives nor Labour will implement trans self ID as it's a form of electoral suicide, so my vote will go on what I get for my money. At the moment, I'm paying for Conservative mess ups and not too happy about it.

Well, he could always get rid of the brainless devotees of identity politics. He could promote some sensible MPs. If the Labour party has enough to fill the Shadow Cabinet.

And if he weren't terrified of losing the voters who are devotees of identity politics. Though a thorough review of how many of them actually vote, in what constituencies and what effect their votes would have on electoral results in a FPTP system might be a good idea.

Those of us who have Labour police and crime commissioners/Metro Mayors won’t be trusting Labour to be tougher on crime though - we can see with our own eyes that they are shit at it.

And we’re the traditional Labour voters that Labour is likely to lose over IDPOL/being too focused on middle class graduates living in the south.

Neither the Conservatives nor Labour will implement trans self ID as it's a form of electoral suicide, so my vote will go on what I get for my money

Labour will introduce self id.

But he will do none of these things.

He's already under pressure from Labour in Scotland. Scotland! Where self-ID just ended a political career. Note that Sarwar says he and Starmer agree on the "substance". We know what that means here. Self-ID. Labour will do it.

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1301/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1301/pub/1301/page/26/article/NaN

"SIR KEIR STARMER should pass a law to allow 16-year-olds to change their gender if he wins the next election, the Scottish Labour leader has suggested.

Anas Sarwar said his party must “learn the lesson from Scotland” and pursue gender reforms “over a longer period of time” while reassuring women and protecting single-sex spaces based on biological sex.

But he said while he and Sir Keir agree on “substance of the issue” on transgender rights, he has a “different view” on the age teenagers should be allowed to change their gender in law."

@Flowerly - your view. My view is no! Political parties like power better than principle. That is a more significant rule than any principle the Labour Party have ever had.

If they can get rid of Clause IV, they can drop self ID like a stone.

Yes that's my perception too.

@EmotionalSupportHyena "And we’re the traditional Labour voters that Labour is likely to lose over IDPOL/being too focused on middle class graduates living in the south."

Snap! My family/circle I grew up with are all what I call tribal Labour voters - I remember my grandmother telling me as a child that "Labour are the party for us; Conservatives are for rich people". However since 2015 they have all switched to Tory, Lib Dem or Plaid Cymru.

I was a Labour Party member during the Kinnock and then the Blair years and I can assure you that a lot of active members hated being in government. I know that was quite a long time ago but I see little evidence that this has changed. I believe that Starmer very much wants to win (just like Blair did) but I think a lot of activists - at least at grassroots level - are quite comfortable in permanent opposition.

Labour are going to have to say that before the election, then.

What? Women are going to vote Labour in the hope that they'll drop self ID once they're elected, despite them not even promising that and still wanging on about modernising the GRA and most women not having penises?

Why drop something you think is political suicide AFTER you have been elected? If you want it and are worried about elections you pass it straight away so it has years to bed down and (you hope) prove your critics wrong before the next election. Of at least hope that voters forget it was you and have other priorities by then.

Well... I would imagine that if I were Kier Starmer and I had made a right pigs ear of trans policy I would announce the following...

Self ID needs further thought to the implications for women's safe spaces

And then announce a Taskforce, commission or other wonk policy space to consider options.

That is, btw, about all the Conservatives will do if they amend the GRA on the basis that biological sex is the correct meaning of sex. If Labour matches that commitment (it should) then there will be next to no difference between the two main parties.

Btw I don't want to get too cynical but the use of a Taskforce or commission to tell you something is happening is so standard to politics that Suella Braverman has just done the same for grooming. She has all the knowledge already, but a Taskforce sounds... dynamic.