How Labour lost the moral high ground
Attack ads are fundamental to politics. But the smear campaign against Rishi Sunak is a strategic and moral error.
ByKeir Starmer
Keir Rodney Starmer is a Labour Party politician who became Prime Minister on 5 July 2024. He has been MP for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015 and leader of Labour since April 2020. Starmer, born in 1962, studied law at the University of Leeds and Oxford, then became a barrister specialising in human rights. In 2008 he was appointed director of public prosecutions, for a five-year term. Find news, comment, and analysis about him here.
The hidden perils of Starmer politicising child abuse
The Labour leader’s attack ad on Sunak echoes a trend of associating political leaders with child abuse – which feeds…
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Labour’s Sunak adverts show Keir Starmer has finally decided to gamble
The Labour leader’s more aggressive advisers have won but the party has now invited counterattacks.
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Australian Labor would never have run Labour’s Sunak attack adverts
Anthony Albanese won by recognising that voters were tired of lazy, divisive and dishonest politics.
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Emily Thornberry: Jeremy Corbyn’s treatment is “very sad”
The shadow attorney-general on her Islington neighbour, Keir Starmer’s leadership style and why current gender legislation is “inhumane”.
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Who could secure the Good Friday Agreement today?
Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak lack the idealism and vision that enabled the Northern Ireland peace deal 25 years ago.
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Labour has a plan to win the election, but will it work?
Voters are human, and though some may fit a specific profile, many do not.
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“New ideas”? Axed Times columnist addresses the elephant in the room
After 18 years David Aaronovitch was mysteriously let go from Rupert Mudroch’s paper, but he feels “free at last”.
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The local elections will be Rishi Sunak’s first electoral test
Meanwhile, Labour is learning that the tricky thing about a poll lead is that you have to maintain it.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg shuns the barbarians at the gates
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Will the UK get its own Inflation Reduction Act?
Ed Miliband wants to follow in President Biden’s footsteps.
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Keir Starmer shows his strength by banning Jeremy Corbyn’s candidacy
Discontent among the unions will not trouble the Labour leader too much.
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Would Rishi Sunak win a fight over competence?
Labour advisers fear the Conservatives have the crucial advantage of actually being able to do things.
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The cracks in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party
The shadow cabinet is split between the “Ming vasers” and “front-footers".
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Keir Starmer needs to privatise the railways
Nationalisation is popular, but the government basically runs the trains already and they are expensive and unreliable.
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Starmer signals a Labour “reset” on gender reform
Has Labour changed its mind on self-ID?
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The Policy Ask with Charlotte Alldritt: “There can be no going back on childcare reform”
The chief executive of the Centre for Progressive Policy on the vital importance of wraparound school provision, adult skills training…
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As the polling gap closes, Keir Starmer faces his greatest test yet. He mustn’t panic
It’s “squeaky-bum time” for the Labour leader – but we know he has an appetite for concrete change.
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Is Andy Burnham preparing for a new job?
If not, why is the Greater Manchester mayor’s director departing?
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The quiet consensus: how Labour and the Tories are converging
The Budget confirmed that the two main parties are closer on policy than at any time since 2008.
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