Campaign cock-up of the week: Thornberry on the naughty step over schools policy

In this column, former No 10 advisor Giles Kenningham analyses the worst comms screw-ups of the election campaign. So what took the prize for the worst PR gaffe this week?

Week three and the missteps are still coming thick and fast on the campaign trail – from all sides. Some of this is no doubt due to the chaos of  a snap election and corners being cut. 

There is nothing more to be said about Sunak’s D-Day master catastrophe. But he’s not been alone when it comes to cock-ups. Keir Starmer labelled the Tory manifesto a “Corbyn-style” one where “anything can go in it”, only for a clip to be unearthed of Starmer praising that very same manifesto from the former Labour leader four years ago.

But for me gaffe of the week goes to Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry, who said  class sizes in the state sector could get bigger as a direct result of the party’s VAT policy on private schools. 

Thornberry was unequivocal: “if we have to in the short term have larger classes, we have larger classes.”

Step forward Sir Keir Starmer and the shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson to put out the political fire.

Sir Keir said Thornberry was “wrong”. Grilled on Sky News, Phillipson said: “This is not our position.” 

Bear in mind this is one of the few policies Labour has unveiled. Did it dent Labour’s lead in the polls? Nope. Nor did it catch fire.

So when is a gaffe not a gaffe?

When you have a commanding lead in the polls and you have gale force political winds behind you. And because of that, you get a lot more leeway from the press. 

But expect, in football parlance, for Thornberry to be “benched” for the rest of the campaign. She may now be looking nervously over her shoulder as her political rivals in the Labour party eye up the sought-after role of attorney general in a Labour administration.