The Sun's Attack on Starmer

Gotcha! At least The Sun's Harry Cole thinks so. In an "expose" of Keir Starmer's time in practice, we learn that he took on pro bono work that saved some unpleasant characters from the death penalty. To scandalise the paper's fast dwindling readership, Starmer helped a "fiend", a "brute", "beasts", and an "axe-murderer" escape the gallows. The money shot for the execrable Cole? "No cab rank rule here", referring to the lawyerly convention of taking on whatever case next comes up. The editorial piles it on some more, asking readers if Starmer is a "crime-fighting hardman" or a "left-wing lawyer"? Curiously, The Sun admits the death penalty has no place in the UK but it's fine for the former colonies when it's brown and black people on death row.

The Sun's attack on Starmer might seem a curious turn of events. After all, hasn't he spent four years running away from a left wing programme? He's stood up to nasty lefties and Muslims on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. With the hard left gone, soft left figures find themselves marginalised. He says the state is open to business by explicitly talking up more private involvement in the NHS. And where there is a contentious issue, Starmer hasn't failed to take their lead from the benches opposite. The shadow cabinet have not infrequently taken to the paper's pages and you could make a decent argument that Starmer is as politically acceptable to The Sun as a Labour leader could be. Why waste time pretending Starmer is a liberal bleeding heart instead of the authoritarian he so obviously is?

The Sun, like every other paper is not a monolith. There is diversity of a sort in the newsrooms of even right wing papers. It might only be the difference between hanging and flogging as per The Mail, but it's nevertheless there. What heads off to the printers every night is a negotiation of the nuance between them. Cole, as I'm sure everyone knows, started out as a right wing blogger with his superfluous Tory Bear site. But it was enough to earn him a sinecure at Guido before the established Tory media took him on. He is a Tory through and through, and unless he receives editorial direction to the contrary he's going attack Starmer and Labour. If the order comes down from on high that The Sun should support Labour at the next election (remember, it's central to the paper's - and the Murdoch empire's - image to always be seen backing a winner), one of Cole's more "flexible" colleagues can be called upon if he's unable to muster the requisite enthusiasm. On top of this, the paper has an audience it must cater for. Long gone are the days when millions of Labour voters used to get the rag. Its shrunken readership are black pilled pensioners poisoned by decades of propaganda and insincere flattery. Just as the Tories are clinging to a core vote strategy, The Sun finds itself throwing red meat to its readers. The more it can terrify and anger them, the longer they'll keep the secret circulation figures from dipping to the point where they have to beg for advertisers.

The Sun also has a vested interest in projecting itself as a force in politics. The power of the press now lies in their driving of the news agenda, seeing as the BBC is even more vociferous in accepting their framing of issues than Starmer's front bench. But this cannot last forever. The online readership of the tabloid press is very healthy but few if any are heading to The Sun for editorial comment or political coverage. Gravity will assert itself eventually, and there's nothing they, or The Mail, or any of the right wing papers can do about it. And so they can try and ignore it by performatively grandstanding and hoping a lot of noise will influence the course of events. We saw this in 2022 after Rishi Sunak re-appointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. The Tory press went for her not because they were opposed to her politics, but to remind Sunak to show them the proper level of respect. They are hoping their attack on Starmer will find him similarly amenable to blackmail-by-headline.

There is also something else that worries The Sun. As hyper class conscious it is, they're not concerned that Starmer is a secret leftie planning on nationalising the top 100 monopolies when he enters Downing Street. What causes a frisson of anxiety are the political dynamics the Labour Party can unleash. His new year speech outlined Starmer's project, what you could call authoritarian modernisation. He's promising "change" and pledging that his government are going to fix things. Without any details about how public services will work again without an injection of cash, these are less promises and more a case of good vibes. Even doing this is enough to rattle the Tories and their backers because after stretching every sinew to clamp down on expectations, Starmer is running the risk of raising them again. It doesn't matter that Labour is promising very little. If they're talking about hope and change there's a danger punters might take it seriously and start expecting more. That doesn't just mean more pressure on establishment politics: it throws into question the basis of the settlement both Starmer and the Tories have reasserted after Corbynism and after Covid. In other words, what The Sun fears is how, despite himself, the Labour leader could upset the balance of class politics.

As far as most of the ruling class is concerned, Starmer will look after their interests and undo the excesses of the Tories. Most of them are happy with what he and the shadow cabinet have laid out policy-wise and might even raise a glass or two when he enters Number 10. But for some, and this includes the The Sun, as the Corbyn years showed the world Labour can never fully be trusted. Even if they do end up printing It's Time for a Change on their front page, it's this fear that ensures The Sun is going to carry on attacking Starmer and talk up any future right wing opposition.