As someone who led BBC News, Newsnight and Today teams through the spin battles in the 1990s, I share Marina Hyde’s shock at the tactics the Labour leader now uses to attack Rishi Sunak (What was that dreadful thud? The sound of Keir Starmer falling off his high horse, 7 April). As a party member, in 2020 I voted for Keir Starmer. He seemed a man who’d tell the truth, stick by his word and offer a generous vision of Britain’s future. Sadly, that brave vision never materialised. Instead, within weeks he’d abandoned many of the manifesto promises on which he’d been elected. And then, despite having led a campaign for a second referendum, he shut down talk of a Labour government ever rejoining the single market. Did any solid core of belief exist under the lawyerly caution?
Now he goes several steps further in personal attacks on Rishi Sunak that might make even Boris Johnson blush. These attack ads are simple lies about a new prime minister’s personal beliefs. Did Keir Hardie, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown ever stoop so low?
At least in our area, voters can elect an alternative, principled party of the progressive left – one that has kept itself clear of the gutter. But it’s very sad that no one in the shadow cabinet is prepared to call out the nastiness.
Jon Barton
Watlington, Oxfordshire
• The Labour party seems to think its “child abuse” advert is excusable and insignificant. But as someone who has voted Labour for the last 45 years, it may be the last straw. Quite apart from what it says about Labour’s inability to move on from the puerile “more punitive than thou” penal policy that has bedevilled it since the days of Jack Straw, it drags Labour down to the worst kind of negative, adversarial, vicious politicking that should be left to those on the right.
Dealing with the complexities of sexual abuse is a matter of ethics, not jokey sloganeering. Those of us on the environmental left who believe that life is bigger than party politics support Labour because of the desperate need of millions of people in the UK and billions around the world to see a more egalitarian, compassionate world brought about by an empathic government committed to social justice. This is a pathetic, disgusting contribution to such a cause when what we seek is radical, courageous policies promoted by example.
If Labour thinks this is a legitimate way of getting into power, I want none of it. I hope the party leaders will apologise to us all and abandon this approach.
Prof Neil Robinson
Stafford, West Midlands
• Marina Hyde is too kind in writing that Keir Starmer has sunk to Boris Johnson’s level. He has achieved the hitherto unimaginable feat of sinking below it. Johnson accused Starmer of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile when he was director of public prosecutions and had overall managerial responsibility for prosecution decisions, even if no direct involvement in any concerning Savile.
Rishi Sunak has no equivalent responsibility for sentencing decisions. Attack him for underfunding of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service by all means, but politicians have no business deciding which offenders go to prison and which do not – a principle Starmer might need to defend if and when he is in power.
Graham Walsh
Wymondham, Norfolk
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