‘There’s more to come!’ Labour’s Wes Streeting doubles down on vicious attack ads

Wes Streeting today doubled down on Labour’s vicious attacks on Rishi Sunak, boasting there is ‘more to come’.

The shadow health secretary dismissed the idea the social media campaign accusing the PM of being soft on child sex abusers was a ‘mistake’.

Keir Starmer has come under fire from senior party figures including David Blunkett over the highly personal adverts – which also condemned Mr Sunak for not tackling gun crime and thieves.

However, the leader has stood by them, arguing that they are ‘highlighting the failures’ of the Tory Government.

Keir Starmer has come under fire from senior party figures including David Blunkett over the highly personal adverts – which also condemned Mr Sunak for not tackling gun crime and thieves

Sir Keir has stood by the ads, arguing that they are ‘highlighting the failures’ of the Tory Government

Mr Streeting echoed Sir Keir’s defiance this morning, insisting it is ‘perfectly reasonable to challenge a Conservative prime minister on the abysmal failure of 13 years of Conservative government’.

Speaking to the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme on Sky News, Mr Streeting was asked whether he believes the PM actually thinks people who have sexually assaulted children should not go to prison.

‘I’d like to believe that the answer is no but look at the figures – the figures speak for themselves,’ he replied.

‘Why is he allowing this to happen? And it’s perfectly reasonable to challenge a Conservative prime minister on the abysmal failure of 13 years of Conservative government.’

Pressed again, Mr Streeting added: ‘Well, I have to assume that he thinks that because otherwise it’s either that or incompetence, isn’t it?’

On whether the advert was a mistake, the frontbencher said: ‘I don’t think it was a mistake at all. I absolutely stand by Labour’s ad. And there’s more to come. There’s more to come…

‘We are robustly holding the Government to account for 13 years of failure and Rishi Sunak doesn’t get away with coming in at the last minute to replace yet another failing Conservative prime minister to pretend that somehow he’s a clean slate, that he’s different from everything that’s come before.’

The attack ad has been viewed more than 20million times despite being branded ‘gutter politics’ by critics and with ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett saying: ‘My party is better than this.’

An Opinium survey overnight will have hearted Sir Keir’s team, showing Labour extending its advantage back to 14 points, having been trimmed to 11 points in equivalent research a week earlier. 

But Adam Drummond, head of political and social research at the polling firm, suggested the aggressive approach might have backfired.

‘When we test Labour’s controversial advert against a Conservative equivalent about Keir Starmer, the Labour advert about Rishi Sunak made people feel significantly more negative about the Conservatives, it just also managed to make them feel more negative about Labour as well.’

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting dismissed the idea the social media campaign accusing the PM of being soft on child sex abusers was a ‘mistake’