Keir Starmer makes ‘zero apologies’ for Rishi Sunak attack advert as Labour goes on offensive

Some in the Labour party are deeply uncomfortable with such a personal attack on Rishi Sunak, but not Keir Starmer, ITV News' political correspondent Libby Wiener explains.

Sir Keir Starmer has defied critics of Labour’s attack advert accusing Rishi Sunak of not wanting child sex abusers to go to jail, saying he stands by “every word”.

The Labour leader said he makes “absolutely zero apologies” for the campaign that has provoked anger within his own party regardless of how “squeamish” it makes people.

Amid frontbench unease, senior figures including former home secretary Lord David Blunkett called for the ad to be withdrawn, arguing that Labour is better than “gutter” politics.

But, writing in the Daily Mail, Sir Keir stood by the ad and said he refuses “to just stand by or avoid calling this what it is”.

He criticised a “path of decline” that he said the economy, NHS and criminal justice system have been placed on in the last decade under the Conservatives.

It is not just rapists that are not being taken to court, he argued, but burglaries and thefts are not being prosecuted, nor are the fly-tippers turning neighbourhoods into “junk yards”.

“Rishi Sunak and successive Tory governments have let criminals get away with it because they don’t get it,” he wrote.

“They have never lived in those neighbourhoods, they don’t understand people’s lives, they have never walked in those shoes. I have.

“I make absolutely zero apologies for being blunt about this. I stand by every word Labour has said on the subject, no matter how squeamish it might make some feel.

“When 4,500 child abusers avoid prison, people don’t want more excuses from politicians: they want answers."

Sir Keir argued he has made Labour the “party of law and order once again”, recommitting to boosting police, dealing with the courts backlog and halving violence against women and girls.

“But it will also have zero tolerance for those who tolerate crime. It’s time to get serious. Time for the excuses to end. Time for change,” he wrote.

The campaign will continue, with further scheduled attacks to include one suggesting Mr Sunak thinks it is right that the public is paying for the “Conservatives crashing the economy” through higher housing costs.

The original Twitter post highlighted analysis of official data and says that under the Tories “4,500 adults convicted of sexually assaulting children under-16 served no prison time”.

Alongside a photo of the prime minister, an image reads: “Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t.”

Judges and magistrates, rather than the prime minister of the day, are responsible for handing out sentences.

The figures Labour highlighted cover the period since 2010, five years before Mr Sunak entered Parliament. He did not become Prime Minister until October last year.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell joined Lord Blunkett in arguing Labour is “better than this” and called for the campaign to be axed.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary in charge of Labour’s crime policy, was not informed or consulted about the campaign, according to The Observer.

Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell declined to endorse it during an interview.

But frontbencher Emily Thornberry continued to defend the ad.

The shadow attorney general told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday: "There’s two things – is the criticism based on clear and objective facts?

"And secondly, is the individual concerned in a position to be able to do something about it? Or is it something which is a result of something they’ve done?

“And if the answer to both of those things is yes, then I don’t see any reason why we can’t criticise that person individually.”

She said if Mr Sunak “really thought that it was so important, he would do something about it”.

Ms Thornberry was challenged over Sir Keir’s role as a member of the Sentencing Council when it set out guidelines in 2012 suggesting that not all child sex abusers should automatically be jailed.

Asked whether Sir Keir, the then-director of public prosecutions, objected to the guidelines at the time, she said: “I don’t know the details of what the exact guidance is in relation to the Sentencing Council, but I do know this, that it is open to Parliament to set minimum and maximum sentences.”

She said it should be the “default position” that an adult convicted of sexually assaulting a child will go to prison.

But a Labour government would not fund any more prison places, she said, “because we’re a party of optimism”.

“What we need to do is we need to look at it from the very beginning to the very end of the criminal justice system.

“If we had more community police officers on the street, which we do commit to and we have a clear idea of where the funding comes from in relation to that, we would be able to catch people earlier.”

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