Labour tries its hand at progressive culture war with anti-misogyny push

Labour has announced that if the party comes into government, it will make spiking a crime. Spiking is not legal at present; it’s a form of assault covered by a variety of laws. The logic is that creating a specific offence is a way to drive up reporting, particularly in the case of a crime believed to be both under-reported (and consequently under-convicted) and on the rise. A similar example might be the specific offence of assault against a retail worker, where something already criminal has its own specific, pernicious and often under the radar nature legally recognised.

We know that criminal justice is ground on which Keir Starmer feels comfortable. Announcing the spiking offence, he made reference to his time as Director of Public Prosecutions and said: “With Labour, those who abuse women, verbally, physically, virtually, will feel the full force of the justice system.”

Despite Sunak’s unconvincing attempt to peg him as “Sir Softy“, Starmer is generally at his most assured when discussing a part of the apparatus of the state that he’s intensely familiar with: for example responding to the Casey review, or discussing the parole service. Criminal justice is system that he understands and believes can be put to progressive ends, including halving violence against women and girls as part of his crime “mission“. 

A linked, but more unusual and diffuse pledge also came this week, with Starmer announcing a commitment to tackle misogyny in young people. He intends to do this through changes to the national curriculum to encourage boys and young men to respect women and to “call out” misogynistic ‘banter’ in schools or elsewhere. Details on this are thin for the time being, but it represents an interesting (and comparatively rare) step by Labour into the realm of policy-making for cultural change.

Culture war is the home base of the ideologically bankrupt, the politically out of ideas, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his moral panic-loving flock know that it is the loudest, cheapest noise they can make. When Labour gets dragged into culture war issues, it generally gets panned by opponents and supporters alike for either being far too liberal or not liberal enough.

But just because most contemporary political discussion about culture is vapid, hyperbolic or offensive, it does not mean that attempts to intervene in culture, or harness it, are always misguided. Starmer may have a teenage son, but whether his policy agenda can successfully straddle a world he clearly understands (the criminal justice system) and one he probably does not (the social and online world of teenage boys, where Andrew Tate looms large) remains to be seen.

Today sees a return to business as usual, with the Conservatives back up to bat in the culture war. The government’s international law-busting illegal immigration bill comes back to the Commons this afternoon. Labour has briefed that the bill will cause asylum hotel bills to “soar” to upwards of £4bn a year.