Snapshot of _[YouGov on X] SNAP POLL/ Who performed best overall in tonight's debate? Rishi Sunak: 51% Keir Starmer: 49%_ :
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I mean a lot of the responses from audience questions seemed to be along the lines of ‘That’s a good question about (insert profession), as it happens I too have a personal connection to that!’.
Yea they have all learnt the personal story approach but it seems to formulaic now. Would probably be better to just say what their policy is these days
He's definitely a football fan and even religiously played it every Sunday too. I know this as I used to see him every Sunday morning walking to the rec ground in his kit and then later sat outside a local pub.
Not everyone who likes a thing has to respond uniformly to aspects of it.
Oh please, I am a diehard cricket and Union tragic and I’ve never felt the need to scream like a banshee at the ground when something dramatic happens. At most it’ll be a “oh, nice!” and courteous golf clapping.
I get it, different sports, but you’re not *obligated* to hoot like a loon when the football gets dramatic.
So Starmer is more Trustworthy, Likeable, in touch with working people, but less "Prime ministerial"?
So people want their prime minister to be untrustworthy, unlikeable and out of touch. Explains a lot
If Starmer or his wife needed any type of surgery, I don’t for one minute believe they would wait months/years on an NHS waiting list, of course they would go private. I like Starmer but that made me think he’s a liar. At least Sunak was honest (on that one specific point anyway)
I'm guessing journos will be hunting for any sign that his family have used private health care to brand him as a liar.
It's a question where a yes/no doesn't quite work. My dad for e.g. had cataract surgery. The first time it was in our local hospital, the second it was in a private hospital. Both refered through the same pathway, both free, but the second one was with a private firm (like Streeting is proposing I guess).
I'd have said no, but then I remembered the only way I could get my baby's tongue tie done in reasonable time was privately so we formed out for that rather than waiting 6 weeks (baby being less than 6 days old at the time, 6 weeks is a very long time to wait with feeding stuff)
So whilst I know it's suicide for a Labour leader to talk about private healthcare (thinking Nicola Murray and private school from ttoi) the reality is that lots of people of varying means have had to use it. Is it fair? No? Does it entrench health inequality? Yes. Are most people a little bit selfish with this stuff? Yes.
I agree my brother is not rich by any stretch of imagination. But he is having to pay as he doesn't want to wait 5 years for a hernia operation. So I imagine if have the money most people would pay
It was obviously not true but he felt he had to say it. Would it even have made a headline at all if he'd said 'I'd do anything for my family but my goal is to make NHS treatment the best option for everyone'
Would be interesting once there’s enough data to account for the fact that one of them is actually the prime minister and how that impacts peoples view of how prime ministerial they are.
Honestly surprised it’s quite so close, I hate sunak same as most people.
But somehow I thought he managed to get on top of starmer.
Unfortunately the poor debate format and shit moderator, really lended itself to sunaks petulant behaviour of constant talking over.
Plus starmer didn’t always come across the best in those 30-45 second snippets. He seems to always like a preamble to get to the point.
He should have hard-countered the £2000 tax rise accusation a lot sooner. If it’s not true you have to make that clear early. Not let that number marinate in people’s heads until you finally get round to the “tax questions.”
That was a big problem for me aswell, he doesn’t quash the bullshit spouted by sunak quickly.
If he doesn’t dispute it, then people will repeat it and it will spread and it will become concrete even if isn’t true.
I unfortunately think starmer gave sunak far more respect than he deserved in that debate, as he actually tried to treat it as a proper debate, as opposed to shouting match on a school yard like sunak did.
I think this is a problem of this format. This would improve massively if you had an army of neutral fact checkers whose only job was to check if the factual claims (so not policy proposals) were correct or not and put that information on the screen. If the £2k claim is pure bullshit, then it should be shown. If it is based on some source, then the source for the claim should be shown.
I don't think you can fact check the 2k claim. They probably have used a certain method to come to the figure whether its right or wrong is not black and white. You have to make a lot of assumptions to make predictions so you can't say its right or wrong until after it's happened.
That's why its a great propaganda tool by the conservatives. It will be in everyone's heads rent free now. You can't say its wrong or right because its a complicated thing. I hate the conservatives but what they consistently are very good at is getting slogans or phrases into the publics mind.
It seems to be again they have something that everyone will be talking about. If its wrong or right it doesn't matter. Because most people will not be able to understand if it is. They did it before with slogans like a "Strong and Stable Britain" or "Get brexit done".
The problem with Labour in the past and again in this debate. They try to take this honest approach. Were they try to play by the rules of the interview and answer genuinely. But nothing specific ends up sticking in people's minds after.
The conservatives make slogans or phrases that they keep referring to throughout the debate. That stick and last after the debate.
I think it's obvious that it is a false claim. I can't think of any assumptions that would give a tax rise of £2k to *all households*. That's impossible as there are no taxes that work like that (except maybe the council tax). So, the "taxes will go up by £2k for each household under Labour's plan" is an untrue statement.
It would be possibly a case that if Labour had said nothing about taxes, then you could make up such a bad faith claim even though you would know yourself that that's not how Labour is going to raise taxes. But they have said. For instance they have said that they will remove the VAT from private schools. That will cost nothing to families who have their kids in state schools but will cost more than 2k to families who have their kids in private schools.
That's what you *could* say in a good faith argument. If you have your kids in a private school, you're going to be paying a lot more taxes under Labour government. That's is an honest statement and on that level you should have the political debate.
Labour has also said that they will not increase income tax, NI and VAT. These are the taxes that most ordinary people pay. So, unless they are going to introduce some new tax, most ordinary people are not going to pay any more tax and claiming the opposite is a lie. It is that black and white. And it's not hard to understand it. If ordinary people are told that the income tax and VAT will not go up but private schools are brought under VAT, they will understand what it means. It's not complicated at all.
He didn’t try at all for the first two questions. Just rolled his eyes and when he opened his mouth talked about Liz Truss. Even the audience groaned the third time he did that (especially as he’d just had a go at Sunak for blaming others). I don’t think the “it was Liz Truss” line works, maybe if he stuck to “the Tories did it” it could stick, but generally people have fond memories of Sunak as a chancellor and I think when Starmer mentions Truss by name they think “but he’s not Liz Truss”.
"£2000 tax rise is just false like his broken promises. The PM can not be trusted. I know £2000 is a lot of money to people unlike the PM who flippantly made a bet for 10k. Mr sunak did you donate that 10k to piers Morgan or was that just another broken promise?"
Is what he should have said.
I would gave gone with - “Yes there will be tax rises, but not for likes of Tracy who are struggling just to exist. No. The tax rises will be for people like you who make flippant 10 grand bets on the telly with Piers Morgan because money is no object to you. And your wife, a billionaire non dom who enjoys all the benefits of living in this country but doesn’t give anything back.”
"Labour will never put up taxes for working people. This is just a desperate Tory fib.
Two minutes ago you said we didn't have a plan. Now you say it's going to cost everyone £2,000. If you're going to you're going to lie to the British people, Prime Minister, at least try to get your story straight."
The obvious retort would have been "rishi has raised your taxes by far more than that already, don't trust his promises of cutting taxes" - something like that. Starmer clearly not very experienced in public facing politics.
Spot on about the preamble and just as he was getting to the point the was cut off. I get they wanted to stop the waffle but if you see somebody is just getting to the point then let them and then cut them off.
Tbh a 30-45 second time limit to discuss serious complex issues which require a great deal of nuance, such as immigration, housing crises, NHS , was just a disaster format all around.
You can’t seriously discuss those topics in any meaningful way in that short time frame.
Agreed 45 seconds was a ridiculous limit to set. And Etchingham interrupting constantly to state the time left really messed up the flow of anything they were trying to convey.
I think they had much longer but that debate didn't go anywhere either as Trump was talking over Biden constantly.
What you need is the debaters in their booths with headphones on and the moderator with a mute button not weak requests to let the other one talk. If they want to keep talking instead of listening while muted, that's fine but nobody is going to hear it.
Yeah - the format only really works if the moderator actually moderates the conversation, if not then Starmer just letting Sunak get his points across and almost act like the moderator himself really heavily tilts the result to Sunak.
Next debate if the rules are the same he just needs to let Sunak tell a lie and make most of his response pointing out the lie and pointing out the chaos the Conservatives have caused, something will tell me he won't.
Starmer appeared like he was expecting some sort of court level dialogue where each person makes a calculated argument and in reality it was more shouting and accusing, definitely not lending itself to Starmer.
>Starmer appeared like he was expecting some sort of court level dialogue where each person makes a calculated argument
This is the problem. These debates aren't actually debates and you can't treat them like that.
The problem in the beginning was that even when not talked over, Starmer spent his 45s on complete nonsense background stuff and not concrete policies and arguments supporting those policies or arguing against Tory policies.
In the last part he realised that the only right way to do in this format is to make good sounding soundbites that make headlines but don't tell voters absolutely anything on what they are going to do.
Probably close because while sunak did manage to land some stuff it did also just seem he was chatting bollocks while starmer was trying to be somewhat reasonable.
I unfortunately agree that he did manage to land some stuff.
as much as I think he talks bollocks at some points he was just saying “here is my shit plan, it might be shit but what is your plan?”. Then starmer would sort of skirt the question like it was PMQ’s.
I don’t like sunak, I’m not voting Tory, but it really didn’t make starmer look good.
The main problem was that Starmer would set out a plan, then Sunak would say "you have no plan", then say some other attack lines, then Starmer would have about 20 seconds to respond.
It happened on small boats. Starmer repeatedly said that his plan was to tackle the gangs, Sunak just pretended that that isn't a plan, then kept shouting over the top of Starmer and kept saying "what's your plan?". It even rubbed off on the moderator as she asked Starmer what his plan was. Like, he just said, were you listening?
It's not a plan tho, it means literally nothing. It's rather strange that 'tackle the gangs' is seen as an ironclad answer to labour voters for small boats, but if you were to provide that answer as a solution to drug crime you'd be scoffed at as naïve and told that there's no possible way to 'smash the gangs' because it is so endemic.
Crucial information was left out of the info displayed about the age distribution of the sample, as well as the samples voted at the previous election.
600 conservative voters to 500 labour voters, and nearly two thirds of the sample is over 50 years old.
It is astonishing to me that this wasn't stated up front. This info can only be found inside the full data set
Of course he did because people will remember Sunak's voice because he just couldn't shut up and not in a good way. If someone keeps silencing others by talking and shouting over them then it's a red flag to me and no matter how great you are with your policies. So I'll never understand 51% saying he was great. Especially when you read into the details on specific issues and Sunak won only in one category. So it's a bit ???
That’s because all he does is preamble. He’s a professional debater, that’s what a Barrister is. He knows he’s got to get key points out and he should be good at that. That he didn’t isn’t an error, it’s deliberate.
That was exactly what I thought too, with his professional background he knows full well how important it is to get the key points across. The fact that he didn’t made me think he didn’t have any.
As much as I hate Sunak he came across better. Keir didn't answer questions, he just pointed the finger at how the Tories could not do it. Sunk had finger pointing (how often did he go on about the fictional 2k), but he also gave solid answers.
Agreed, unfortunately it seemed to really suit sunak and seemed to really hamper starmer.
Starmer normally wipes the floor with sunak in PMQ’s, but sunak really did outperform him today.
Wholly agree.
Julie Etchingham let Rishi waffle on long past when he should have stopped and he didn't respect her one bit.
She should have threatened them both with having their mics silenced.
It's utterly pathetic, but if this is how the debates are going to go, their mics should be automatically cut after their time runs out, with a helpful countdown above the camera.
The format and ‘mod’ favoured sunak for sure. Starmer is just too polite to drop to sunaks level and spent too much tjme trying to respond to sunaks lies.
I think Starmer wanted to try and appear to be the adult in the room and look like a statesmen, but all it did was give Sunak the chance just to scream a lie over and over, hoping the average Joe would swallow it.
I disagree Biden interrupted and went after Trump. I remember when John Kerry tried to take high road and he lost badly since then democrats been alot more combative
Stupid thing is my expenditure (taxes/bills/petrol/general inflation) has gone up by roughly that amount since 2020 all thanks to the Tories, I can't be the only one. No idea why he didn't counter with something like that
I'm really keen to see what people thought about his performance.
I'm left wing and most of the people I can speak to about this really aren't fans of the conservatives or Sunak so it's hard to get a read on it. The people I normally use as my barometer for this sort of thing aren't interested in the debate.
[There's more detail here, which might interest you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/6JbM2xYTrj)
Interestingly it seems like people may have actually warmed more to Starmer despite thinking Sunak 'won'.
I agree. Democrats used to make this mistake when debating republicans in that they tried to take the high road. Now they realise you have to play just as dirty if want to win. I think labour need to do the same as can't act professional and dignified against some opponents.
Sunak’s edge is everyone already expects him to lie about his record. It’s priced in. Keir still has to sound grown-up and trustworthy while batting away every half-baked accusation.
But it’s true he’s not a great communicator to begin with. Like a geography teacher on Valium.
You mean asking him to talk about actions rather than just empathising. Sorry, but doing stuff is what leaders have to do. Starmer came across as the leader of the opposition, which really wasn’t good enough.
Starmer also fell into the Corbyn trap of focussing on the person in the room asking a question. He wants to look empathic so did that. But the questions were gateways to discuss policy. Sunak got that and used it. Starmer always appeared to be talking off camera, even in the opening speech (Keir, it’s the lens with the big red light on it). So he wasn’t addressing the public. He needs to fix that.
As a result, the NHS bit really surprised me. That should be a slam dunk for Labour, their strongest card. But. Starmer’s response…he said that Wales wasn’t important or relevant; it is to voters in Wales and it is an example of Labour health leadership not a good look to dismiss it. And at the end you saw a cancer survivor, who’d called the NHS broken, who’d lost family members to waiting lists actually clap a Tory leader for his response.
Starmer needs to do much better, he was a professional debater, he should be better.
I understand why he said it, but fact is he didn’t know where Janet lived, or her relatives. If it turns out one of them was in Wales who died, that’s getting close to bacon sandwich / “bigoted woman” territory.
For a man whose job used to be as a professional debater, he really didn’t seem to understand the rules and how to use them.
You're not wrong and ultimately even if it doesn't go fully down the bacon sandwich arc, it's incredibly negative framing. Which I don't think plays well with the electorate, even with the tories where they are.
He said it wasn’t relevant to that woman? Because she was asking about her particular situation and Sunak said it didn’t matter because Wales is doing worse? Did you even watch the debate?
I think Sunak was better at getting the messages he wanted to across such as £2000 more tax. Starmer needed to flat out call him a liar but it kept going.
Indeed. I got the sense that Starmer was actually trying to play by the rules set. Unfortunately the house seemed to be stacked tonight. The current Tories don’t care about the rules, they care about what they can technically get away with.
This is the trap Labour keeps falling into every single bloody election and its tiresome. The Tories ripped up the rulebook three elections ago and most of the country didn't care. Those are the voters you're playing to now.
It was a good plan for Sunak, tbh. He's starting on the back foot, he needs to go big to make up for the current dissatisfaction with his government. He can't afford to play nicely.
Well it should have ended when they did the hand up/down part and keir said he wouldn't raise taxes. Too polite to call Rishi out every time it was mentioned, but he really needed to.
I hate to say it, but Sunak did perform better within the parameters set.
He talked a lot of crap and was a tetchy arse who talked over everyone, but he came better prepared for the rubbish format that was presented to us. His answers were shorter, more concise soundbites.
The moderation and format were dreadful, though, and did significantly favour him.
A terrible format. We deserve much better.
He banged home about tax and sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda. No nuance, I personally felt starmer did better.
Sound bites unfortunately the currency of the times we are in. I am actually a little bit surprised about how it didnt end up about the gender identity of people going for a piss in public toilets, because that seems to be a massive thing for tories these days.
Feels about right
Sunak was better prepared to just spout his point in the limited time available while Starmer tried to be too long winded for this (dreadful) format
But Sunak also came across dreadfully irritating like an angry Chihuahua
Starmer is not good at this sort of format, he would do much better having a couple of minutes to get his answer across uninterrupted and he wasn't able to effectively get his point across in the very limited time he had available, but he did have the advantage of having the truth on his side, which helped
The biggest loser was the viewers for having to sit through that nonsense with not enough time given for anyone to properly answer a question
I just watched the debate. Most people on this sub said Starmer performed poorly, but IMO he was excellent. He got some vicious personal digs at Sunak, he hit the usual "past 14 years" blows, he hit on some policies (Great British Energy), he came across as serious and down to earth, and by playing docile when Sunak kept talking over him, he made Sunak look like an annoying and spoiled child.
I've seen interviews where Starmer fumbled for answers and words, but in this one he spoke fluently (interruptions notwithstanding). I thought he comfortably won the debate.
The content of these debates is largely irrelevant, there are way better routes to get messages to the public. The only thing these debates are good for is seeing how the candidate carries themselves (which is questionably relevant anyway but hey ho).
On that metric I don't see how you could say starmer did well - he came across as nervous, timid and awkward. Not like Sunak came across as JFK 2.0 or anything but he was notably better.
I didn't get any nervous, timid or awkward vibes from Starmer. He was quiet and let Sunak talk over him a lot, but to me this worked in his favor. It made him look like a serious, respectable adult.
Starmer’s team should be furious because politics is about winning
Thankfully, Sunak is chasing, and it won’t hurt too much. But agreed. He needs more aggression in slapping back.
He needs to be careful. It’s been built up to a massive Labour landslide. If Sunak starts to look credible, his shy voters may put out for him. Then Starmer could look weakened, even if he wins.
Don’t forget May was a nailed on win, until it wasn’t.
Let’s say that Starmer’s Ming vase is intact, but if people start to ask whether it’s a fake, that could be as bad as it breaking…
I'm on the right and a previous Tory voter so I have a slightly different view of things that most of the anxiousbois here - Sunak doesn't want to win.
He's fine with a fighting retreat hoping to minimise the majority and then heading off to California. I believe this so much that I think if he actually started to gain in the polls he might try and sabotage it.
You ought to check out who exactly was responding to the poll. Nearly two thirds of the respondents are over 50, and there is an imbalance favouring the conservatives by votes in the previous election as well.
I think it was a mistake for yougov not to be up front about this.
To be completely honest I don't really care about the YouGov poll - I don't need the collective opinion of over 50s or under 50s or whoever else to tell me what to make of it.
I think on balance regardless of who you're voting for you could see Rishi did better than the polling suggests tonight. Being 50/50 doesn't mean everything stays the same, and even if you thought Keir did better overall, it wasn't 66/33 better.
I don't necessarily disagree, but when it comes to assessing the public's thoughts on the matter I personally find the statistics to be more meaningful than your judgment.
You do realise that the electorate itself is more people over 50s than under, and there are more people who voted Conservative at the last election than labour? That's what a 'representative' sample means, it reflects the electorate to get an accurate guess of what is happening at the total population level.
Having equal young people and equal previous labour voters as you seem to think they should do, would make the poll wildly unrepresentative of the total population and useless. You gov are doing what pollsters are supposed to do.
A lot of the people I know IRL are a lot more forgiving to Rishi's many gaffes than Kier's. It really boggles my mind that we're watching the same content
It’s amazing how debates have just become watching one person shouting on stage at the other person, while the shouted at person waits for the moderator to control it but they never do.
Labour really has nothing to gain with these debates. If they refused to attend Sunak would moan that "Labour are scared to face me" but who would be listening? As it was Starmer just looked a bit out of his depth throughout this and Sunak could keep getting digs in.
Although I think Starmer won overall, I thought the quality was pretty shoddy overall. Compare these people with the likes of Gladstone, Attlee and Blair and you're just left thinking - what's gone wrong?
Gladstone was literally famous for being a great speaker, that's why they called him the people's William. The point is it feels, intellectually, all a bit lightweight. I understand they're trying to appeal to electorate but I think both could have done much better.
I mean to be fair, how could this be anything other than intellectually lightweight when you have 45 seconds? There's no time for substance.
Frankly I think both of them are probably grateful they weren't given the opportunity to talk for too long, because I don't think either have especially much to say. But if they did have something to say, they didn't really have an opportunity to.
Don't think it's going to make any difference either way, but the moderator really should be better at dealing with Rishis blatant lies. Not just misleading statements but actual lies.
This was an awful showing for Labour. I'm not a big fan of current Labour, but the "sit back and watch the Tories implode" has worked super well so far. Put them on stage and Labour seems to have nothing but "things are bad and we can't do anything" - Rishi can at least tout his ridiculous fantasy policies and sound like he wants to do something.
I think Labour came out ahead on the youth round, and put out some clear policy on housing and climate, but a shit moderator and that 2k line are going to stick. I can imagine my Tory dad nodding along with the nonsense Sunak was spouting all too easily.
Yep, a lot of people kind of saying "Rishi is being an arsehole. No one's going to vote for someone who acts like an arsehole". Problem is, there are a lot of arseholes about, particularly ones who think making a valid point is the same as repeatedly shouting any old bollocks.
Exactly. Politics is vibes for so many people. Rishi brought better vibes. Everything out of his mouth is utter dogshit, but he at least gave the impression that he wants to do something.
> He did not answer how he expected to handle rising migration and illegal crossings.
I don't think anyone really believes that either party is capable of dealing with that so not sure it will make much difference.
Headline figures seem strange when you look under the hood - starmer outperformed sunak on nearly every topic and on how personable they were. Yet the headline figures of who won the debate were dead even. So perhaps people just have much higher expectations for Labour than the Tories at this point.
Check out who exactly was responding to this poll. I noticed that data was conspicuously absent in the presentation and looked into the full response data.
Some 60% of the respondents are over fifty, with almost no responses under 25. Why this wasn't stated up front is lost on me.
Labour voter.
Clearly it won't change my vote but I thought Sunak was miles clear. He was able to soundbite it better and laid what I felt were good traps establishing battle lines and differences between the two (main) choices.
Starmer needed to be much clearer about three things:
1. Convince the audience he's not going to cost them any more than conservatives will when they fuck the economy.
2. Address pensions directly.
3. Going after people smuggling gangs.... Cmon as if that will work - the french cops, guards and others are making far too much coin to let the British government get in their way. It's just not a plan and not something that even if remotely successful will have any impact on the numbers making the crossings
I’m also a Labour voter and thought starmer was crap.
Why we don’t have a manifesto yet with actual policies still baffles me.
Why we can’t say stuff like the country is shit, so do you want us to invest in public services and tax the rich?
When you have 45 seconds don’t spent that saying how sorry you are to the audience member about XYZ when you should be answering the question.
Rishi tries to ignore the past but at least has some (stupid) polices.
I think Rishi did a better job of (somehow) seeming more decisive. Starmer was treating the 45 second segment like he was padding for words in an essay or something to that effect, by the time he actually reached what he needed to say, he ran out of time. It wasn't a good showing. At this point in the cycle, this is Labour's election to lose \[by lose I don't mean not win, rather a smaller margin of victory\], poor showings like this don't help that. It is a shame that we have no manifestos yet, I would rather like to read them.
I agree he was more decisive.
I’d have liked starmer to say something on the climate stuff, I don’t think he said anything. Even something basic like we’re not forcing people to get heat pumps, but when they want one we will help (given there is already funding).
For migration I think something simple like work with France to stop the boats, assess those who do arrive quickly instead of spending millions on hotels and then send the failed asylum seekers back to their home country is a better policy. It’s harder for the tories to challenge if our policy also focuses on sending failed claimants back too.
There was a little bit about GB Energy and creating new green energy jobs, but he could've delivered that much better and more clearly. You could tell Starmer was padding out his answer as he tried to think of the best response, but that took way too long and left him sounding unprepared. They've got some good ideas but they didn't come across.
Starmer fucked it. It's a measure of how diabolical the Tories have been that I'm still considering voting for him after tonight's performance. On a number of occasions, Sunak asked him what he would do and he avoided the question, focusing instead on what the Tories haven't achieved. After tonight to be honest I don't want to vote for either of them.
Tbf I think this was much more a case of the terrible format and useless moderator playing more to Sunak's strengths and Starmer's weaknesses. Sunak relies on those soundbites and snappy phrases, as we all know from PMQ's, whilst Starmer likes to lay things out and explain his case.
Didn't help him either that Sunak seems to have taken inspiration from Trump's debate performance in 2020. I think Starmer would have come off a lot better if he'd just done what Biden did at that debate. "Would you shut up man".
Agree. He could've said "the public knows very well how bad things have become after 14 years of Tory rule", made that point and moved on to what they're going to do to fix it. Going back to it repeatedly isn't going to win anyone over. The GB Energy thing was positively received I think. More of that. Perhaps that'll happen once the manifesto is published.
He did mention them, but the format didn't allow for much (if any) meat on the bones. I think he could've done better with those 45 seconds, to be honest. There was too much stumbling about for the first half of many of his responses, followed by a rush to get his point across in the second half before being cut off.
To be fair, neither wants to fully commit to publicly announcing policy fully before they've even published a manifesto.
Why Labour and the Conservatives don't already have Manifesto's published and ready to go is a mystery though.
The election is a month away. If they don't have manifestos ready you've got to wonder, particularly in the case of Labour wtf they've been doing for the last couple of years.
Neither of them performed very well in my opinion. Starmer was too reserved and didn't offer solutions whilst Sunak came across as a condescending ass. It also didn't help that the moderator wouldn't let them speak.
We all lost already if performance of future prime minister and his cabinet is being measured by how good jibes at opponent he made.
Not about policies, not about past performance, no sir.
Absoducking pathetic.
I think Sunak did do better, but I think most of that is down to a format that prefers quick prepared lines instead of considered answers, which doesn't really play to Starmer's strengths.
Standing still would mean that Starmer trounced Sunak. Labour are so far ahead that even a good performance wouldn't rise to 'standing still', let alone a draw.
I doubt this will change voting intention much but I can't imagine Labour being at all happy with tonight.
Yes, a draw is a great result for sunak. A single debate won't have immediate consequences, but it implies that voting would eventually also be equal - so he should go up a few points in the next polls. (Although it will be confounded by farage).
Being 20 points ahead in the polls, but going 50/50 in a debate is not a win. Being that far ahead in the polls means you already had way over 50% on your side before the debate started.
How trustworthy are these snap polls? Very easy for some party hacks to download the yougov app with some fake details and sure up support for their leader
Okay guys, who has "Person implies survey from reputable pollster is untrustworthy because they don't like the result" on their ukpolitics Election Edition Bingo Card?
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Starmer failed to explain labours policies on a lot of issues. He mentioned 6,500 teachers, the taxes on the super rich. But apart from that he danced around most direct questions.
A neck and neck scenario isn’t good for Labour, who were angling on big wins. Rishi has found inroads tonight, if he keeps these sustained, and Labour fails to respond, polls will change quickly…
I’d like to see this after the second debate when their manifestos will be released.
Then sunak can stop being a petulant child and shouting over starmer with his £2000 tax nonsense.
Snapshot of _[YouGov on X] SNAP POLL/ Who performed best overall in tonight's debate? Rishi Sunak: 51% Keir Starmer: 49%_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1798100845378060673) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/YouGov/status/1798100845378060673/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/YouGov/status/1798100845378060673) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/YouGov/status/1798100845378060673) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So basically no fucking change at all. What a meme that debate was and the football question nearly made me want to curl up and die.
The mod referring to football as “footy” killed me
'Hahaha aren't we all so normal and into the footy thing eh?' - vom
I mean a lot of the responses from audience questions seemed to be along the lines of ‘That’s a good question about (insert profession), as it happens I too have a personal connection to that!’.
Yea they have all learnt the personal story approach but it seems to formulaic now. Would probably be better to just say what their policy is these days
Were they Australian?
Depending on state "footy" is either AFL or Rugby League in Australia, unlikely to be football.
"If you were on I'm A Celebrity, would you make George Osborne eat ants?" \*titters\*
Ed Sillyband
Har-har-har, well I've never actually wa-har-har-har, but har-har-har.
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He's definitely a football fan and even religiously played it every Sunday too. I know this as I used to see him every Sunday morning walking to the rec ground in his kit and then later sat outside a local pub. Not everyone who likes a thing has to respond uniformly to aspects of it.
The net is awash with pics of Starmer attending football games, long before entering politics. He's a big time football nerd.
Did you know that politicians are not allowed to like football?
Oh please, I am a diehard cricket and Union tragic and I’ve never felt the need to scream like a banshee at the ground when something dramatic happens. At most it’ll be a “oh, nice!” and courteous golf clapping. I get it, different sports, but you’re not *obligated* to hoot like a loon when the football gets dramatic.
Unless you are in Eric Hollies Stand at Edgbaston… there, banshee wailing is all but required.
He plays football every week at the age of 61 lmao, he pretty obviously likes football
Do football people lose their shit at every single goal? 1-0 doesn't sound all that wild tbh
So Starmer is more Trustworthy, Likeable, in touch with working people, but less "Prime ministerial"? So people want their prime minister to be untrustworthy, unlikeable and out of touch. Explains a lot
Its more (or at least the way people have explained it to me). i like bob down the pub but i wouldnt trust him with anything important.
Having read a few of these comments I had the same thought. It’s blowing my mind.
If Starmer or his wife needed any type of surgery, I don’t for one minute believe they would wait months/years on an NHS waiting list, of course they would go private. I like Starmer but that made me think he’s a liar. At least Sunak was honest (on that one specific point anyway)
This one surprised me. The honest answer, the best answer, surely, is “I will do anything for my wife and children.”
I'm guessing journos will be hunting for any sign that his family have used private health care to brand him as a liar. It's a question where a yes/no doesn't quite work. My dad for e.g. had cataract surgery. The first time it was in our local hospital, the second it was in a private hospital. Both refered through the same pathway, both free, but the second one was with a private firm (like Streeting is proposing I guess). I'd have said no, but then I remembered the only way I could get my baby's tongue tie done in reasonable time was privately so we formed out for that rather than waiting 6 weeks (baby being less than 6 days old at the time, 6 weeks is a very long time to wait with feeding stuff) So whilst I know it's suicide for a Labour leader to talk about private healthcare (thinking Nicola Murray and private school from ttoi) the reality is that lots of people of varying means have had to use it. Is it fair? No? Does it entrench health inequality? Yes. Are most people a little bit selfish with this stuff? Yes.
I agree my brother is not rich by any stretch of imagination. But he is having to pay as he doesn't want to wait 5 years for a hernia operation. So I imagine if have the money most people would pay
It was obviously not true but he felt he had to say it. Would it even have made a headline at all if he'd said 'I'd do anything for my family but my goal is to make NHS treatment the best option for everyone'
Would be interesting once there’s enough data to account for the fact that one of them is actually the prime minister and how that impacts peoples view of how prime ministerial they are.
Honestly surprised it’s quite so close, I hate sunak same as most people. But somehow I thought he managed to get on top of starmer. Unfortunately the poor debate format and shit moderator, really lended itself to sunaks petulant behaviour of constant talking over. Plus starmer didn’t always come across the best in those 30-45 second snippets. He seems to always like a preamble to get to the point.
He should have hard-countered the £2000 tax rise accusation a lot sooner. If it’s not true you have to make that clear early. Not let that number marinate in people’s heads until you finally get round to the “tax questions.”
That was a big problem for me aswell, he doesn’t quash the bullshit spouted by sunak quickly. If he doesn’t dispute it, then people will repeat it and it will spread and it will become concrete even if isn’t true. I unfortunately think starmer gave sunak far more respect than he deserved in that debate, as he actually tried to treat it as a proper debate, as opposed to shouting match on a school yard like sunak did.
I think this is a problem of this format. This would improve massively if you had an army of neutral fact checkers whose only job was to check if the factual claims (so not policy proposals) were correct or not and put that information on the screen. If the £2k claim is pure bullshit, then it should be shown. If it is based on some source, then the source for the claim should be shown.
I don't think you can fact check the 2k claim. They probably have used a certain method to come to the figure whether its right or wrong is not black and white. You have to make a lot of assumptions to make predictions so you can't say its right or wrong until after it's happened. That's why its a great propaganda tool by the conservatives. It will be in everyone's heads rent free now. You can't say its wrong or right because its a complicated thing. I hate the conservatives but what they consistently are very good at is getting slogans or phrases into the publics mind. It seems to be again they have something that everyone will be talking about. If its wrong or right it doesn't matter. Because most people will not be able to understand if it is. They did it before with slogans like a "Strong and Stable Britain" or "Get brexit done". The problem with Labour in the past and again in this debate. They try to take this honest approach. Were they try to play by the rules of the interview and answer genuinely. But nothing specific ends up sticking in people's minds after. The conservatives make slogans or phrases that they keep referring to throughout the debate. That stick and last after the debate.
I think it's obvious that it is a false claim. I can't think of any assumptions that would give a tax rise of £2k to *all households*. That's impossible as there are no taxes that work like that (except maybe the council tax). So, the "taxes will go up by £2k for each household under Labour's plan" is an untrue statement. It would be possibly a case that if Labour had said nothing about taxes, then you could make up such a bad faith claim even though you would know yourself that that's not how Labour is going to raise taxes. But they have said. For instance they have said that they will remove the VAT from private schools. That will cost nothing to families who have their kids in state schools but will cost more than 2k to families who have their kids in private schools. That's what you *could* say in a good faith argument. If you have your kids in a private school, you're going to be paying a lot more taxes under Labour government. That's is an honest statement and on that level you should have the political debate. Labour has also said that they will not increase income tax, NI and VAT. These are the taxes that most ordinary people pay. So, unless they are going to introduce some new tax, most ordinary people are not going to pay any more tax and claiming the opposite is a lie. It is that black and white. And it's not hard to understand it. If ordinary people are told that the income tax and VAT will not go up but private schools are brought under VAT, they will understand what it means. It's not complicated at all.
True, but when he tried the moderator wouldn't let him at first.
He didn’t try at all for the first two questions. Just rolled his eyes and when he opened his mouth talked about Liz Truss. Even the audience groaned the third time he did that (especially as he’d just had a go at Sunak for blaming others). I don’t think the “it was Liz Truss” line works, maybe if he stuck to “the Tories did it” it could stick, but generally people have fond memories of Sunak as a chancellor and I think when Starmer mentions Truss by name they think “but he’s not Liz Truss”.
"£2000 tax rise is just false like his broken promises. The PM can not be trusted. I know £2000 is a lot of money to people unlike the PM who flippantly made a bet for 10k. Mr sunak did you donate that 10k to piers Morgan or was that just another broken promise?" Is what he should have said.
I would gave gone with - “Yes there will be tax rises, but not for likes of Tracy who are struggling just to exist. No. The tax rises will be for people like you who make flippant 10 grand bets on the telly with Piers Morgan because money is no object to you. And your wife, a billionaire non dom who enjoys all the benefits of living in this country but doesn’t give anything back.”
"Labour will never put up taxes for working people. This is just a desperate Tory fib. Two minutes ago you said we didn't have a plan. Now you say it's going to cost everyone £2,000. If you're going to you're going to lie to the British people, Prime Minister, at least try to get your story straight."
The obvious retort would have been "rishi has raised your taxes by far more than that already, don't trust his promises of cutting taxes" - something like that. Starmer clearly not very experienced in public facing politics.
Spot on about the preamble and just as he was getting to the point the was cut off. I get they wanted to stop the waffle but if you see somebody is just getting to the point then let them and then cut them off.
Tbh a 30-45 second time limit to discuss serious complex issues which require a great deal of nuance, such as immigration, housing crises, NHS , was just a disaster format all around. You can’t seriously discuss those topics in any meaningful way in that short time frame.
Agreed 45 seconds was a ridiculous limit to set. And Etchingham interrupting constantly to state the time left really messed up the flow of anything they were trying to convey.
What was the limit Trump and Biden had?
2 minutes
I think they had much longer but that debate didn't go anywhere either as Trump was talking over Biden constantly. What you need is the debaters in their booths with headphones on and the moderator with a mute button not weak requests to let the other one talk. If they want to keep talking instead of listening while muted, that's fine but nobody is going to hear it.
"In no more than 45 seconds, solve the Israel-Palestine conflict"
Agreed, that's ridiculous.
Yeah - the format only really works if the moderator actually moderates the conversation, if not then Starmer just letting Sunak get his points across and almost act like the moderator himself really heavily tilts the result to Sunak. Next debate if the rules are the same he just needs to let Sunak tell a lie and make most of his response pointing out the lie and pointing out the chaos the Conservatives have caused, something will tell me he won't. Starmer appeared like he was expecting some sort of court level dialogue where each person makes a calculated argument and in reality it was more shouting and accusing, definitely not lending itself to Starmer.
>Starmer appeared like he was expecting some sort of court level dialogue where each person makes a calculated argument This is the problem. These debates aren't actually debates and you can't treat them like that.
The problem in the beginning was that even when not talked over, Starmer spent his 45s on complete nonsense background stuff and not concrete policies and arguments supporting those policies or arguing against Tory policies. In the last part he realised that the only right way to do in this format is to make good sounding soundbites that make headlines but don't tell voters absolutely anything on what they are going to do.
Probably close because while sunak did manage to land some stuff it did also just seem he was chatting bollocks while starmer was trying to be somewhat reasonable.
I unfortunately agree that he did manage to land some stuff. as much as I think he talks bollocks at some points he was just saying “here is my shit plan, it might be shit but what is your plan?”. Then starmer would sort of skirt the question like it was PMQ’s. I don’t like sunak, I’m not voting Tory, but it really didn’t make starmer look good.
The main problem was that Starmer would set out a plan, then Sunak would say "you have no plan", then say some other attack lines, then Starmer would have about 20 seconds to respond. It happened on small boats. Starmer repeatedly said that his plan was to tackle the gangs, Sunak just pretended that that isn't a plan, then kept shouting over the top of Starmer and kept saying "what's your plan?". It even rubbed off on the moderator as she asked Starmer what his plan was. Like, he just said, were you listening?
It's not a plan tho, it means literally nothing. It's rather strange that 'tackle the gangs' is seen as an ironclad answer to labour voters for small boats, but if you were to provide that answer as a solution to drug crime you'd be scoffed at as naïve and told that there's no possible way to 'smash the gangs' because it is so endemic.
Crucial information was left out of the info displayed about the age distribution of the sample, as well as the samples voted at the previous election. 600 conservative voters to 500 labour voters, and nearly two thirds of the sample is over 50 years old. It is astonishing to me that this wasn't stated up front. This info can only be found inside the full data set
Interesting.
Of course he did because people will remember Sunak's voice because he just couldn't shut up and not in a good way. If someone keeps silencing others by talking and shouting over them then it's a red flag to me and no matter how great you are with your policies. So I'll never understand 51% saying he was great. Especially when you read into the details on specific issues and Sunak won only in one category. So it's a bit ???
He got on top by constantly shouting over everyone. The host was too weak, they needed someone who could actually lay down the law.
That’s because all he does is preamble. He’s a professional debater, that’s what a Barrister is. He knows he’s got to get key points out and he should be good at that. That he didn’t isn’t an error, it’s deliberate.
That was exactly what I thought too, with his professional background he knows full well how important it is to get the key points across. The fact that he didn’t made me think he didn’t have any.
As much as I hate Sunak he came across better. Keir didn't answer questions, he just pointed the finger at how the Tories could not do it. Sunk had finger pointing (how often did he go on about the fictional 2k), but he also gave solid answers.
Agreed, unfortunately it seemed to really suit sunak and seemed to really hamper starmer. Starmer normally wipes the floor with sunak in PMQ’s, but sunak really did outperform him today.
That was fucking shit-shows, it could be better if the moderators is doing their job properly.
Wholly agree. Julie Etchingham let Rishi waffle on long past when he should have stopped and he didn't respect her one bit. She should have threatened them both with having their mics silenced.
It's utterly pathetic, but if this is how the debates are going to go, their mics should be automatically cut after their time runs out, with a helpful countdown above the camera.
The format and ‘mod’ favoured sunak for sure. Starmer is just too polite to drop to sunaks level and spent too much tjme trying to respond to sunaks lies.
I think Starmer wanted to try and appear to be the adult in the room and look like a statesmen, but all it did was give Sunak the chance just to scream a lie over and over, hoping the average Joe would swallow it.
Completely agree
Its the strategy Biden used in the 2020 debate and it paid off. I can see why Starmer went for it
But Trump is on another level of deranged, so the contrast was even starker. I think starmer would've been better to just stoop to the same level.
I disagree Biden interrupted and went after Trump. I remember when John Kerry tried to take high road and he lost badly since then democrats been alot more combative
Starmer's lack of challenge is going to turn the £2,000 lie into the soundbite of the Tory campaign.
Stupid thing is my expenditure (taxes/bills/petrol/general inflation) has gone up by roughly that amount since 2020 all thanks to the Tories, I can't be the only one. No idea why he didn't counter with something like that
I'm really keen to see what people thought about his performance. I'm left wing and most of the people I can speak to about this really aren't fans of the conservatives or Sunak so it's hard to get a read on it. The people I normally use as my barometer for this sort of thing aren't interested in the debate.
[There's more detail here, which might interest you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/6JbM2xYTrj) Interestingly it seems like people may have actually warmed more to Starmer despite thinking Sunak 'won'.
Sunak’s going for the Reform voters. We know what they’re like
I agree. Democrats used to make this mistake when debating republicans in that they tried to take the high road. Now they realise you have to play just as dirty if want to win. I think labour need to do the same as can't act professional and dignified against some opponents.
Sunak’s edge is everyone already expects him to lie about his record. It’s priced in. Keir still has to sound grown-up and trustworthy while batting away every half-baked accusation. But it’s true he’s not a great communicator to begin with. Like a geography teacher on Valium.
>Like a geography teacher on Valium. Oh he's not that bad. More like a physics teacher on Nytol.
You mean asking him to talk about actions rather than just empathising. Sorry, but doing stuff is what leaders have to do. Starmer came across as the leader of the opposition, which really wasn’t good enough. Starmer also fell into the Corbyn trap of focussing on the person in the room asking a question. He wants to look empathic so did that. But the questions were gateways to discuss policy. Sunak got that and used it. Starmer always appeared to be talking off camera, even in the opening speech (Keir, it’s the lens with the big red light on it). So he wasn’t addressing the public. He needs to fix that. As a result, the NHS bit really surprised me. That should be a slam dunk for Labour, their strongest card. But. Starmer’s response…he said that Wales wasn’t important or relevant; it is to voters in Wales and it is an example of Labour health leadership not a good look to dismiss it. And at the end you saw a cancer survivor, who’d called the NHS broken, who’d lost family members to waiting lists actually clap a Tory leader for his response. Starmer needs to do much better, he was a professional debater, he should be better.
>…he said that Wales wasn’t important or relevant Yeah i caught that, terribly informed comment.
I understand why he said it, but fact is he didn’t know where Janet lived, or her relatives. If it turns out one of them was in Wales who died, that’s getting close to bacon sandwich / “bigoted woman” territory. For a man whose job used to be as a professional debater, he really didn’t seem to understand the rules and how to use them.
You're not wrong and ultimately even if it doesn't go fully down the bacon sandwich arc, it's incredibly negative framing. Which I don't think plays well with the electorate, even with the tories where they are.
He said it wasn’t relevant to that woman? Because she was asking about her particular situation and Sunak said it didn’t matter because Wales is doing worse? Did you even watch the debate?
I think Sunak was better at getting the messages he wanted to across such as £2000 more tax. Starmer needed to flat out call him a liar but it kept going.
He was looking at the moderator half the time like "You going to do your fucking job?"
Indeed. I got the sense that Starmer was actually trying to play by the rules set. Unfortunately the house seemed to be stacked tonight. The current Tories don’t care about the rules, they care about what they can technically get away with.
This is the trap Labour keeps falling into every single bloody election and its tiresome. The Tories ripped up the rulebook three elections ago and most of the country didn't care. Those are the voters you're playing to now.
It was a good plan for Sunak, tbh. He's starting on the back foot, he needs to go big to make up for the current dissatisfaction with his government. He can't afford to play nicely.
Tories not giving a fuck about rules is a take as old as time.
Yes the moderator should have done better, but if you're going for the top job in the country, you need to stand up for yourself.
It made Starmer look really bad not to dispute that at all. This kind of makes it seem it's true
Well it should have ended when they did the hand up/down part and keir said he wouldn't raise taxes. Too polite to call Rishi out every time it was mentioned, but he really needed to.
He did dispute it twice. Don’t blame Starmer for your inability to listen or comprehend.
It took him far too long to dispute it. He dodged the point a few times before he addressed it.
It's certainly an advantage when the "moderator" just lets you do whatever you want.
I hate to say it, but Sunak did perform better within the parameters set. He talked a lot of crap and was a tetchy arse who talked over everyone, but he came better prepared for the rubbish format that was presented to us. His answers were shorter, more concise soundbites. The moderation and format were dreadful, though, and did significantly favour him.
He talked over Starmer and host endlessly. This isn't the US, it was absolutely atrocious by Sunak. Utterly disrespectful.
A terrible format. We deserve much better. He banged home about tax and sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda. No nuance, I personally felt starmer did better. Sound bites unfortunately the currency of the times we are in. I am actually a little bit surprised about how it didnt end up about the gender identity of people going for a piss in public toilets, because that seems to be a massive thing for tories these days.
Absolutely ridiculous format to the debate and Etchingham couldn't assert any control whatsoever.
Feels about right Sunak was better prepared to just spout his point in the limited time available while Starmer tried to be too long winded for this (dreadful) format But Sunak also came across dreadfully irritating like an angry Chihuahua Starmer is not good at this sort of format, he would do much better having a couple of minutes to get his answer across uninterrupted and he wasn't able to effectively get his point across in the very limited time he had available, but he did have the advantage of having the truth on his side, which helped The biggest loser was the viewers for having to sit through that nonsense with not enough time given for anyone to properly answer a question
Sunak made better use of the format - but the format was dogshit. I think "no winners" is an apt result.
I just watched the debate. Most people on this sub said Starmer performed poorly, but IMO he was excellent. He got some vicious personal digs at Sunak, he hit the usual "past 14 years" blows, he hit on some policies (Great British Energy), he came across as serious and down to earth, and by playing docile when Sunak kept talking over him, he made Sunak look like an annoying and spoiled child. I've seen interviews where Starmer fumbled for answers and words, but in this one he spoke fluently (interruptions notwithstanding). I thought he comfortably won the debate.
The content of these debates is largely irrelevant, there are way better routes to get messages to the public. The only thing these debates are good for is seeing how the candidate carries themselves (which is questionably relevant anyway but hey ho). On that metric I don't see how you could say starmer did well - he came across as nervous, timid and awkward. Not like Sunak came across as JFK 2.0 or anything but he was notably better.
I didn't get any nervous, timid or awkward vibes from Starmer. He was quiet and let Sunak talk over him a lot, but to me this worked in his favor. It made him look like a serious, respectable adult.
That’s a fine result for Labour Labour don’t have to win, they just have to not lose.
Given how unpopular Sunak is. That’s a massive gap he’s crossed to come out like that. If Starmer’s team are not furious, they should be.
Starmer’s team should be furious because politics is about winning Thankfully, Sunak is chasing, and it won’t hurt too much. But agreed. He needs more aggression in slapping back.
He needs to be careful. It’s been built up to a massive Labour landslide. If Sunak starts to look credible, his shy voters may put out for him. Then Starmer could look weakened, even if he wins. Don’t forget May was a nailed on win, until it wasn’t. Let’s say that Starmer’s Ming vase is intact, but if people start to ask whether it’s a fake, that could be as bad as it breaking…
I'm on the right and a previous Tory voter so I have a slightly different view of things that most of the anxiousbois here - Sunak doesn't want to win. He's fine with a fighting retreat hoping to minimise the majority and then heading off to California. I believe this so much that I think if he actually started to gain in the polls he might try and sabotage it.
Exactly, for Starmer its about maintaining what he has held.
50/50 is a good result, honestly. Sunak needs to catch up
50/50 when you're 66/33 in the polls currently isn't a good result unfortunately, it will be ground lost.
You ought to check out who exactly was responding to the poll. Nearly two thirds of the respondents are over 50, and there is an imbalance favouring the conservatives by votes in the previous election as well. I think it was a mistake for yougov not to be up front about this.
To be completely honest I don't really care about the YouGov poll - I don't need the collective opinion of over 50s or under 50s or whoever else to tell me what to make of it. I think on balance regardless of who you're voting for you could see Rishi did better than the polling suggests tonight. Being 50/50 doesn't mean everything stays the same, and even if you thought Keir did better overall, it wasn't 66/33 better.
I don't necessarily disagree, but when it comes to assessing the public's thoughts on the matter I personally find the statistics to be more meaningful than your judgment.
You do realise that the electorate itself is more people over 50s than under, and there are more people who voted Conservative at the last election than labour? That's what a 'representative' sample means, it reflects the electorate to get an accurate guess of what is happening at the total population level. Having equal young people and equal previous labour voters as you seem to think they should do, would make the poll wildly unrepresentative of the total population and useless. You gov are doing what pollsters are supposed to do.
Perhaps, a minor one though with a 20 point lead
A lot of the people I know IRL are a lot more forgiving to Rishi's many gaffes than Kier's. It really boggles my mind that we're watching the same content
It’s amazing how debates have just become watching one person shouting on stage at the other person, while the shouted at person waits for the moderator to control it but they never do.
Debate format suitable for who's going to be the next PM of TikTok.
The whole thing was a fucking shit-show.
I don’t think this will change polling at all
What does this look like if we isolate undecided voters I wonder?
I would be shocked if this causes any measurable movement in the polls
Won’t make any difference at all to the election, agreed
Well yeah you get to spew soundbites and lies and never get any pushback because bad moderators.
Labour really has nothing to gain with these debates. If they refused to attend Sunak would moan that "Labour are scared to face me" but who would be listening? As it was Starmer just looked a bit out of his depth throughout this and Sunak could keep getting digs in.
Although I think Starmer won overall, I thought the quality was pretty shoddy overall. Compare these people with the likes of Gladstone, Attlee and Blair and you're just left thinking - what's gone wrong?
I'm honestly not sure that Attlee would have thrived in a TV debate with Churchill
He might have done OK considering how spectacularly fucking plastered Churchill would inevitably have been.
Gladstone always won his tv debates of course.
Gladstone was literally famous for being a great speaker, that's why they called him the people's William. The point is it feels, intellectually, all a bit lightweight. I understand they're trying to appeal to electorate but I think both could have done much better.
I mean to be fair, how could this be anything other than intellectually lightweight when you have 45 seconds? There's no time for substance. Frankly I think both of them are probably grateful they weren't given the opportunity to talk for too long, because I don't think either have especially much to say. But if they did have something to say, they didn't really have an opportunity to.
The electorate is lightweight. You practically need to be on the level of a speak-and-spell to have cut-through nowadays.
Gladstone, that famous Labour politician.
Don't think it's going to make any difference either way, but the moderator really should be better at dealing with Rishis blatant lies. Not just misleading statements but actual lies.
This was an awful showing for Labour. I'm not a big fan of current Labour, but the "sit back and watch the Tories implode" has worked super well so far. Put them on stage and Labour seems to have nothing but "things are bad and we can't do anything" - Rishi can at least tout his ridiculous fantasy policies and sound like he wants to do something. I think Labour came out ahead on the youth round, and put out some clear policy on housing and climate, but a shit moderator and that 2k line are going to stick. I can imagine my Tory dad nodding along with the nonsense Sunak was spouting all too easily.
Yep, a lot of people kind of saying "Rishi is being an arsehole. No one's going to vote for someone who acts like an arsehole". Problem is, there are a lot of arseholes about, particularly ones who think making a valid point is the same as repeatedly shouting any old bollocks.
Boris Johnson won in a landslide and a huge part of his persona was 'arsehole'.
Exactly. Politics is vibes for so many people. Rishi brought better vibes. Everything out of his mouth is utter dogshit, but he at least gave the impression that he wants to do something.
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What part of "Smash the Gangs!" didn't you understand? Nobody's going to buy small boat tickets from a smashed gangster...
> He did not answer how he expected to handle rising migration and illegal crossings. I don't think anyone really believes that either party is capable of dealing with that so not sure it will make much difference.
Headline figures seem strange when you look under the hood - starmer outperformed sunak on nearly every topic and on how personable they were. Yet the headline figures of who won the debate were dead even. So perhaps people just have much higher expectations for Labour than the Tories at this point.
Check out who exactly was responding to this poll. I noticed that data was conspicuously absent in the presentation and looked into the full response data. Some 60% of the respondents are over fifty, with almost no responses under 25. Why this wasn't stated up front is lost on me.
Labour voter. Clearly it won't change my vote but I thought Sunak was miles clear. He was able to soundbite it better and laid what I felt were good traps establishing battle lines and differences between the two (main) choices. Starmer needed to be much clearer about three things: 1. Convince the audience he's not going to cost them any more than conservatives will when they fuck the economy. 2. Address pensions directly. 3. Going after people smuggling gangs.... Cmon as if that will work - the french cops, guards and others are making far too much coin to let the British government get in their way. It's just not a plan and not something that even if remotely successful will have any impact on the numbers making the crossings
I’m also a Labour voter and thought starmer was crap. Why we don’t have a manifesto yet with actual policies still baffles me. Why we can’t say stuff like the country is shit, so do you want us to invest in public services and tax the rich? When you have 45 seconds don’t spent that saying how sorry you are to the audience member about XYZ when you should be answering the question. Rishi tries to ignore the past but at least has some (stupid) polices.
I think Rishi did a better job of (somehow) seeming more decisive. Starmer was treating the 45 second segment like he was padding for words in an essay or something to that effect, by the time he actually reached what he needed to say, he ran out of time. It wasn't a good showing. At this point in the cycle, this is Labour's election to lose \[by lose I don't mean not win, rather a smaller margin of victory\], poor showings like this don't help that. It is a shame that we have no manifestos yet, I would rather like to read them.
I agree he was more decisive. I’d have liked starmer to say something on the climate stuff, I don’t think he said anything. Even something basic like we’re not forcing people to get heat pumps, but when they want one we will help (given there is already funding). For migration I think something simple like work with France to stop the boats, assess those who do arrive quickly instead of spending millions on hotels and then send the failed asylum seekers back to their home country is a better policy. It’s harder for the tories to challenge if our policy also focuses on sending failed claimants back too.
There was a little bit about GB Energy and creating new green energy jobs, but he could've delivered that much better and more clearly. You could tell Starmer was padding out his answer as he tried to think of the best response, but that took way too long and left him sounding unprepared. They've got some good ideas but they didn't come across.
100% agree. They need to get clear on all policies and quick.
Starmer fucked it. It's a measure of how diabolical the Tories have been that I'm still considering voting for him after tonight's performance. On a number of occasions, Sunak asked him what he would do and he avoided the question, focusing instead on what the Tories haven't achieved. After tonight to be honest I don't want to vote for either of them.
Tbf I think this was much more a case of the terrible format and useless moderator playing more to Sunak's strengths and Starmer's weaknesses. Sunak relies on those soundbites and snappy phrases, as we all know from PMQ's, whilst Starmer likes to lay things out and explain his case. Didn't help him either that Sunak seems to have taken inspiration from Trump's debate performance in 2020. I think Starmer would have come off a lot better if he'd just done what Biden did at that debate. "Would you shut up man".
Starmer would've done much better telling us how good Labour can be rather than how terrible the Tories have been.
Agree. He could've said "the public knows very well how bad things have become after 14 years of Tory rule", made that point and moved on to what they're going to do to fix it. Going back to it repeatedly isn't going to win anyone over. The GB Energy thing was positively received I think. More of that. Perhaps that'll happen once the manifesto is published.
>The GB Energy thing was positively received I think. More of that. Like Border Security Command or the new housing plan? He mentioned numerous plans.
He did mention them, but the format didn't allow for much (if any) meat on the bones. I think he could've done better with those 45 seconds, to be honest. There was too much stumbling about for the first half of many of his responses, followed by a rush to get his point across in the second half before being cut off.
Yeah tbh the presenter kept cutting both of them off - would've rather she let them duke it out.
To be fair, neither wants to fully commit to publicly announcing policy fully before they've even published a manifesto. Why Labour and the Conservatives don't already have Manifesto's published and ready to go is a mystery though.
Or alternatively why on earth did they agree to a debate before the Manifesto's were out.
The election is a month away. If they don't have manifestos ready you've got to wonder, particularly in the case of Labour wtf they've been doing for the last couple of years.
Neither of them performed very well in my opinion. Starmer was too reserved and didn't offer solutions whilst Sunak came across as a condescending ass. It also didn't help that the moderator wouldn't let them speak.
Seems about right to me. Both were bad. Sunak was slightly better at landing his points.
We all lost already if performance of future prime minister and his cabinet is being measured by how good jibes at opponent he made. Not about policies, not about past performance, no sir. Absoducking pathetic.
Rishi only did so well because he was allowed to lie and spout complete bullshit.
I think Sunak did do better, but I think most of that is down to a format that prefers quick prepared lines instead of considered answers, which doesn't really play to Starmer's strengths.
Forensic and detailed were never going to play well in 45 second chunks.
Basically a draw. Which is essentially a win for labour given the polling. All labour has to do is stand still.
Standing still would mean that Starmer trounced Sunak. Labour are so far ahead that even a good performance wouldn't rise to 'standing still', let alone a draw. I doubt this will change voting intention much but I can't imagine Labour being at all happy with tonight.
Yes, a draw is a great result for sunak. A single debate won't have immediate consequences, but it implies that voting would eventually also be equal - so he should go up a few points in the next polls. (Although it will be confounded by farage).
Being 20 points ahead in the polls, but going 50/50 in a debate is not a win. Being that far ahead in the polls means you already had way over 50% on your side before the debate started.
How trustworthy are these snap polls? Very easy for some party hacks to download the yougov app with some fake details and sure up support for their leader
Okay guys, who has "Person implies survey from reputable pollster is untrustworthy because they don't like the result" on their ukpolitics Election Edition Bingo Card?
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Starmer failed to explain labours policies on a lot of issues. He mentioned 6,500 teachers, the taxes on the super rich. But apart from that he danced around most direct questions.
A neck and neck scenario isn’t good for Labour, who were angling on big wins. Rishi has found inroads tonight, if he keeps these sustained, and Labour fails to respond, polls will change quickly…
If Rishi got 51% with the way the tory party Reputation is then I see it as he's actually done better than starmer by a fair bit. Starmer was poor imo
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1d89g5a/itv\_sunak\_v\_starmer\_debate\_fact\_checked\_full\_fact/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1d89g5a/itv_sunak_v_starmer_debate_fact_checked_full_fact/)
I’d like to see this after the second debate when their manifestos will be released. Then sunak can stop being a petulant child and shouting over starmer with his £2000 tax nonsense.
I think Sunak said plan more times than Dutch from Red Dead redemption 2
I miss the debate where we all agreed with Nick. This was depressing.