Labour turn on each other after attack ad backfires

Oh dear. It seems that there’s something of a briefing war in the Sunday papers over who is to blame for Labour’s misfiring attack advert. On Thursday evening the party released a hard-hitting graphic which read: ‘Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t’ alongside a smiling photo of the Prime Minister. A series of figures on the Labour left queued up to condemn it, joining a chorus of protest from centrist commentators.

So it’s no surprise that the shadow cabinet are now all pointing the finger of blame at each other, as the party debates whether to double down on the strategy. ‘Labour row deepens over Sunak attack ad’ roars the front page of today’s Observer, which claims that the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was not informed or consulted about the graphic’s release. The paper quotes ‘Labour sources’ saying that Cooper ‘had nothing to do with it’ – despite, er, being in overall charge of crime policy for Labour.