Sky News has inadvertently revealed that Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has had more money splurged on social media ads in Holborn and St Pancras than in any other constituency. Surely, the son of a toolmaker isn’t worried about a certain Andrew Feinstein in the general election?
Starmer: running scared of Feinstein?
As writer Joe Ware pointed out on X:
The constituency where Labour is spending more on its digital ads than any other is:
…Keir Starmer's seat in central London.
Analysis for each UK constituency by @WhoTargetsMe for Sky.https://t.co/EweWw8SJUN pic.twitter.com/cfH8VWUglL
— Joe Ware (@wareisjoe) June 21, 2024
Sky News has got analysts Who Targets Me to work out where the political parties are spending their social media ad campaign money. And according to them, Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency was where Labour is spending the most:
Sky News noted that Labour:
have spent by far the most this election: more than £2.7m since the start.
Now, why could Labour be wanting to spend so much in Starmer’s constituency?
Probably because Andrew Feinstein is standing against him. As the Canary previously reported, he said:
Our democracy is in crisis. The two main parties are virtually indistinguishable in their offers of permanent austerity, forever wars and environmental degradation.
Keir Starmer, the MP for Holborn and St. Pancras where my family and I have lived for around 22 years, is emblematic of this crisis. His politics are mendacious, unprincipled and in the interests of his billionaire donors rather than the constituents he was elected to serve.
I have seen real leadership in action: I was privileged to serve under Nelson Mandela as an MP in South Africa. His leadership was selfless, principled, accountable, transparent and honest. Everything that Keir Starmer is not.
Polls are not accurate
Now, the polls currently show Starmer holding the seat. However, as the Canary previously reported, these projections are not accurate. The Green Party, for example, got a company to do direct polling and found it may win in two constituencies where national polling says it won’t.
On the ground, it’s a slightly different story – albeit with a small sample size:
Just saw this stand by a local resident in Holborn & St. Pancras. The local antipathy to Keir Starmer is palpable. The past hour 40 votes to remove Starmer as MP & 4 not to. pic.twitter.com/zghxiuFUM6
— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) June 20, 2024
However, Feinstein’s campaign is invigorated. Is it that Labour feels he is a real threat to Starmer – hence it is splurging so much money on social media ads? To play devil’s advocate, it could also be that as leader of the Labour Party, Starmer is not physically campaigning in his own seat – hence the online spend.
But Who Targets Me’s analysis also points to perhaps a deeper problem.
The Starmer problem for Labour
Looking at the top spending constituencies for Labour, the focus on the ads in many of them is not the party’s candidate – but Starmer himself:
This perhaps points to two things. Either, Labour thinks the better tactic is to make this election about the potential prime minister, not the party – therefore its pushing Starmer the ‘man’. Or, it could be that Labour is actually worried about how he is coming across publicly, hence ploughing money into promoting him (the repeated audience laughter aimed at Starmer during TV debates probably doesn’t help).
Either way, Labour spending so much on digital ads in Holborn and St Pancras is an opportunity for Feinstein. With Starmer no where to be physically seen, he has a chance to actually meet voters and shift the tide in his direction – and the Canary fully supports his campaign.
Featured image via the Canary
