Conservatives broaden their attacks

The Conservative Party have started to introduce Labour Party Shadow Cabinet members into their attack ads.

In one set of ads Ed Miliband, David Lammy and Angela Rayner are featured. The ads use the Conservatives main attack message: accusing Labour of proposing policies that would result in increased personal tax payments.

In an ad released yesterday Angela Rayner is pictured as a puppeteer controlling the actions of Keir Starmer.

This attack was in a similar vein to one released in the first week of the campaign, shortly after Dianne Abbott was revealed to be standing again as an MP for the Labour Party, which showed Angela Rayner as a behind the scenes fixer.

Rachel Reeves is accused in another execution of admitting that Labour would have to raised taxes if in government.

Typically one would expect to see the leader of a party featured in ads attacking their party, so it’s worth considering why the Conservatives have moved on from this default position.

While Starmer’s polling as to how well he’s doing as Labour leader is going ok, it’s still net negative. As such, it’s unlikely that data would, on its own, give the Conservatives reason to divert their attacks.

It may be due to the fact that Sunak’s head-to-head with Starmer as to who will “make the best Prime Minister” has not improved.

The Conservatives may feel that by highlighting senior Labour politicians, who the public are less familiar with, it will make for a more positive contrast with Sunak.

It may also be that there isn’t much logic going into this and the Conservatives are just throwing ideas at journalists and the public to see what sticks.

In the 2015 general election it is was an advert that catalysed the Conservative Party’s efforts – an execution which featured Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond’s pocket.

They may be hoping that by machine gunning attack ads they might inadvertently land on a line of argument that brings the Labour Party to its knees, as the threat of coalition with the SNP did for The Opposition 9 years ago.