Tonight's TV debate Sunak v Starmer - any predictions?

[CallingOccupantsOfInterplanetaryCraft]

Anyone up for a watch thread? Maybe even debate bingo. I know I know, don't threaten me with a good time. (Bingo suggestions: natural party of business, Labour has no plan, end the chaos, Rayner will take over, assorted references to Starmer's time as DPP probably blaming for Jimmy Saville again, inflation is down etc etc.)

At this point I seriously doubt anything like this will remotely change the game Nick Clegg style. I read somewhere the only way Sunak could come out of this ahead in the polls is if Starmer pulled off a mask scooby-doo style to reveal he's Jeremy Corbyn, which admittedly would be great telly.

I'm so fed up with the endless rhetoric but will definitely watch later anyway.

So it was basically just a number they pulled out of their collective arses. Same tactic as the £350m for the health service they used for Brexit.

I cannot wait to be rid of these people. I'm not dyed in the wool Labour but it can't be worse than this.

£2000 tax is a Tory invention.

https://x.com/hzeffman/status/1798252445321343456

The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”

He said he had reminded ministers of this

You are wrong. Here's the letter.

Thanks for this.

How anyone can trust what the Tories say now is beyond me.

Utterly depressing.

Appalled that Starmer wouldn’t use private healthcare. He can well afford it, but would prefer his relative to presumably be in discomfort whilst he could also relieve the pressure on the state resources.

But I say that as someone who pays a crap load of taxes and also pays for private schooling, medical insurance and private GP appointments. Wouldn’t vote for Labour if my arse was on fire though 😂

This is a good article which summarises my thoughts

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/starmer-will-win-the-election-but-sunak-won-the-debate/

Savanta Poll

https://x.com/Savanta_UK/status/1798237025038139676

NEW: Starmer beats Sunak in televised debate overnight poll

Who won the debate:

Starmer (44%)
Sunak (39%)
Don't Know (17%)

1,153 UK adults, 4-5 June

Who had best answers to:

NHS & public services (Starmer 63%, Sunak 25%)
Economy and cost of living (Starmer 52%, Sunak 36%)
Immigration (Starmer 45%, Sunak 37%)

Who came across as most honest (Starmer 54%, Sunak 29%)

Who gave most thoughtful answers (Starmer 53%, Sunak 35%)

Who remained the calmest (Starmer 51%, Sunak 36%)

Surprise, surprise, the Tories are bare-faced lying about the £2k tax increase. I'm so pleased the Treasury letter has been leaked to expose the truth. Lying is in Tory DNA and we must never forget that.

Honestly I had to stop watching after two minutes, it was a terrible format. 45 seconds to answer each question? Who would perform well under those conditions and what useful information is ever going to be conveyed? Neither came off well but the conditions weren't allowed for them to, why can't we give more serious time and space to debate without it being some fucking chopped up, attention-sapping Tik tok shit?

It takes a lot of self control to allow someone else to speak without talking over them, especially when they are lying and misrepresenting you

this, not gonna lie he did go up in my estimation

The only more precise costing Starmer mentioned was non doms and VAT which is fucking terrifying because together they will raise the princely sum of £6 billion. Which sounds like a big number right? That’s 8% of the education budget. That’s all. How can he revolutionise services with 8% of the budget for 1 department? It’s a real worry. He needs to be honest - we are broke.

He's repeatedly said there are going to be things they cannot do because there is no money. Like scrapping tuition fees – he said he'd love to, but he can't afford to do that and save the NHS.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/24/keir-starmer-tuition-fees-pledge-prioritise-tackling-nhs-crisis#:~:text=Keir%20Starmer%20has%20said%20he,state%20of%20the%20British%20economy.

Personally I'd rather scrap the current NHS have a France/Germany style insurance set up and no tuition fees.

It makes me sick that my children will graduate with a ridiculous amount of debt.

So you're happy for millions already on the breadline being unable to receive healthcare because they cannot afford the insurance? The average insurance cost in France per person is 40 euros a month – that's £34 roughly per adult, for the most basic policy. People already on the bones of their arses are not going to be able to pay that!

"Personally I'd rather scrap the current NHS have a France/Germany style insurance set up and no tuition fees."

I'm not sure how this would work. I believe that the French and German governments spend more per capita on healthcare than we do. So if we were to change model (and I am not opposed to that) it wouldn't automatically lead to lower government health spending.

Investment in healthcare is an investment in future prosperity in my book. Investing in social care is where we should begin - freeing up capacity in hospitals. More district nurses is a good start. Also increase central funding for local government as they fund a lot of social care and they are now doing it on a shoestring (40% cuts in central funding since 2010 and increased responsibilities for services).

Well the NHS budget is £181billion, money from taxes! Imagine if we didn't have to pay that in taxes. With 51million population that's about £3k per person per yr. I think £3k is more than enough to cover insurance.

The Sunak-the movie is an interesting view of Sunak

Except we know that taxes still won't be lowered if a healthcare insurance scheme is introduced, because that £181bn still isn't enough for a functioning NHS. It needs the £3k a year per person as well as the current budget. And don't even get me started on what's needed for schools!

Starmer needs to be very careful that his “I’d never use private healthcare for me or my family” doesn’t become his own version of the Mike Dukakis “death penalty” question in the 1988 US election debates.

Agreed. An insurance model is perfectly good and the norm in many left leaning countries.

What moral superiority? What’s moral about using free healthcare? Surely the moral thing would be to free up resources for other people if you can afford to pay?

Ours is almost inaudible and it's a high output unit. We're surrounded by fields and it's VERY quiet so any noise would be very noticeable. It very much depends on the make and model.

"The analysis also looked at comparisons with the UK’s closest European neighbours. In every year between 2010 and 2019 the UK would have had to spend an additional £73bn more to match Germany’s spending per person (39% extra). When compared to France the UK would have to spend an additional £40bn extra every year (21% extra)."

The charity also looked at capital health spending on vital buildings, technology and equipment comparative to European neighbours. Comparing capital spending with the EU14 countries for which data are available it found that between 2010 and 2019, cumulative UK investment in capital health infrastructure would have needed an additional £33bn to match the total EU average invested over that period (around 55% higher than actual investment).

The UK has fewer practising physicians per person and fewer hospital beds per person compared to the EU14. This contributed to a healthcare system that was already stretched before the pandemic with the proportion of people in the UK self-reported as needing treatment but could not get it was one of the highest in Europee_.

It’s important that health services are as efficient as possible, but in the end access to high quality services of a similar standard to our European neighbours can’t be sustained if we consistently spend less. . Either we are going to have lower quality health care relative to other countries or we spend more

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/uk-spent-around-a-fifth-less-than-european-neighbours-on-health-care-in-last-decade

I didn't say the calculations were not made by civil servants.

Read my post again.

The assumptions that the calculations were based on are the important part.

They were not lying about the increase though, it’s about who did the numbers,