Keir Starmer’s opponents have made a few attempts in the past few years to give him a nickname that sticks, such as “Captain Hindsight” during the Covid lockdown drama and “Sir Beer Korma” while being investigated over a curry. Now Rishi Sunak has taken a turn, going for “Sir Softy” – a clear attempt to portray the Labour leader as being soft on crime. If it seems slightly more tabloid-friendly than most – Boris Johnson tried the elaborate “Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest” at one point – it could be due to it being based on a headline from the Sun. Sunak used the insult at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, in the latest indication that clashes over law enforcement are likely to be a key issue at the next general election. It was also another indicator of the feedback loop between rightwing news outlets and the government, an idea compounded by the nickname’s appearance on the front of the Daily Mail on Thursday morning. Sunak used his appearance in the House of Commons to accuse Starmer of being “uncomfortable” when it comes to tackling grooming gangs, adding: “That’s why they call him Sir Softy – soft on crime, soft on criminals.” The “they” in the prime minister’s soundbite is the Conservative-supporting Sun. The newspaper first used the term in a headline on 22 March, above a report on foreign-national criminals who committed further crimes in the UK after the government unsuccessfully attempted to deport them to Jamaica. A term that began on the pages of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper was then enthusiastically promoted by Conservative politicians, including the party chair, Greg Hands, before being adopted by Sunak a month later.
The feedback loop from the Sun to the prime minister and back to other newspapers was completed when the Conservative-supporting Mail used it on the front page of Thursday’s print edition. The outlet repeated some of the Sun’s original story under the headline: “Rapist who proves Starmer really is ‘Sir Softy’ on crime.” The nickname – especially the first word – will annoy Starmer as he has long been concerned that his knighthood makes him come across as too posh, and dents his working-class credentials. Even though print newspaper sales continue to collapse, the power of newspaper headlines can still spook Labour. The Mail on Sunday has previously reported that the original Sun headline was what prompted Starmer’s party to produce its much-criticised social media graphics suggesting Sunak did not want to jail child abusers. The Conservative criticism of Starmer is that while he was running for Labour leader in early 2020, he signed a public letter opposing a deportation flight to Jamaica. This flight would have sent to the Caribbean some criminals who were long-term UK residents without a British passport. The deportation flight was controversial after the Windrush scandal, in which many longtime British residents were wrongly deported. The Conservatives are now highlighting how some of those who were due to be on the flight have since carried out other offences. Starmer has made much of his pre-politics stint as director of public prosecutions (DPP), the chief prosecutor in England and Wales, portraying himself as being tough on criminals. Yet his time in the job has caused issues, with Johnson trying to tie Starmer to the Crown Prosecution Service’s failure to bring a prosecution against the paedophile Jimmy Savile. To confuse matters further, Starmer began his five-year term as DPP in late 2008, meaning his record in the job straddles the final years of Gordon Brown’s Labour administration and the start of the Conservative-led coalition under David Cameron. Although the role is independent of the government, attacks on the final years of Starmer’s time in charge of prosecutions may also be implicit criticism of Conservative policies in those years. One problem for the wider adoption of Sunak’s attack on Starmer is that no one can agree on how to spell it. While some outlets have gone with “Sir Softy”, the Sun’s original spelling was “Sir Softie”. By Thursday, the newspaper was combining the term with the Trumpian insult “Flaky Keir”, producing a graphic of Starmer as a giant vanilla ice-cream.