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?
