Thread 47 Sunak : The Ship of Fools sails on

[DuncinToffee]

The countdown to the General Election continues

Previous thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5082182-thread-46-sunak-dont-rain-on-our-parade?page=40&reply=135651872

He reminded Ministers that they were not to suggest those costings as being produced by the Civil Service and Sunak totally ignored him.

Sheer bloody lies.

Going tbh I couldn't bring myself to watch it. Knew that Sunak would be loud and gobby. No doubt he’s had plenty of practice at Eton debating societies and probably took advice off Johnson whereas Starmer as a barrister is working in a very different environment, has to be more measured and careful.
The 2k extra tax lie hopefully will get some traction. Nick Ferrari omitted to mention it initially and allowed a Tory gob to gloss over it when interviewed (same one pulled up by Victoria Derbyshire the night before ironically). He’s reluctantly had to mention it because of emails from listeners.

they should be censured for this surely, I really hope this gets challenged on the media rounds today, agree Sunak did appear better prepared although still came across as shouty & parroting soundbites sprinkled with outright lies.
Keir Starmer I didn’t think was dreadful, probably to polite but the one question where I thought he was passionate & spoke really well was the importance of staying in the ECHR.

I just watched in on ITVx and yes, came away feeling like I'd just watched a rather boring "debate" in a 6th form common room. She did seem to be randomly sticking to the 45 second rule but almost dismissive over Starmer "ooh, Ok, right right" over Starmer, which had the effect of calming a child. I do think Starmer needs to get better with one line put downs. His waffling derisiveness doesn't do him any favours. Sunak definitely has practised lines and is forceful in getting key points across, so I can see why a lot of people thought he won (if you don't pay much attention to what he says). I don't personally feel I learnt anything new about what Labour is planning and he could have done much more on the topic of immigration and talking about his boarder control plans. He wasted the majority of his time going over the rubbish they've done rather than put his new points in.

This is the only leaders’ debate, isn’t it? I heard that Rayner’s doing the BBC one. I can’t wait to see her go up against Farage, his misogyny will be off the scale.

I think there are 2 leaders debates.

Not sure whether I'll bother with them if they retain that format.

No - there will be another debate between just the two of them on the BBC in (iirc) 2 weeks time.

The one on Friday is with the Conservative and Labour deputy leaders and the leaders of the other 5 parties involved still don't know why Farage is allowed to be involved

So two BBC debates? OK. Well Starmer and his comms team need to do a lot of work in the next two weeks. At least now he knows what he’ll be up against.

Interesting. Farage will be gunning for Mordaunt. She's exactly the sort of Tory he needs to get rid of before Reform and the Conservatives could merge.

I thought the Tory deputy is Dowden.

The Tory lies being spewed across MN this morning are hard to bear. 🤬🤬🤬

Don’t let it get to you. You’re and several others are doing sterling work in correcting them.

On the £2000 tax thing

a) to assume that private companies can deliver services 7.5% cheaper than the state can is laughable. As the railways, water, energy companies, probation, prisons show the private sector very often costs more delivers worse service. To suggest others is just to be ideological in face of the evidence.

b) breakfast clubs for all will not be attended by 50% of children, it will be significantly less, so the costings are nonsense, but more importantly like Sure Start the breakfast clubs will provide significant short and long term benefits that are difficult to put a monetary value on but they are there, and will significantly reduce the cost of the policy, perhaps to the extent that in the long term it even saves money overall.

Is it a good look for Sunak to so obviously mislead, given that he stood by Johnson whilst Johnson lied about their joint law-breaking?

I felt Sunak was the better speaker , less waffle , but overeall it was like pistols at dawn at times.
Most conservatives I know and work with won't change their mind. There are more shy conservatives than people think too, but then I do live in a 'blue ' area with a big majority for our MP so it's skewed on that front.
I think these debates will hurt labour more than the tories , but only my opinion. Especially if they keep on about the 2k a year tax rises.. which the PM said about three times last night.
Starmer did look shifty , but might have been the pressure of it all tb to him.
Sunak did hustings two years ago and knows the drill a lot more , better briefed maybe.

Jonathan Ashworth tried hard to explain this morning on Radio 4, why asking whether if a close family member was in urgent need of life saving treatment would you go private is a nonsense question.

Private hospitals simply do not provide life saving or urgent treatment for the most serious conditions, there is no money to be made in them and the risks of something going wrong is high, so they wouldn't be insurable.

A close family member of mine is on a waiting list for heart surgery. There is no option to have it done privately, there are only a handful of highly skilled surgeons in the country who do the surgery, together with large supporting theatre teams. The cost would run to many tens of thousands of pounds, and no insurance company would cover it as it is a pre-existing condition.

Added to which no private hospital has an ICU and having a bed there on standby is a prerequisite for major surgery.

light relief from Matt Green

Bad day for the Tories - Nigel Farage is back!

Starmer did look shifty

You will have to explain that a bit more

I think Keir Starmer had a few wobbles last night , but it was probably the pressure and the lights and the presenter being firm.
The 2k a year tax did keep on coming up and he looked rattled at one stage , but I totally understand why, I'm not a conservative myself , but hearing this kind of talk is enough to worry people especially those who always say ' labour wreck economies ' which I've heard since I was able to ever vote ( over forty years now)
It's how it is at elections. Point scoring.

"A close family member of mine is on a waiting list for heart surgery. There is no option to have it done privately, there are only a handful of highly skilled surgeons in the country who do the surgery, together with large supporting theatre teams. The cost would run to many tens of thousands of pounds, and no insurance company would cover it as it is a pre-existing condition."

We were in a near identical situation. There was zero chance of the private healthcare covering it.
The eventual NHS treatment was tremendous.

I don't think Starmer is a natural one to one debater - one hopes he will prepare better for the next one. However, the fallout from the £2000 tax claim that's in the media right now is going to be damaging to the Tories.

Rattled and wobbly is quite different to shify though

For those who are already decided that the Tories are not to be trusted, which judging by the polls is quite a lot of voters, the £2000 claim is going to only reinforce that, not win them back.

However, the fallout from the £2000 tax claim that's in the media right now is going to be damaging to the Tories.

I'm not so sure The public have heard - and see - the soundbite and headlines. They don't then read the detail

It's that old thing that the majority see and register the headline, only some read the lower heading, even fewer read the first few paragraphs, let alone the whole article

That's why headlines matter

And we won't be seeing any headlines saying "Sunak was told not to say that the Civil Service supported that figure", let alone "Sunak lied"

I think Alistair Campbell is suggesting that Starmer deliberately didn't close down the £2000 lie