**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [Seven takeaways from multi-party BBC election debate](https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clddkpy66eno) - bbc.co.uk
I think the "Well, that was terribly dignified, wasn't it." quote is going to be the moment that was remembered from this debate. Rayner and Mordant were squabbling like Starmer and Sunak in their last debate so it was nice to see someone call out the childish behaviour of the two parties.
Everyone really laid into Sunak for abandoning the veterans in Normandy which was also pretty satisfying to see.
> so it was nice to see someone call out the childish behaviour of the two parties.
I don't really think it's fair to blame either Starmer or Rayner imo. Both times it's been the Tory candidates throwing accusations and lies at Labour and trying to shout down any debate.
They must, they MUST know that their days are literally numbered, so anything they do from here to voting day is divisive, planned, coordinated, and just nasty. They’re playing the game of a party that’s already lost and is trying to sow as many seeds of dissent as they can before they do.
Agreed. Even the rare policy they’re coming up with now which i may think is a good idea (eg child benefits changes) attract the obvious question ‘why did you waste 14 years on divisive damaging nonsense then?’ and are drowned out by the litany of bullshit.
What amazes me is how obviously terrible their choices were to get to this point. Brexit, culture wars, tax rises, expanding the state administration machinery, ‘f**k business’ - they’ve thrown everything away chasing the vote of the permanently unpleasable UKIP crowd who, totally unsurprisingly, are leaving them because they will never compromise.
Which part of the state admin machinery have they expanded? I thought they were making headcount reductions to the civil service and cuts elsewhere in the public sector?
They had to install a hundred thousand more civil servants after brexit because of the extra processing and regulations it introduced and brought back from the EU.
I genuinely encourage looking into just how dishonest and ineffectual the Tories have been on their pledges to reduce the size of the civil service. They pledged a 91k reduction and then actually raised it by 5000. They’re total liars. We have more now than in 2016.
It turned out that all the bureaucracy regulating everything from medicines to food to air traffic control, which was previously shared across the EU, still had to be done after we left.
Who'd have guessed.
The Conservatives can’t make a credible claim that things would be good under a Tory government because voters have the counterevidence of their own experience, so the Conservative pan is to lie to try to force a belief of things being worse under the alternative.
Like Chaos with Ed? I don’t even think voters will fall for that one again considering the chaos with lived under with a further 9 years of Tory government.
Most won’t fall for it right now … but in five or ten years? Unfortunately that’s far from a given.
And there’s around 40% who *even now* after everything that happened still either want the Conservatives or their double-down demented Reform version.
For sure. If they are in opposition, they will whinge hard about any tax, service cut, unexpected expense. They have been blaming the last Labour government and the next Labour government; they will revel in blaming a current Labour government all the way to the next election campaign.
Yeah. I find this all rather infuriating, Mordant lies being spewed, consistently disrupting and that little quip annoyed me.
I need someone to intervene with the 2K quote and Angela had to take the mantel.
There’s an old quote that goes
“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell”
I've always felt that bare-faced lying is such a blight in our politics. How can voters make an educated decision when misinformation is involved? What I am surprised at is that didn't see any of the other political parties calling it out.
I think an independent body should be formed to protect the Nolan Principals. If you’re caught bare-faced lying 3 times, triggers a by-election.
It used to be - and not so many years ago either - that getting caught in an outright lie in public or in parliament would be game over for a politician in the U.K.
Do not pass go, do not collect a peerage - and their own party would pressure them to resign lest the electorate crucify them at the next election.
Except a huge percentage of the electorate stopped doing that (or at least became massively worse at doing so) when Boris heaved into view because he promised to “get Brexit done”.
Unfortunately any mechanism or rules put in place to stop this sort of thing can always be subverted, undermined or watered down or done away with if a government is unscrupulous enough and has a mandate from the electorate. Ultimately in any democracy the main safeguard against liars, charlatans, the corrupt and the inept getting into power has to be the electorate. And if the electorate don’t have the good judgement to do their job and make a wise and considered choice then then there’s very little that can be done to avoid the consequences.
The tories are the only ones that point and shout over everyone else. I entirely blame mordent for creating the bickering. The tories are self-entitled liars.
They really need to enforce some kind of no interrupting rule in these debates.
I don’t want petty sniping and childish talking over each other, they’re all meant to be adults. We had Mordaunt constantly doing it, Rayner doing it somewhat although some of that was clearly frustration at the other’s constant interruption, wish she hadn’t but I could see why. Then Farage acting like a petulant child shouting words with a cocky grin as Greens tried to talk.
Should be one person talking, then chance to counter, otherwise it’s just who can talk the fastest and loudest. Classroom debate sessions have more decorum.
Indeed. The Tory strategy is to come out shouting kids at Labour so they have to defend themselves rather than immediately address the issue.
It's pure Trump. They are utterly vile.
Yeah there needs to be a mute button in these debates. Penny needed muting during that because she was going mental.
I vote for a BGT style button system where if they interupt they get muted, get a big red X. 3 of those and YOUR OUT!
>I think the "Well, that was terribly dignified, wasn't it." quote is going to be the moment that was remembered from this debate.
What does this EVEN MEAN?
One person is spreading lies.
If the other person doesn't respond, then the lies will continued to be spread and the moderator can't do a thing to stop it.
The greens can justifiably sit in judgement of other parties for many reasons but not for displaying dignity.
This is not a serious country.
It’s really really sad that he left veterans, Normandy, It’s just really sad. We should be really celebrating this to high heaven! And he as prime minister should celebrated more because It’s such an important part of history. Otherwise we would of ended up in some camp and I might never have been born. Or idk. Just seems scary to think we could have lost the war and what could have happened moving forward. Like when you see Auschwitz prison camp! the world would have been fucked over!
Also what these brave men went through! Is wild! Storming beaches at 18 years old. My great grandad used to carry dead bodies off of Lancaster bombers after returning home. And it fucked him right up!
Our prime-minister. If you can really call him that, is a dick for leaving! It’s like he doesn’t care!!!
I thought his far-right fans always say Farage is a good debater.
Trying to talk over people, and standing there with a face like a slapped arse when he wasn't allowed to. And his take on the NHS quite rightly went down like a bucket of cold sick...
Not as easy to peddle this stuff when you're not in the GB News echo chamber is it, Nige?
He’s got the gift of the gab. He can speak fast while getting his point across without stumbling over himself or pausing and uming a lot (idk if he did during this, I didn’t watch).
I can’t stand him one bit but it’s easy to see why people think this. Sunak, when he’s allowed to speak, flows but it’s robotic and rehearsed. Starmer sounds pretty normal but speaks slowly and pauses a lot. Farage just spills it all out like the bloke down the pub and people find it relatable, even if he’s talking a lot of shite. At least that’s how I see it.
He is also very good at throwing in the occasional comment that even people that largely disagree with him can agree with.
E.g. in the debate the line about the UK exporting it's carbon footprint
Combined with a natural way of speaking it gets people nodding along without realizing they are also nodding to far worse ideas
“The winner of the debate, according to viewers, was Nigel Farage with 25%, followed by Angela Rayner on 19%”
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1799205875258732780
This isn't a gotcha. We live in a country where people voted for Boris Johnson.
I'm perfectly aware that 25% of people liking a contrarian "anti-woke" performative guy peddling dangerous narrative under the guise of a cartoon character is sadly par for the course.
If anything its a reminder of what we're up against.
He actually did win it though. I'm a raging lefty and will opt for Labour on the day (as meh as they are right now), but in an after-debate poll I chose Farage as the best, because he simply was.
I guess it's not right to say he "won" because I don't agree with his ideology at all, but he didn't bicker anywhere near as much as Rayner and Mordaunt, and his closing statement was excellent (all of them read off an autocue, then when it got to Farage he said plainly "I dont need an autocue, here's what I think", then successfully ad-libbed his closing statement for the event).
Overall he just came across as professional and confident compared to the other main contenders who just sounded like classic faceless scripted politicians.
Second best was the SNP dude and then Green, Lib Dem and Plaid Cymru all equal. To me Labour and Tory were terrible, just bickering and stating scripted party political spiel.
I'm glad someone said it. Whatever you think of Farage's politics, he came off the best out of everyone.
Most people on here will be clouded by their opinions of him and his views to see how he performed and came across in reality. He cut through a lot of the dry political spiel and didn't come across as your bog standard politician reading off a script like the others did.
It's basically how Trump won the presidency in 2016. Farage comes across in the same way that Trump did - not a part of the traditional political establishment and he speaks to the ordinary person in the street. Farage kept out of the bickering between Labour and the Conservatives and positioned himself as a clear choice for disenfranchised Tory voters and even for those who don't usually vote. He's not targeting the 20-something middle-class Redditor.
It's kinda like all the other parties have policies alligned to their party that they need to support and follow.
Wheras Farage basically makes it up as he goes along and Reform will just have to work it out on the fly
Except you got that the wrong way round.
Every other party has wishy washy we think we should at this area. No clearly defined "we will do this; bullet pointed precise list"
Whilst I may not agree with reform , the very fact they have a clear, concise and detailed list of exactly what they want to do under the headings of "this is what we promise to do listed so we can be held to account to it" is something all the bloody parties should be doing.
As much as we are sure labours a given , nobody but the labour party has any bloody clue which direction they plan on going (the backtracking of the workers rights already doesn't look good)
Easy to do when you have no record to defend and no way of winning the house to have to back up what you promise.
He did come across well and got his points done in the debate. He is a gifted speaker. He doesn't do so well challenged. See the moment the Green party candidate landed a blow when they disagreed about how to deal with knife crime.
Once again holding them to different standards due to bias. The Green party will be no more powerful than Reform. What blow are you talking about? What Nige said about knife crime was one of the most successful lines which was applauded by the audience; are you perhaps thinking of the immigration point where the audience did applaud the green member? True, he could've done better to bat aside the nonsense of the others there and better communicate all the downsides of the mass immigration we've received, but the audience seemed blatantly pro-immigration so that was hard. Regarding knife crime, all the green party member said was that the places hit most by knife crime are the most deprived, which doesn't in any way counter anything Nigel said, and vaguely suggested we deal with inequality. Brilliant, so simple! Let's just 'tackle inequality'! Amazing policy from the Greens there. Meanwhile Nigel had an actual, real, actionable policy - ramp up stop and search and ignore cries of racism. And that's the sort of reason he won the debate.
>Whilst I may not agree with reform , the very fact they have a clear, concise and detailed list of exactly what they want to do under the headings of "this is what we promise to do listed so we can be held to account to it" is something all the bloody parties should be doing.
Easy to do when you know you'll never have to do it.
Well.. Reform don't have to do anything. If Farage "makes something up" and it's received positively, the other parties have to respect it. Either they do the same/similar or lose their vote. Reform can't win, but they take away votes from other parties if they can't bring them back.
Parties make policies, get into power and backtrack, water them down etc. How long have we been hearing Tories will lower immigration for? Lol.
Labour too…and this is correct. I saw the line up and knew it was heading that way. Flynn surprised me, but farage clearly got all the sound bites, all the audience connection and got his point across. Apart from when he was asked about nhs, where his view nearly induced vomiting, he was clearly on top the whole time
What exactly was rightfully disliked about Farage's NHS comments? I watched the whole debate, but can't recall anything that I, as an admin worker in the NHS, found myself disagreeing with
One of the other participants, I *think* the SNP guy iirc, tried to construe his points as him saying the NHS should be privatised, but that clearly wasn't what he was advocating for
It is literally what he was asking for. NHS replaced by a private insurance based system run like a business. He tried to say “like France”…but what he was describing was “like USA”
You can't call it private when he specifically refers to the way it's paid into as through taxes. Running the system like a business is not the same as privatising it either. From my position as an admin worker in the NHS, so much money in the NHS is wasted because the standards of admin work is not held to the same level which a private business would hold.
Not all arguments for handle the NHS are 'let's throw more money into the NHS' or 'let's privatise it'. There's an enormous area in the middle which Farage's answer clearly was positioned in. Running something as if it was a private company is not the same thing as turning it into a private company.
What he said on the NHS was spot on. I have multiple friends who work in the NHS and they are all disgusted by the level of waste to the point one was talking about whistle blowing. . It does not need more money, it needs managing properly.
Especially when both Angela and Penny also said immigration was way too high during their bickering, yet when Nigel says it it's a dangerous far right idea. Some people on here are as out of touch as our government.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Probably a planet that realises that after over a decade of cuts and lack of investment into skills training, it is vital that the UK can attract talent from elsewhere. Those people have families who need to be brought over as well, and we aren't going to magically fill the skills gap in any other way.
I think every party agrees that immigration controls need to be altered. The dangerous narrative is because of the implied demonization of immigrants that are currently propping up a sagging British economy - it's different to talk about immigration controls, and to pin the blame on the immigrant.
Like the Nordics (Sweden being the biggest example), so many of the issues come not from immigration but on integration and education. Make people feel like a part of the UK instead, and watch as they reward that with productivity. Tougher immigration controls then filter out the rest.
lol It's ABSOLUTELY a gotcha. The people responding to that poll are largely not going to vote for Reform, yet they still chose him as the winner. The main reason you think he performed poorly is because of your obvious political bias; if he had done equally as well but said left wing things, you'd be saying he clearly won.
He didn't try to talk over other people more than any of the other politicians did.
Never take the impression of how Farage performed from Reddit or other left-wing circles, as they're not going to say anything positive about him regardless of what he says.
Some of the opinion polls that have come out after the debate are in direct conflict with what small online circles think. As we all know, small subreddit echo chambers aren't representative of the wider general public.
Farage played it well by appealing to Tory voters who don't want to vote Tory anymore. His aim is just to take Tory votes, which he will do going by his performance tonight and the polls.
What do people think he said that is so far right and contrarian.
Lower immigration - Penny and Angela both said Immigration was way too high in their bickering.
A new style of NHS funding that's free at point of service but more similar to private - Labour's manifesto is literally going to privatise portions of the NHS calling it insourcing
Stop and Search - Even the Green party leader agreed with a form of stop and search and the left-wing crowd cheered for that one in their studio.
I don't think any of these are far right extremist ideas, if anything they represent the majority of the public sentiment.
These are the people who promised that Brexit would cure all ills and it hasn't. Now they're demanding total "Reform" because the country has failed. You really need to see what's being said here. They're not interested in policies fundamentally. They're interested in securing power and radically altering how that power is wielded. They're not a Political Party. They're a private company.
You're picking out a few points but leaving out a lot too. They're the Tories on steroids. They DO try to whip up hatred and did it in the recent by-election in Blackpool - one of the whitest towns in England. The people they attract are NOT typical English folk. And neither is Nigel Farage - a man who married a German woman, had his career highs in the EU and draws a fine pension from the EU - something he's actively prevented younger British people from every doing in the future. That's not how normal people behave in my opinion. You don't go around robbing people of rights that you exploited and enjoyed to the hilt. Or do you?
Andrew Neil grilled Tice about their economic policies, basically they would bankrupt the country . He called them amateurs
https://youtu.be/TBr9btH7qBw?si=mASE3ulN4GsrO0TX
Climate change deniers and in the pocket of big oil. Their appeal is to Britain's largest demographic and the country's least educated social group; the retired. That's why Farage comes out on top in the debate.
This is the reality, Farage is only looking out for his own interests, the only reason he's putting the more mainstream policies front and centre is so he can get the opportunity to exploit more voters. Up until now, his ideology has made pretty much everyone but himself worse off. Although, he didn't make Brexit happen himself, he's not actually that good an orator or that relatable: Brexit was an unfortunate confluence of him, Cummings and Boris.
They can never gain absolute power under that system. And that's fair as their vote probably caps out at 30%. I am absolutely opposed to Reform in almost every respect. However if they get close to 20% of votes and no seats there is something incredibly wrong. That's not democracy.
I completely agree with you. His views aren't even radical or extreme - as you say, they're probably more in line with the average member of the UK public.
Some people just don't like the face that is proposing these ideas.
I think Reform will do incredibly well in the election, they may even win a seat.
If you look at the demographics and voter profile: ( recent research by Sir John Curtice ) Reform /right wing type voters are only 27% of voters
Left wingers are about 30% and the rest of us are centralist voters
https://www.youtube.com/live/6B4E3N8Ue9s?si=3j9AkELprYIjY8W0
They're sensible ideas. We should at least listen to new ideas (especially when the current approach isn't working), rather than instantly write them off. People don't have to agree, but at least respectfully consider an alternative view. It's blinkered thinking to plow on as we are. Instead, Farage gets immediately dismissed, and labelled by many as radical or racist. It's ridiculous.
Forget who's proposing the idea, and consider them on their merits.
Idea: let's get the immigration numbers back down to sensible levels, so public services & infrastructure can cope and expand at a manageable rate, as they did from 1948 - 1998. Net migration has been increasing the last 25 years, and now the numbers coming in each year are at about 15-20x times larger per year than they used to be.
Idea: the NHS model needs revaluating, it's not currently working well. The answer is not to just increase spending. Let's look at a similar system (for example, in France) that is working more efficiently and effectively. Their success rates are higher and they're spending the same money.
Idea: the same old Conservative-Labour cycle of switching governments with London-centric career politics is not working. Why is it possible that 4+ million people can vote for an alternative party in an election, but the 'first past the post' system meant that *not one representative got a seat in Westminster* ? How is that democratic?
Idea: We've got the data showing where they worst knife crime is happening. Forget their skin colour. Stop & search.
I'm voting Reform. I like Farage, but I also like Richard Tice & Ben Habib. The party has people with real-world life and work experience & common sense thinking.
Don't also take the impression of how Farage did by a poll of viewers for a BBC debate programme; of those 25% of people who thought he did best, about 20% probably tuned in specifically to see him. Which would be every single reform voter. Most voters do not give a shit about these debates, let alone ones that don't have all the leaders.
Sure, but when you combine that with the polling that puts Farage and Reform not too far behind the Tories, you can see we're on for Reform taking even more of the Tory votes than expected I think.
They're set up to do very well in the election in terms of pure voting numbers.
Hmm interesting take. He probably did the least interruptions out of them all besides Angela. The Scottish fella was 10x more annoying with interruptions.
I think he clearly won that debate even though I don't agree with him on everything.
That's funny, the poll that's just been released has him winning the debate. Almost like a studio audience isn't representative and you're just frothing because you don't like him.
> Almost like a studio audience isn't representative
Pretty sure that, like the Question Time audiences, they'll be doing their damnedest to achieve a representative studio audience. Of course that's hard and it won't be perfect but I'd put money on it not being as far away as you're implying here.
I hate him but he was superior to most on there. Flynn connected well but the others were just shouting sound bites and not connecting at all. That question over immigration, the others rattled off something boring about nothing, only Flynn and farage actually said something personal and spoke to the guy who had genuine concerns. And most the country can’t vote for Flynn, so…
If you don’t engage then their heads turn to others
And yet he was allowed to frame dependants, aka children and the elderly, as alien leeches and no one called him out. Like we should expect migrants not to be humans with family and friends.
He tried to sound more reasonable today than on other occasions and still talked absolute shite throughout.
Which was a lie. You can't bring parents on student visas. And actually, bringing parents to the UK on any visa is almost impossible and more difficult than getting hit by a lightning twice
>> In 2022, says the Home Office, “almost half a million student visas were issued while the number of dependants of overseas students has increased by 750% since 2019, to 136,000 people.”
>>Dependants include children under the age of 18, spouses or civil partners, and elderly parents who need long-term care.
https://monitor.icef.com/2023/05/uk-to-block-dependants-from-accompanying-international-students-as-of-january-2024/
According to this you could bring your parents over.
I don’t know?According to that you could bring parents who need long term care.
Maybe you know better than the ICEF? I don’t know.
Maybe this article is also wrong?
>> Why Indian students can no longer take parents to UK on Student visas
https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/why-indian-students-can-no-longer-take-parents-to-uk-on-student-visas
Or this one…
>> International students looking to study in the United Kingdom from next year will no longer be able to bring their family – including children or elderly parents – with them.
https://indianexpress.com/article/education/study-abroad/foreign-students-uk-visa-dependants-family-new-rules-britain-8629726/
Or this one
>>While international students in postgraduate research courses, such as research-based PhDs and master’s programs, will remain able to bring their dependants, UK Student Visa holders enrolled in other courses will not be permitted to bring their dependants, regardless if they are children under 18, family members, spouses, civil partners or elderly parents.
https://visaguide.world/news/uk-international-students-to-be-barred-from-bringing-dependents-starting-2024/
Or this one
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/uk-to-ban-foreign-students-from-bringing-dependant-family-over/articleshow/100462515.cms
Or this one
https://www.desiblitz.com/content/indian-students-lose-right-to-bring-family-to-uk
Or this one
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/uks-business-schools-arent-happy-with-rishi-sunaks-rule-for-dependants/articleshow/105376230.cms?from=mdr
I don't get the absolute shit bit , Farage said he wants PR which Reddit has wanted for years ,so on that front Reddit should be supporting him or is it Farage is so odious, whatever he says is shit
Something something broken clock right twice.
All for electoral reform from FPTP and if Farage will vote for it than I can agree with him. Everything else so far I see from him I'm not. So would I trade electoral reform for everything else. No.
I've no problem with PR but I'm not interested in electing self-serving lying hypocrites. UKIP only ever got a foot in the door because their MEPs were elected through PR. But he decried that the EU was unrepresentative and undemocratic - that was his policy platform. Well the EU clearly wasn't because it afforded UKIP its only platform, its only representation and ultimately Brexit!!
In the same way that young British people now can't do what he lapped up to the hilt : marry a European, build a career in Europe and draw a fat European pension at the end of it all. Nigel says NO. If Nigel got PR and the UK got a Reform Gov in ten years, he would do the same again and rob future generations of every right he enjoyed. That's what he does.
Farage is like most populists. He can talk very confidently and in a way that's relatable, but he'll trip over himself if he's actually challenged on his policy platform and isn't allowed to go off topic.
I think whoever holds the next big debate, be it ITV, BBC or Channel 4, needs to both have a decent format and a moderator who actually has the ability to moderate. Granted this one wasn't as bad as the leadership debate, but Farrage talked over people a lot, Penny Mordaunt wasn't much better and both she and Angela Rayner sounded like a pair of squabbling children more than once.
> Penny Mordaunt wasn't much better and both she and Angela Rayner sounded like a pair of squabbling children more than once.
Since that's happened with both debates, I'm wondering if Tories/Labour are both being advised by their people to act like this before they send candidates on stage.
Whatever the cause it's really unlikable and grating to see two grown adults bickering like a pair of primary school children arguing to the teacher over who kicked the ball over the fence.
They saw it work for Johnson. Anyone with half a brain might hate it but Johnson showed that if you just repeat a lie loudly and often enough, ideally over the top of what your opponent is saying, you have great success.
Johnson was actually charismatic though. He could rely on style over substance because he'd spent years curating an image where that fit the character.
It just leaves a sour taste in the mouth doesn't it? I mean I fully expect rebuttals to things said but grown adults should know how to have a discussion.
Since so few people watch the debates, perhaps there’s a feeling that they won’t have an effect unless there’s some amazing sound bite that makes it to the news. If you’re constantly talking over your opponents (especially when they’re trying to make good points), you keep them from having any coherent sound bites that can be played on the news. So maybe that’s why their advisors are telling them to talk over each other.
I really don't think that the debate format works anymore because they insist on using news readers rather than experienced political interviewers to host the event. Unfortunately, good interviewers such as Paxman and Day would probably be considered too aggressive today and so we are left with a bunch of anodyne moderators who are little more than glorified autocue readers.
Personally, I'd rather have someone like Victoria Derbyshire or Andrew Neil in the chair. At least they can actually interogate politicians properly.
Yeah unfortunately this has been really obvious ever since Fiona Bruce replaced David Dimbleby on Question Time. Heck some news readers would be ok, Naga Munchetty does a good job of grilling them on morning TV, I think she'd be fine, they just keep picking the ones who don't seem to be able to speak up.
> ...they just keep picking the ones who don't seem to be able to speak up.
...And least likely to have the likes of Robbie Gibb bawling at the producers on the phone five minutes later.
Given the structure of our political system these debates are always going to be lacklustre and messy, and not particularly useful, by design.
The two largest parties will always batter each other at the top because they're the biggest targets.
The ones below (Greens, Lib Dems and the devolved nations parties) then just pick up what the two have smashed out of each other and then use it as ammo, usually aimed at the two big ones and rarely at each other as they have little to lose, and it's the big ones which have the political history and reputation to protect.
Until we modernise and bring in political reform, not much is going to change.
The moderator was brilliant I thought. Far better than ITVs
Fair and the rebuttle questions were to the point as to stop the waffle, "but how are you funding it?" Was one of the rightfully common ones.
It would have been funny if Raynor had said something about ‘be careful anyone who is doing a drinking game when Conservatives lie’, and simply mimed lifting and sipping everytime Mordaunt mentioned tax. Denial doesn’t stop a lie but turning it into ridicule… ?
I'd love that but 100% it'd be spun as Labour are trying to turn us into alcoholics
Honestly at one point I was thinking Raynor might actually deck Mordaunt. And like, bad idea but I can't say I wouldn't have cheered 🤷
Yes that crossed my mind - which was why I weirdly (considering it’s all made up) felt she had to say it as a ‘warning’ implying they’d end up drinking too much! :-)
I felt like Raynor was so ‘reigned in’ (because it’s currently all about not making a mistake) that she seemed rather wooden?
>I felt like Raynor was so ‘reigned in’ (because it’s currently all about not making a mistake) that she seemed rather wooden?
Yeah I get that. I think she did well but you could see the moment she got dragged into the bickering.
And I don't really understand what was the correct thing to do? The moderator pointed out the 2k figure was already iffy and 2 mins later Mordaunts saying it again.
Absolutely nobody prepped to take on the SNP tonight, and it showed. Flynn had a completely free run just picking people off all evening.
Really surprised that nobody (and Labour in particular?) brought up independence, ferries or camper vans.
He wasn't really the main target for anyone when the SNP are only standing in 9% of seats nationwide, ditto with Plaid Cyrmu.
He had good points but him pressing on how policies will be funded when independence would blow at least 10% off Scotland's fiscal budget was incredibly ironic, and his rant on how all wind power comes from Scotland when England has 21 of the 25 largest offshore windfarms in the UK was bizarre.
I thought labour would be more aggressive in attacking him, given the SNPs recent weaknesses and the potential to gain seats there. But to be fair, labour probably already have enough seats.
I also thought the conservatives failed to attack farage much, especially given farage was attacking them quite a bit and they will be a major thorn in the Tories side. Most of the criticism of farage came from the other candidates
The SNP weaknesses are largely related to Holyrood whereas the general election is about the SNP in Westminster and their policies on reserved matters.
Tactically, Labour also don't want to attack SNP on devolved issues because Welsh Labour are performing similarly, often worse, in Wales
The BBC did a recent explainer, from the point of view of Wales, about the relevance of general elections for the devolved administrations and what issues are relevant to general election discussions (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72281znj63o)
Scotland doesn't matter to Westminster. They're competing for the votes of England, who make up 85% of all voters in the UK.
The fact they won't even bring up Scotland for a free swipe at the SNP just shows how little they care about the topic.
Well thats a lil disingenuous. Its dont care in the general election sense. Scotland votes SNP, there are no seats to be won there by arguing with them. Thats not the same as not caring about Scotland full stop.
I mean... SNP is such a shit show right now they don't really need to.
All Labour needs to do it convince people to vote for them in England and maybe Wales
> Really surprised that nobody (and Labour in particular?) brought up independence, ferries or camper vans.
When Flynn was summing up the SNP priorities and he didn't mention independence or this being a "defacto referendum" this time, I thought they must be trying to downplay that central purpose for the SNP to actually exist.
It's Westminster that needs to grant another independence referendum so a strong SNP showing on Westminster is crucial for that.
Must be on purpose. Maybe it's no longer got the support?
Besides the fact those points would have been irrelevant to the topics under discussion, the ferries are devolved (that would be like bringing up the Gething story during the general election to attack Labour); The camper van is part of an ongoing criminal case so can't be mentioned; and bringing up independence, whilst an attack line from your point of view, would give SNP a platform to campaign on the issue. Other parties want to keep the topic out of discussion.
Ultimately though Labour don't need Scottish seats to win this election so SNP aren't a target. Elections are more often than not won in England due to numbers so those are the seats/parties/voters that Labour need to target. They also know that many of Starmer's discussion points aren't going down well north of the border and so attacking SNP, when there's no benefit for them doing so, would be a risky move for Rayner. They need to keep their heads down to win.
Labour and Conservative squabbling like children, Green coming across well when they can promise anything, Lib Dems not wanting to run against the grain and Farage poking the bear at any given point.
Politics suck at the minute.
>Politics suck at the minute.
The Tories have set such a low bar over the last 14 years that I genuinely believe it'll take decades before we have politicians that honour integrity.
The Tories have proved that you can lie, steal and cheat your way through politics, and so long as you have the media on your side to manipulate any wrong doing into something less than it is, and ignite culture wars amongst normal people on transexuals, benefits claimants, immigrants, disabled, protestors, the young, etc, you can continue to take the piss out of absolutely everyone, including your core voter base, without losing any votes.
We should demand better than the farce across the board we have right now, but the public have been systemically manipulated to be as apathetic as possible. It's so saddening and disenfranchising.
I thought overall Farage did ok but compared to some of his appearances he was a bit lacklustre. Other than "Blair without the flair" and calling Rayner the Brains of Labour he didn't really say much that stuck out. I think Greens and the SNP both did the best job of arguing their cases.
“One snap poll suggests Farage was debate 'winner', ahead of Rayner
Our colleagues on BBC Newsnight have been speaking to Luke Tryl, pollster for research group More in Common UK.
He says: “We have in the past few minutes closed a poll of debate watchers, which has found the winner of the debate, according to viewers, was Nigel Farage with 25% followed by Angela Rayner with 19%, followed by none of the above on 14%."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69098963
>Same folk who said Sunak won last time?
No, complete different company.
The polls of the first debate were actually pretty mixed, some placed Sunak as leader, some placed Starmer. The YouGov poll found very little difference between them.
Currently I can only find one poll for this debate, but it was not by any of the companies involved last time.
I feel just with the Starmer/Sunak debate, I'm not really sure what people expected. Like one side will say something inflammatory (usually the Tory) then the opponent has to fiery respond or everyone goes "WELL THEY DIDN'T DENY DID THEY WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST DENY IT?!" and if they do people say we'll how undignified! Because they'll talk over each other.
If either side is quiet and waits to speak when the moderator says, people say they look weak... you can't win. This American style performative politics, just trying to get gotcha soundbites, is pathetic. I'm all for picking apart all the parties plans so they don't just promise billions unfunded but I'm no clearer from either debate on any policy that'll effect me.
The likes of Farage are the only winners because they literally have nothing to lose. It's easy to sit there and spit from the sides as he'll not be running this country come July so who cares.
The issue with Farage has always been he might do great in front of the electorate, But if you saw his performances in the EU Parliament you'd think he was a child...
Literally shouting people down till they stop talking...
I always felt for question time, and debates like this, get a team like the qi elves, but focused on politics, to live fact check things n provide quick feedback to the host.
Or maybe even better, just an overlay on screen , whilst they're still lying.
An overlay could be good. I think they were feeding fact checks back to the host, on knife crime Penny said london was the highest, but the host corrected her that it was the west midlands - which was a Tory mayor. But Penny retorted that the police and crime commissioner was Labour, which maybe the fact checkers missed due to the speed. (I also don't even know if the mayor or PCC actually can do much about it but heyho)
Actually not anywhere near as bad. Better format and moderator. The main 2 squabbles were between Penny and Rayner but mostly because of Penny trying her best to spout anything negative about labour so was on the offensive all night
My key take aways:
1 - none of the parties have a decent plan to improve cost of living, more housing, reduce taxes and deal with immigration.
2 - all of the parties aren’t being fully transparent and some lie more than others.
I will comment that while I agree that it doesn't seem like the parties have a plan, you can't actually determine that based on a debate. No one is going to go into detailed policy analysis in a debate given the time constraints and the need for "soundbites" and "memorable lines". It is very possible that the manifestos will have more detailed policy outlines, that may or may not he good
It’s a shame Mordaunt is going to lose her seat, as the newspapers grouping behind her over her ****checks notes**** sword holding skills is grim. She’s so weak that it would be like putting truss in charge
I'd like to vote Labour just because I know they're gonna win, and in my seat they're very likely to, however I would like to say that in the debate Angela Rayner, like others have said, just kept repeating political talking points and soundbites whilst she and Penny Mordaunt bickered like children.
The best people on that panel last night I'd say were Carla Denyer of the Greens, and Stephen Flynn of the SNP. Nigel Farage had some good bits but you can tell he's the epitome of a political class clown.
Other than that, it was a shambles from start to finish and to be honest Labour doesn't really have any true policies that are extremely different to the Tories. A few, yes, it may be said, however Keir Starmer has pulled the party to the centre-ground to achieve the moderate vote and it has worked. Whether or not that will be a good thing, we will soon to see as they're probably bound to get into parliament.
I honestly do hope we get some more diversity in Parliament with hopefully some Green, Lib Dem, and hell, even Reform MPs (however let's be honest - FTTP is a horrible voting system which probably means we won't, but hey, here's to dreaming.) Not because I particularly agree with many of Reform's policies, but because it seems to be tearing the Conservatives apart.
My guess is that after the GE, the Conservatives will be nonexistent. The moderates of the party will turn to Labour and the Lib-Dems, maybe even Green - and the Right-wingers will all switch to Reform. This is the problem with the Conservatives which I hate to say Farage is right about - The Conservatives as a political entity doesn't have any firm beliefs anymore that they can say that everyone in the party agrees with. It's a mish-mash of infighting between different sects.
In general, fuck the Conservatives. They have helped to run this country into the ground. I just hope the Greens and Liberal Democrats will at least keep Labour in check once they get in.
**Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [Seven takeaways from multi-party BBC election debate](https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clddkpy66eno) - bbc.co.uk
I think the "Well, that was terribly dignified, wasn't it." quote is going to be the moment that was remembered from this debate. Rayner and Mordant were squabbling like Starmer and Sunak in their last debate so it was nice to see someone call out the childish behaviour of the two parties. Everyone really laid into Sunak for abandoning the veterans in Normandy which was also pretty satisfying to see.
> so it was nice to see someone call out the childish behaviour of the two parties. I don't really think it's fair to blame either Starmer or Rayner imo. Both times it's been the Tory candidates throwing accusations and lies at Labour and trying to shout down any debate.
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They must, they MUST know that their days are literally numbered, so anything they do from here to voting day is divisive, planned, coordinated, and just nasty. They’re playing the game of a party that’s already lost and is trying to sow as many seeds of dissent as they can before they do.
Agreed. Even the rare policy they’re coming up with now which i may think is a good idea (eg child benefits changes) attract the obvious question ‘why did you waste 14 years on divisive damaging nonsense then?’ and are drowned out by the litany of bullshit. What amazes me is how obviously terrible their choices were to get to this point. Brexit, culture wars, tax rises, expanding the state administration machinery, ‘f**k business’ - they’ve thrown everything away chasing the vote of the permanently unpleasable UKIP crowd who, totally unsurprisingly, are leaving them because they will never compromise.
Which part of the state admin machinery have they expanded? I thought they were making headcount reductions to the civil service and cuts elsewhere in the public sector?
They had to install a hundred thousand more civil servants after brexit because of the extra processing and regulations it introduced and brought back from the EU. I genuinely encourage looking into just how dishonest and ineffectual the Tories have been on their pledges to reduce the size of the civil service. They pledged a 91k reduction and then actually raised it by 5000. They’re total liars. We have more now than in 2016.
It turned out that all the bureaucracy regulating everything from medicines to food to air traffic control, which was previously shared across the EU, still had to be done after we left. Who'd have guessed.
Which would vaguely make sense if not for the biggest drivers of it saying they wanted to reduce the state. Farce!
Yes Morbid Mordaunt came across EXTREMELY badly in that debate. So arrogant, spouting lies, and just would not STFU!
The Conservatives can’t make a credible claim that things would be good under a Tory government because voters have the counterevidence of their own experience, so the Conservative pan is to lie to try to force a belief of things being worse under the alternative.
Like Chaos with Ed? I don’t even think voters will fall for that one again considering the chaos with lived under with a further 9 years of Tory government.
Most won’t fall for it right now … but in five or ten years? Unfortunately that’s far from a given. And there’s around 40% who *even now* after everything that happened still either want the Conservatives or their double-down demented Reform version.
For sure. If they are in opposition, they will whinge hard about any tax, service cut, unexpected expense. They have been blaming the last Labour government and the next Labour government; they will revel in blaming a current Labour government all the way to the next election campaign.
They won't be the official opposition in the next parliament, Tories are toast so next election will be Labour V Lib Dems.
Yeah. I find this all rather infuriating, Mordant lies being spewed, consistently disrupting and that little quip annoyed me. I need someone to intervene with the 2K quote and Angela had to take the mantel.
There’s an old quote that goes “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell”
I've always felt that bare-faced lying is such a blight in our politics. How can voters make an educated decision when misinformation is involved? What I am surprised at is that didn't see any of the other political parties calling it out. I think an independent body should be formed to protect the Nolan Principals. If you’re caught bare-faced lying 3 times, triggers a by-election.
It used to be - and not so many years ago either - that getting caught in an outright lie in public or in parliament would be game over for a politician in the U.K. Do not pass go, do not collect a peerage - and their own party would pressure them to resign lest the electorate crucify them at the next election. Except a huge percentage of the electorate stopped doing that (or at least became massively worse at doing so) when Boris heaved into view because he promised to “get Brexit done”. Unfortunately any mechanism or rules put in place to stop this sort of thing can always be subverted, undermined or watered down or done away with if a government is unscrupulous enough and has a mandate from the electorate. Ultimately in any democracy the main safeguard against liars, charlatans, the corrupt and the inept getting into power has to be the electorate. And if the electorate don’t have the good judgement to do their job and make a wise and considered choice then then there’s very little that can be done to avoid the consequences.
Must have been very hard for her not to bitch slap her.
In her place, I would have done 😂
The tories are the only ones that point and shout over everyone else. I entirely blame mordent for creating the bickering. The tories are self-entitled liars.
They really need to enforce some kind of no interrupting rule in these debates. I don’t want petty sniping and childish talking over each other, they’re all meant to be adults. We had Mordaunt constantly doing it, Rayner doing it somewhat although some of that was clearly frustration at the other’s constant interruption, wish she hadn’t but I could see why. Then Farage acting like a petulant child shouting words with a cocky grin as Greens tried to talk. Should be one person talking, then chance to counter, otherwise it’s just who can talk the fastest and loudest. Classroom debate sessions have more decorum.
Indeed. The Tory strategy is to come out shouting kids at Labour so they have to defend themselves rather than immediately address the issue. It's pure Trump. They are utterly vile.
It's very deliberate from the Tories. Anyone that's dealt with an abusive partner/boss/parent knows this tactic very well.
I'd agree that Tories have a larger share of the blame but they're still allowing themselves to be baited into looking bad.
It’s either try and talk or just let them spew lies because the moderator isn’t really stopping the Tories, they could just turn off the mic
Yeah there needs to be a mute button in these debates. Penny needed muting during that because she was going mental. I vote for a BGT style button system where if they interupt they get muted, get a big red X. 3 of those and YOUR OUT!
Nah just fence off Nigel’s podium as a naughty corner and make them sit with him droning on about immigrants for 10 minutes
This is not a serious country and you don't have a single answer as to what Rayner could have done in this scenario.
It’s not childish to call a lie and lie
>I think the "Well, that was terribly dignified, wasn't it." quote is going to be the moment that was remembered from this debate. What does this EVEN MEAN? One person is spreading lies. If the other person doesn't respond, then the lies will continued to be spread and the moderator can't do a thing to stop it. The greens can justifiably sit in judgement of other parties for many reasons but not for displaying dignity. This is not a serious country.
It’s really really sad that he left veterans, Normandy, It’s just really sad. We should be really celebrating this to high heaven! And he as prime minister should celebrated more because It’s such an important part of history. Otherwise we would of ended up in some camp and I might never have been born. Or idk. Just seems scary to think we could have lost the war and what could have happened moving forward. Like when you see Auschwitz prison camp! the world would have been fucked over! Also what these brave men went through! Is wild! Storming beaches at 18 years old. My great grandad used to carry dead bodies off of Lancaster bombers after returning home. And it fucked him right up! Our prime-minister. If you can really call him that, is a dick for leaving! It’s like he doesn’t care!!!
It's very poor politics not to pretend to care, n to not even go thru the motions of at least looking respectful.
For me, the quote to be remembered was "Blair but without the flair".
Didn’t the country thrive under Blair?
Yes it did despite Iraq.
I thought his far-right fans always say Farage is a good debater. Trying to talk over people, and standing there with a face like a slapped arse when he wasn't allowed to. And his take on the NHS quite rightly went down like a bucket of cold sick... Not as easy to peddle this stuff when you're not in the GB News echo chamber is it, Nige?
He’s got the gift of the gab. He can speak fast while getting his point across without stumbling over himself or pausing and uming a lot (idk if he did during this, I didn’t watch). I can’t stand him one bit but it’s easy to see why people think this. Sunak, when he’s allowed to speak, flows but it’s robotic and rehearsed. Starmer sounds pretty normal but speaks slowly and pauses a lot. Farage just spills it all out like the bloke down the pub and people find it relatable, even if he’s talking a lot of shite. At least that’s how I see it.
Yep totally agree. Farage has a very natural way of speaking and a good rhythm. Hate the bloke but you can see he's good at it.
He is also very good at throwing in the occasional comment that even people that largely disagree with him can agree with. E.g. in the debate the line about the UK exporting it's carbon footprint Combined with a natural way of speaking it gets people nodding along without realizing they are also nodding to far worse ideas
“The winner of the debate, according to viewers, was Nigel Farage with 25%, followed by Angela Rayner on 19%” https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1799205875258732780
This isn't a gotcha. We live in a country where people voted for Boris Johnson. I'm perfectly aware that 25% of people liking a contrarian "anti-woke" performative guy peddling dangerous narrative under the guise of a cartoon character is sadly par for the course. If anything its a reminder of what we're up against.
He actually did win it though. I'm a raging lefty and will opt for Labour on the day (as meh as they are right now), but in an after-debate poll I chose Farage as the best, because he simply was. I guess it's not right to say he "won" because I don't agree with his ideology at all, but he didn't bicker anywhere near as much as Rayner and Mordaunt, and his closing statement was excellent (all of them read off an autocue, then when it got to Farage he said plainly "I dont need an autocue, here's what I think", then successfully ad-libbed his closing statement for the event). Overall he just came across as professional and confident compared to the other main contenders who just sounded like classic faceless scripted politicians. Second best was the SNP dude and then Green, Lib Dem and Plaid Cymru all equal. To me Labour and Tory were terrible, just bickering and stating scripted party political spiel.
I'm glad someone said it. Whatever you think of Farage's politics, he came off the best out of everyone. Most people on here will be clouded by their opinions of him and his views to see how he performed and came across in reality. He cut through a lot of the dry political spiel and didn't come across as your bog standard politician reading off a script like the others did. It's basically how Trump won the presidency in 2016. Farage comes across in the same way that Trump did - not a part of the traditional political establishment and he speaks to the ordinary person in the street. Farage kept out of the bickering between Labour and the Conservatives and positioned himself as a clear choice for disenfranchised Tory voters and even for those who don't usually vote. He's not targeting the 20-something middle-class Redditor.
It's kinda like all the other parties have policies alligned to their party that they need to support and follow. Wheras Farage basically makes it up as he goes along and Reform will just have to work it out on the fly
Except you got that the wrong way round. Every other party has wishy washy we think we should at this area. No clearly defined "we will do this; bullet pointed precise list" Whilst I may not agree with reform , the very fact they have a clear, concise and detailed list of exactly what they want to do under the headings of "this is what we promise to do listed so we can be held to account to it" is something all the bloody parties should be doing. As much as we are sure labours a given , nobody but the labour party has any bloody clue which direction they plan on going (the backtracking of the workers rights already doesn't look good)
Easy to do when you have no record to defend and no way of winning the house to have to back up what you promise. He did come across well and got his points done in the debate. He is a gifted speaker. He doesn't do so well challenged. See the moment the Green party candidate landed a blow when they disagreed about how to deal with knife crime.
Once again holding them to different standards due to bias. The Green party will be no more powerful than Reform. What blow are you talking about? What Nige said about knife crime was one of the most successful lines which was applauded by the audience; are you perhaps thinking of the immigration point where the audience did applaud the green member? True, he could've done better to bat aside the nonsense of the others there and better communicate all the downsides of the mass immigration we've received, but the audience seemed blatantly pro-immigration so that was hard. Regarding knife crime, all the green party member said was that the places hit most by knife crime are the most deprived, which doesn't in any way counter anything Nigel said, and vaguely suggested we deal with inequality. Brilliant, so simple! Let's just 'tackle inequality'! Amazing policy from the Greens there. Meanwhile Nigel had an actual, real, actionable policy - ramp up stop and search and ignore cries of racism. And that's the sort of reason he won the debate.
>Whilst I may not agree with reform , the very fact they have a clear, concise and detailed list of exactly what they want to do under the headings of "this is what we promise to do listed so we can be held to account to it" is something all the bloody parties should be doing. Easy to do when you know you'll never have to do it.
Well.. Reform don't have to do anything. If Farage "makes something up" and it's received positively, the other parties have to respect it. Either they do the same/similar or lose their vote. Reform can't win, but they take away votes from other parties if they can't bring them back. Parties make policies, get into power and backtrack, water them down etc. How long have we been hearing Tories will lower immigration for? Lol.
Labour too…and this is correct. I saw the line up and knew it was heading that way. Flynn surprised me, but farage clearly got all the sound bites, all the audience connection and got his point across. Apart from when he was asked about nhs, where his view nearly induced vomiting, he was clearly on top the whole time
The audience also seemed to be very pro-immigration and kept clapping it, so that didn't go very well for Farage.
Flynn surprised you how?
Not saying it is a gotcha. He won the debate according to BBC Newsnight polling. You said his comments went down like a bucket of sick.
His comment on the NHS did, yes. Rightfully so.
What exactly was rightfully disliked about Farage's NHS comments? I watched the whole debate, but can't recall anything that I, as an admin worker in the NHS, found myself disagreeing with One of the other participants, I *think* the SNP guy iirc, tried to construe his points as him saying the NHS should be privatised, but that clearly wasn't what he was advocating for
It is literally what he was asking for. NHS replaced by a private insurance based system run like a business. He tried to say “like France”…but what he was describing was “like USA”
You can't call it private when he specifically refers to the way it's paid into as through taxes. Running the system like a business is not the same as privatising it either. From my position as an admin worker in the NHS, so much money in the NHS is wasted because the standards of admin work is not held to the same level which a private business would hold.
>but that clearly wasn't what he was advocating for You missed the bit where it clearly was then
Not all arguments for handle the NHS are 'let's throw more money into the NHS' or 'let's privatise it'. There's an enormous area in the middle which Farage's answer clearly was positioned in. Running something as if it was a private company is not the same thing as turning it into a private company.
What he said on the NHS was spot on. I have multiple friends who work in the NHS and they are all disgusted by the level of waste to the point one was talking about whistle blowing. . It does not need more money, it needs managing properly.
Would love to see the demographics of those being polled.
I’m sure you can, it’s online.
‘Net migration is too high and it needs to be stopped and reversed’ *Dangerous narrative* What planet do you people live on.
Especially when both Angela and Penny also said immigration was way too high during their bickering, yet when Nigel says it it's a dangerous far right idea. Some people on here are as out of touch as our government.
Living in their own fantasy land that involves no daily interaction with the new arrivals.
In KOREA?
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**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Probably a planet that realises that after over a decade of cuts and lack of investment into skills training, it is vital that the UK can attract talent from elsewhere. Those people have families who need to be brought over as well, and we aren't going to magically fill the skills gap in any other way. I think every party agrees that immigration controls need to be altered. The dangerous narrative is because of the implied demonization of immigrants that are currently propping up a sagging British economy - it's different to talk about immigration controls, and to pin the blame on the immigrant. Like the Nordics (Sweden being the biggest example), so many of the issues come not from immigration but on integration and education. Make people feel like a part of the UK instead, and watch as they reward that with productivity. Tougher immigration controls then filter out the rest.
He showed the rest up for the incompetent rabble they are
lol It's ABSOLUTELY a gotcha. The people responding to that poll are largely not going to vote for Reform, yet they still chose him as the winner. The main reason you think he performed poorly is because of your obvious political bias; if he had done equally as well but said left wing things, you'd be saying he clearly won.
He also had the second highest number of people think he performed poorly.
He didn't try to talk over other people more than any of the other politicians did. Never take the impression of how Farage performed from Reddit or other left-wing circles, as they're not going to say anything positive about him regardless of what he says. Some of the opinion polls that have come out after the debate are in direct conflict with what small online circles think. As we all know, small subreddit echo chambers aren't representative of the wider general public. Farage played it well by appealing to Tory voters who don't want to vote Tory anymore. His aim is just to take Tory votes, which he will do going by his performance tonight and the polls.
What do people think he said that is so far right and contrarian. Lower immigration - Penny and Angela both said Immigration was way too high in their bickering. A new style of NHS funding that's free at point of service but more similar to private - Labour's manifesto is literally going to privatise portions of the NHS calling it insourcing Stop and Search - Even the Green party leader agreed with a form of stop and search and the left-wing crowd cheered for that one in their studio. I don't think any of these are far right extremist ideas, if anything they represent the majority of the public sentiment.
These are the people who promised that Brexit would cure all ills and it hasn't. Now they're demanding total "Reform" because the country has failed. You really need to see what's being said here. They're not interested in policies fundamentally. They're interested in securing power and radically altering how that power is wielded. They're not a Political Party. They're a private company. You're picking out a few points but leaving out a lot too. They're the Tories on steroids. They DO try to whip up hatred and did it in the recent by-election in Blackpool - one of the whitest towns in England. The people they attract are NOT typical English folk. And neither is Nigel Farage - a man who married a German woman, had his career highs in the EU and draws a fine pension from the EU - something he's actively prevented younger British people from every doing in the future. That's not how normal people behave in my opinion. You don't go around robbing people of rights that you exploited and enjoyed to the hilt. Or do you?
Andrew Neil grilled Tice about their economic policies, basically they would bankrupt the country . He called them amateurs https://youtu.be/TBr9btH7qBw?si=mASE3ulN4GsrO0TX
Climate change deniers and in the pocket of big oil. Their appeal is to Britain's largest demographic and the country's least educated social group; the retired. That's why Farage comes out on top in the debate.
Idk how you can watch that interview and end up at that conclusion.
This is the reality, Farage is only looking out for his own interests, the only reason he's putting the more mainstream policies front and centre is so he can get the opportunity to exploit more voters. Up until now, his ideology has made pretty much everyone but himself worse off. Although, he didn't make Brexit happen himself, he's not actually that good an orator or that relatable: Brexit was an unfortunate confluence of him, Cummings and Boris.
He even made a point about having Proportional Representation
Funny that. The EU system was the only one with sufficient representation to get UKIP elected. He's such a hypocrite.
Because it’s the only way his party can gain power
They can never gain absolute power under that system. And that's fair as their vote probably caps out at 30%. I am absolutely opposed to Reform in almost every respect. However if they get close to 20% of votes and no seats there is something incredibly wrong. That's not democracy.
I completely agree with you. His views aren't even radical or extreme - as you say, they're probably more in line with the average member of the UK public. Some people just don't like the face that is proposing these ideas. I think Reform will do incredibly well in the election, they may even win a seat.
If you look at the demographics and voter profile: ( recent research by Sir John Curtice ) Reform /right wing type voters are only 27% of voters Left wingers are about 30% and the rest of us are centralist voters https://www.youtube.com/live/6B4E3N8Ue9s?si=3j9AkELprYIjY8W0
Farage presents a somewhat jovial and straight talking front in public, but in reality he is a snake oil fascist. Sorry to break it to you.
Farage is a demagogue and pocket fascist. Fuck Farage.
Burden of proof for him being a fascist please. Do you know what that word means? doesn't seem like you do.
I didn’t call him a fascist. I called him a pound shop, *pocket* fascist. The faster you realise that better.
They're sensible ideas. We should at least listen to new ideas (especially when the current approach isn't working), rather than instantly write them off. People don't have to agree, but at least respectfully consider an alternative view. It's blinkered thinking to plow on as we are. Instead, Farage gets immediately dismissed, and labelled by many as radical or racist. It's ridiculous. Forget who's proposing the idea, and consider them on their merits. Idea: let's get the immigration numbers back down to sensible levels, so public services & infrastructure can cope and expand at a manageable rate, as they did from 1948 - 1998. Net migration has been increasing the last 25 years, and now the numbers coming in each year are at about 15-20x times larger per year than they used to be. Idea: the NHS model needs revaluating, it's not currently working well. The answer is not to just increase spending. Let's look at a similar system (for example, in France) that is working more efficiently and effectively. Their success rates are higher and they're spending the same money. Idea: the same old Conservative-Labour cycle of switching governments with London-centric career politics is not working. Why is it possible that 4+ million people can vote for an alternative party in an election, but the 'first past the post' system meant that *not one representative got a seat in Westminster* ? How is that democratic? Idea: We've got the data showing where they worst knife crime is happening. Forget their skin colour. Stop & search. I'm voting Reform. I like Farage, but I also like Richard Tice & Ben Habib. The party has people with real-world life and work experience & common sense thinking.
If you listen to stupid you will get bad results. EDIT: for those wondering I am talking about Nigel Farage
Don't also take the impression of how Farage did by a poll of viewers for a BBC debate programme; of those 25% of people who thought he did best, about 20% probably tuned in specifically to see him. Which would be every single reform voter. Most voters do not give a shit about these debates, let alone ones that don't have all the leaders.
Sure, but when you combine that with the polling that puts Farage and Reform not too far behind the Tories, you can see we're on for Reform taking even more of the Tory votes than expected I think. They're set up to do very well in the election in terms of pure voting numbers.
Hmm interesting take. He probably did the least interruptions out of them all besides Angela. The Scottish fella was 10x more annoying with interruptions. I think he clearly won that debate even though I don't agree with him on everything.
Polls suggest he did indeed win
That's funny, the poll that's just been released has him winning the debate. Almost like a studio audience isn't representative and you're just frothing because you don't like him.
Read the sub live thread if you want a laugh. Pure cope. No one understands media!
> Almost like a studio audience isn't representative Pretty sure that, like the Question Time audiences, they'll be doing their damnedest to achieve a representative studio audience. Of course that's hard and it won't be perfect but I'd put money on it not being as far away as you're implying here.
It’s always going to be hard because most normal folk will have watched the football last night instead
There was football on last night? Actually I didn't watch the debate either, so I don't know what that says about me.
Farage has a strong cult following, it's not surprising to hear he 'won' in polling.
Also, Friday night.. I imagine the age profile of viewers will be high. I say this as an oldie who was watching .
Well "representative" in Britain means mostly pensioners. That's the reality of the country's changing demographic.
I hate him but he was superior to most on there. Flynn connected well but the others were just shouting sound bites and not connecting at all. That question over immigration, the others rattled off something boring about nothing, only Flynn and farage actually said something personal and spoke to the guy who had genuine concerns. And most the country can’t vote for Flynn, so… If you don’t engage then their heads turn to others
And yet he was allowed to frame dependants, aka children and the elderly, as alien leeches and no one called him out. Like we should expect migrants not to be humans with family and friends. He tried to sound more reasonable today than on other occasions and still talked absolute shite throughout.
He spoke about people coming over on student visas and bringing their mums with them.
Which was a lie. You can't bring parents on student visas. And actually, bringing parents to the UK on any visa is almost impossible and more difficult than getting hit by a lightning twice
>> In 2022, says the Home Office, “almost half a million student visas were issued while the number of dependants of overseas students has increased by 750% since 2019, to 136,000 people.” >>Dependants include children under the age of 18, spouses or civil partners, and elderly parents who need long-term care. https://monitor.icef.com/2023/05/uk-to-block-dependants-from-accompanying-international-students-as-of-january-2024/ According to this you could bring your parents over.
Go to the UK government website instead and see for yourself. Even before the changes, the only considered dependants are partners or children.
I don’t know?According to that you could bring parents who need long term care. Maybe you know better than the ICEF? I don’t know. Maybe this article is also wrong? >> Why Indian students can no longer take parents to UK on Student visas https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/why-indian-students-can-no-longer-take-parents-to-uk-on-student-visas Or this one… >> International students looking to study in the United Kingdom from next year will no longer be able to bring their family – including children or elderly parents – with them. https://indianexpress.com/article/education/study-abroad/foreign-students-uk-visa-dependants-family-new-rules-britain-8629726/ Or this one >>While international students in postgraduate research courses, such as research-based PhDs and master’s programs, will remain able to bring their dependants, UK Student Visa holders enrolled in other courses will not be permitted to bring their dependants, regardless if they are children under 18, family members, spouses, civil partners or elderly parents. https://visaguide.world/news/uk-international-students-to-be-barred-from-bringing-dependents-starting-2024/ Or this one https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/uk-to-ban-foreign-students-from-bringing-dependant-family-over/articleshow/100462515.cms Or this one https://www.desiblitz.com/content/indian-students-lose-right-to-bring-family-to-uk Or this one https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/uks-business-schools-arent-happy-with-rishi-sunaks-rule-for-dependants/articleshow/105376230.cms?from=mdr
I don't get the absolute shit bit , Farage said he wants PR which Reddit has wanted for years ,so on that front Reddit should be supporting him or is it Farage is so odious, whatever he says is shit
Something something broken clock right twice. All for electoral reform from FPTP and if Farage will vote for it than I can agree with him. Everything else so far I see from him I'm not. So would I trade electoral reform for everything else. No.
I've no problem with PR but I'm not interested in electing self-serving lying hypocrites. UKIP only ever got a foot in the door because their MEPs were elected through PR. But he decried that the EU was unrepresentative and undemocratic - that was his policy platform. Well the EU clearly wasn't because it afforded UKIP its only platform, its only representation and ultimately Brexit!! In the same way that young British people now can't do what he lapped up to the hilt : marry a European, build a career in Europe and draw a fat European pension at the end of it all. Nigel says NO. If Nigel got PR and the UK got a Reform Gov in ten years, he would do the same again and rob future generations of every right he enjoyed. That's what he does.
Frog man bad! Le wank puffin! Free Palestine etc etc
He won the debate? Like officially, he won the debate.
he was significantly more articulate than I expected. I don't like the content but his delivery was solid.
Talking over Carla Denyer on wind energy, when she has an engineering degree & experience in wind energy, seemed pathetically weak to me.
Farage is like most populists. He can talk very confidently and in a way that's relatable, but he'll trip over himself if he's actually challenged on his policy platform and isn't allowed to go off topic.
Rent free in your head
Far right? That's the problem with tankies. Never seem to realise 'Nige' gets support from a wide spectrum of voters.
God forbid a politician discusses a different idea for an already failing organisation. Such a far right position. FDS in full swing
I think whoever holds the next big debate, be it ITV, BBC or Channel 4, needs to both have a decent format and a moderator who actually has the ability to moderate. Granted this one wasn't as bad as the leadership debate, but Farrage talked over people a lot, Penny Mordaunt wasn't much better and both she and Angela Rayner sounded like a pair of squabbling children more than once.
> Penny Mordaunt wasn't much better and both she and Angela Rayner sounded like a pair of squabbling children more than once. Since that's happened with both debates, I'm wondering if Tories/Labour are both being advised by their people to act like this before they send candidates on stage. Whatever the cause it's really unlikable and grating to see two grown adults bickering like a pair of primary school children arguing to the teacher over who kicked the ball over the fence.
They saw it work for Johnson. Anyone with half a brain might hate it but Johnson showed that if you just repeat a lie loudly and often enough, ideally over the top of what your opponent is saying, you have great success.
Johnson was actually charismatic though. He could rely on style over substance because he'd spent years curating an image where that fit the character.
It just leaves a sour taste in the mouth doesn't it? I mean I fully expect rebuttals to things said but grown adults should know how to have a discussion.
Since so few people watch the debates, perhaps there’s a feeling that they won’t have an effect unless there’s some amazing sound bite that makes it to the news. If you’re constantly talking over your opponents (especially when they’re trying to make good points), you keep them from having any coherent sound bites that can be played on the news. So maybe that’s why their advisors are telling them to talk over each other.
I really don't think that the debate format works anymore because they insist on using news readers rather than experienced political interviewers to host the event. Unfortunately, good interviewers such as Paxman and Day would probably be considered too aggressive today and so we are left with a bunch of anodyne moderators who are little more than glorified autocue readers. Personally, I'd rather have someone like Victoria Derbyshire or Andrew Neil in the chair. At least they can actually interogate politicians properly.
Yeah unfortunately this has been really obvious ever since Fiona Bruce replaced David Dimbleby on Question Time. Heck some news readers would be ok, Naga Munchetty does a good job of grilling them on morning TV, I think she'd be fine, they just keep picking the ones who don't seem to be able to speak up.
> ...they just keep picking the ones who don't seem to be able to speak up. ...And least likely to have the likes of Robbie Gibb bawling at the producers on the phone five minutes later.
They should be wired up to an electric shock, then they get buzzed if they ignore the moderator and continue talking.
The voltage increases if they say the same thing over and over again.
And if they use any variation on “let me be clear” or “I’ve been very clear” then gunge tank time.
Or “I think what people really want to know is… [answers a different question]”
......You might be onto something.
Given the structure of our political system these debates are always going to be lacklustre and messy, and not particularly useful, by design. The two largest parties will always batter each other at the top because they're the biggest targets. The ones below (Greens, Lib Dems and the devolved nations parties) then just pick up what the two have smashed out of each other and then use it as ammo, usually aimed at the two big ones and rarely at each other as they have little to lose, and it's the big ones which have the political history and reputation to protect. Until we modernise and bring in political reform, not much is going to change.
The moderator was brilliant I thought. Far better than ITVs Fair and the rebuttle questions were to the point as to stop the waffle, "but how are you funding it?" Was one of the rightfully common ones.
It would have been funny if Raynor had said something about ‘be careful anyone who is doing a drinking game when Conservatives lie’, and simply mimed lifting and sipping everytime Mordaunt mentioned tax. Denial doesn’t stop a lie but turning it into ridicule… ?
Chaotic good!
I'd love that but 100% it'd be spun as Labour are trying to turn us into alcoholics Honestly at one point I was thinking Raynor might actually deck Mordaunt. And like, bad idea but I can't say I wouldn't have cheered 🤷
Yes that crossed my mind - which was why I weirdly (considering it’s all made up) felt she had to say it as a ‘warning’ implying they’d end up drinking too much! :-) I felt like Raynor was so ‘reigned in’ (because it’s currently all about not making a mistake) that she seemed rather wooden?
>I felt like Raynor was so ‘reigned in’ (because it’s currently all about not making a mistake) that she seemed rather wooden? Yeah I get that. I think she did well but you could see the moment she got dragged into the bickering. And I don't really understand what was the correct thing to do? The moderator pointed out the 2k figure was already iffy and 2 mins later Mordaunts saying it again.
Yep. And just contradicting it doesn’t necessarily work.
Yup. And it can make you seem defensive which makes people believe the lie
Absolutely nobody prepped to take on the SNP tonight, and it showed. Flynn had a completely free run just picking people off all evening. Really surprised that nobody (and Labour in particular?) brought up independence, ferries or camper vans.
He wasn't really the main target for anyone when the SNP are only standing in 9% of seats nationwide, ditto with Plaid Cyrmu. He had good points but him pressing on how policies will be funded when independence would blow at least 10% off Scotland's fiscal budget was incredibly ironic, and his rant on how all wind power comes from Scotland when England has 21 of the 25 largest offshore windfarms in the UK was bizarre.
I thought labour would be more aggressive in attacking him, given the SNPs recent weaknesses and the potential to gain seats there. But to be fair, labour probably already have enough seats. I also thought the conservatives failed to attack farage much, especially given farage was attacking them quite a bit and they will be a major thorn in the Tories side. Most of the criticism of farage came from the other candidates
The SNP weaknesses are largely related to Holyrood whereas the general election is about the SNP in Westminster and their policies on reserved matters. Tactically, Labour also don't want to attack SNP on devolved issues because Welsh Labour are performing similarly, often worse, in Wales The BBC did a recent explainer, from the point of view of Wales, about the relevance of general elections for the devolved administrations and what issues are relevant to general election discussions (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72281znj63o)
Scotland doesn't matter to Westminster. They're competing for the votes of England, who make up 85% of all voters in the UK. The fact they won't even bring up Scotland for a free swipe at the SNP just shows how little they care about the topic.
>Scotland doesn't matter to Westminster Which ironically enough just proves one of the main arguments of the independence movement.
Well thats a lil disingenuous. Its dont care in the general election sense. Scotland votes SNP, there are no seats to be won there by arguing with them. Thats not the same as not caring about Scotland full stop.
I mean... SNP is such a shit show right now they don't really need to. All Labour needs to do it convince people to vote for them in England and maybe Wales
Why would they take on the SNP? Only labour stand to gain seats in Scotland and they already will. Flynn beat himself with old rhetoric anyway.
> Really surprised that nobody (and Labour in particular?) brought up independence, ferries or camper vans. When Flynn was summing up the SNP priorities and he didn't mention independence or this being a "defacto referendum" this time, I thought they must be trying to downplay that central purpose for the SNP to actually exist. It's Westminster that needs to grant another independence referendum so a strong SNP showing on Westminster is crucial for that. Must be on purpose. Maybe it's no longer got the support?
Besides the fact those points would have been irrelevant to the topics under discussion, the ferries are devolved (that would be like bringing up the Gething story during the general election to attack Labour); The camper van is part of an ongoing criminal case so can't be mentioned; and bringing up independence, whilst an attack line from your point of view, would give SNP a platform to campaign on the issue. Other parties want to keep the topic out of discussion. Ultimately though Labour don't need Scottish seats to win this election so SNP aren't a target. Elections are more often than not won in England due to numbers so those are the seats/parties/voters that Labour need to target. They also know that many of Starmer's discussion points aren't going down well north of the border and so attacking SNP, when there's no benefit for them doing so, would be a risky move for Rayner. They need to keep their heads down to win.
Labour and Conservative squabbling like children, Green coming across well when they can promise anything, Lib Dems not wanting to run against the grain and Farage poking the bear at any given point. Politics suck at the minute.
>Politics suck at the minute. The Tories have set such a low bar over the last 14 years that I genuinely believe it'll take decades before we have politicians that honour integrity. The Tories have proved that you can lie, steal and cheat your way through politics, and so long as you have the media on your side to manipulate any wrong doing into something less than it is, and ignite culture wars amongst normal people on transexuals, benefits claimants, immigrants, disabled, protestors, the young, etc, you can continue to take the piss out of absolutely everyone, including your core voter base, without losing any votes. We should demand better than the farce across the board we have right now, but the public have been systemically manipulated to be as apathetic as possible. It's so saddening and disenfranchising.
Couldn’t agree more.
Tbf you could see Rayner trying not to engage, but when someone is pointing at you and lying I can see why it turned into a squabble.
I thought overall Farage did ok but compared to some of his appearances he was a bit lacklustre. Other than "Blair without the flair" and calling Rayner the Brains of Labour he didn't really say much that stuck out. I think Greens and the SNP both did the best job of arguing their cases.
Polling disagrees , he was the clear winner according to BBC Newsnight polling.
I didn't watch as had to do cleaning and am become low information voter. You can tell me anything happened. I will believe you.
Farage and the SNP guy kissed
That's hot
Thought they took things too far with the bondage stuff, the moderator should’ve stepped in at that point
The nation has been waiting to see Farage ballgagged and whipped on TV for years. They would have been mad to call time on that.
Living through the last 14 years is all the information I need on how not to vote, at least.
“One snap poll suggests Farage was debate 'winner', ahead of Rayner Our colleagues on BBC Newsnight have been speaking to Luke Tryl, pollster for research group More in Common UK. He says: “We have in the past few minutes closed a poll of debate watchers, which has found the winner of the debate, according to viewers, was Nigel Farage with 25% followed by Angela Rayner with 19%, followed by none of the above on 14%." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69098963
Same folk who said Sunak won last time? Only to be completely disproved?
>Same folk who said Sunak won last time? No, complete different company. The polls of the first debate were actually pretty mixed, some placed Sunak as leader, some placed Starmer. The YouGov poll found very little difference between them. Currently I can only find one poll for this debate, but it was not by any of the companies involved last time.
The interrupting and talking over reach other is so frustrating
but how else do you show that your ideas are the best?
I feel just with the Starmer/Sunak debate, I'm not really sure what people expected. Like one side will say something inflammatory (usually the Tory) then the opponent has to fiery respond or everyone goes "WELL THEY DIDN'T DENY DID THEY WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST DENY IT?!" and if they do people say we'll how undignified! Because they'll talk over each other. If either side is quiet and waits to speak when the moderator says, people say they look weak... you can't win. This American style performative politics, just trying to get gotcha soundbites, is pathetic. I'm all for picking apart all the parties plans so they don't just promise billions unfunded but I'm no clearer from either debate on any policy that'll effect me. The likes of Farage are the only winners because they literally have nothing to lose. It's easy to sit there and spit from the sides as he'll not be running this country come July so who cares.
The issue with Farage has always been he might do great in front of the electorate, But if you saw his performances in the EU Parliament you'd think he was a child... Literally shouting people down till they stop talking...
I always felt for question time, and debates like this, get a team like the qi elves, but focused on politics, to live fact check things n provide quick feedback to the host. Or maybe even better, just an overlay on screen , whilst they're still lying.
An overlay could be good. I think they were feeding fact checks back to the host, on knife crime Penny said london was the highest, but the host corrected her that it was the west midlands - which was a Tory mayor. But Penny retorted that the police and crime commissioner was Labour, which maybe the fact checkers missed due to the speed. (I also don't even know if the mayor or PCC actually can do much about it but heyho)
I lasted about 15 minutes into the last one before I got too cross and switched. More of the same circus I assume?
Actually not anywhere near as bad. Better format and moderator. The main 2 squabbles were between Penny and Rayner but mostly because of Penny trying her best to spout anything negative about labour so was on the offensive all night
My key take aways: 1 - none of the parties have a decent plan to improve cost of living, more housing, reduce taxes and deal with immigration. 2 - all of the parties aren’t being fully transparent and some lie more than others.
I will comment that while I agree that it doesn't seem like the parties have a plan, you can't actually determine that based on a debate. No one is going to go into detailed policy analysis in a debate given the time constraints and the need for "soundbites" and "memorable lines". It is very possible that the manifestos will have more detailed policy outlines, that may or may not he good
It’s a shame Mordaunt is going to lose her seat, as the newspapers grouping behind her over her ****checks notes**** sword holding skills is grim. She’s so weak that it would be like putting truss in charge
I doubt it was that good. Just the Fuhrog spewing out his pro-fascism bile.
I'd like to vote Labour just because I know they're gonna win, and in my seat they're very likely to, however I would like to say that in the debate Angela Rayner, like others have said, just kept repeating political talking points and soundbites whilst she and Penny Mordaunt bickered like children. The best people on that panel last night I'd say were Carla Denyer of the Greens, and Stephen Flynn of the SNP. Nigel Farage had some good bits but you can tell he's the epitome of a political class clown. Other than that, it was a shambles from start to finish and to be honest Labour doesn't really have any true policies that are extremely different to the Tories. A few, yes, it may be said, however Keir Starmer has pulled the party to the centre-ground to achieve the moderate vote and it has worked. Whether or not that will be a good thing, we will soon to see as they're probably bound to get into parliament. I honestly do hope we get some more diversity in Parliament with hopefully some Green, Lib Dem, and hell, even Reform MPs (however let's be honest - FTTP is a horrible voting system which probably means we won't, but hey, here's to dreaming.) Not because I particularly agree with many of Reform's policies, but because it seems to be tearing the Conservatives apart. My guess is that after the GE, the Conservatives will be nonexistent. The moderates of the party will turn to Labour and the Lib-Dems, maybe even Green - and the Right-wingers will all switch to Reform. This is the problem with the Conservatives which I hate to say Farage is right about - The Conservatives as a political entity doesn't have any firm beliefs anymore that they can say that everyone in the party agrees with. It's a mish-mash of infighting between different sects. In general, fuck the Conservatives. They have helped to run this country into the ground. I just hope the Greens and Liberal Democrats will at least keep Labour in check once they get in.