What do you do when you’re in a hole? Stop digging. Apparently Emily Thornberry didn’t get the memo. The shadow attorney-general was summoned to the media roundup on Easter Monday to defend Labour’s attack ad which claims Rishi Sunak is not tough enough on criminals convicted of child sex abuse. Thornberry did his best to sound authoritative and lawyerly, but he came off the hook several times during his seven-minute grilling on Radio 4. Today program
After allowing Thornberry to sound off about the importance of revising the child sexual abuse sentencing guidelines, host Justin Webb asked him about Sir Keir Starmer’s role in drafting them. As director of the Prosecutor’s Office, he was part of the Sentencing Council from 2008 to 2013 and participated in the meetings in which the present regulation was drawn up. Did he ever oppose them at the time? The shadow attorney general replied: “I wasn’t at that meeting and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This despite the fact that Mr. It was reported four days ago that Starmer sat on the council in 2012 when the current rules were debated. Has Thornberry really not been informed since then? Haven’t you read a newspaper since Thursday?
Webb then asked if Thornberry’s party now supports locking up all adults convicted of sexually assaulting children. He asked, simply: ‘Are Labor building prisons? Does Labor plan to expand the prison complex and pay for it? “No” was the reply, followed by a long rant about the importance of crime prevention. But what about those people who have committed crimes and are now in the post-sentence stage? so what? The answer came none. Indeed, Thornberry went from promising “more community support officers” to then arguing that “you don’t just do it in terms of ‘slap as many people in jail as possible.'” More officers to lock up fewer people? That’s the party line now?
Day five of this row and still spokesperson for the party at six and seven. Let’s hope Labor has better answers when parliament returns…
