Sir Keir Starmer risks making grisly accusations about his past fair game with defence of Labour's attack ads
Labour's leader wants voters to think of him as a crusader for justice and a clean break from the past. There are many in the party who are uneasy about the party's attack ads - who wonder if the downsides outweigh the upsides. Will Sir Keir's own past stand up to scrutiny?
Sunday 30 April 2023 15:33, UK
Despite first surfacing almost a month ago, this is the first time Sir Keir Starmer has been comprehensively interrogated over the attack ads that have caused such a stir in his party.
What the interview with Sophy Ridge exposed was a potential vulnerability the Labour leader has opened up by adopting such an inflammatory style of campaigning.
The core message the advertising is trying to land is that Rishi Sunak should be personally held responsible for any failures that have occurred in the last 13 years of Tory rule.
So, if that's the case, should this same logic be applied to the Labour leader?
It appears so.
Asked if he took full responsibility for every child abuser who escaped prison while he led the Crown Prosecution Service, Sir Keir said: "I take full responsibility for every decision of the CPS when I was Director of Public Prosecutions."
That sound you hear is an office full of Tory party researchers combing through every decision made by anyone during his tenure as chief prosecutor.
We've had this discussion before.
Remember the howls of outrage from Labour when Boris Johnson accused his opposite number of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile?
Under the logic laid out by Sir Keir, this grisly accusation from the former prime minister appears to be fair game.
It also adds weight to the suggestion that he should be lumped with more blame for failures in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn - a period when he was sitting around the shadow cabinet table.
Read more from Sky News:
Labour insiders fear Starmer's past could come back to haunt him
Red wall set to abandon Conservatives, projection suggests
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This matters for the party because a key part of Labour's pitch is their leader's track record as a crusader for justice and a man of integrity who is a clean break from the past.
These ads expose lines of attack on all these fronts.
And that's part of the reason why many are uneasy and wonder if the downside of this aggressive strategy outweighs the upside.