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.

i don’t think it’s Tory desperation at all. Rishi probably chuckled to himself all the way home. Do Labour actually have policies.

What I thought was quite telling was the answer to the question, if your loved one was on a waiting list needing treatment would you go private. Rishi immediately said yes Keir said no. Obviously a man so ideologically driven he’s not willing to do the practical and best thing for his loved one. So how would he react if the best thing for the country went against his ideology - not act in the country’s best interests. That really turned me off him.

Link to Paul Johnson’s comments in case you can’t read my screenshots!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69088663?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=66603593e4245d593febe84f%26Conservatives%27%20%C2%A32%2C000%20claim%20not%20verified%2C%20says%20IFS%262024-06-05T10%3A00%3A36.744Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:86131a52-ea9c-4a44-aa73-ee30a375855f&pinned_post_asset_id=66603593e4245d593febe84f&pinned_post_type=share

As a pensioner Sunak can't buy my vote with that. I don't see why I shouldn't be taxed in exactly the same was as an 18 year old or a 40 year old.

I thought Sunak came over as very smug, God knows what he has to be smug about.

Starmer lost that debate last night by pretty much every metric I have seen.

His key issue was not answering questions but waffling around them with misdirection. This was no more apparent than when he started waffling about his time at the CPS taking down terrorists in the context of national security. This microdetail is not at all relevant to the greater plan of organising the nations defence and how it is going to be funded. But was typical of Starmers responses throughout the debate. He also failed to answer Sunaks questions on how he was going to deal with key issues like immigration.

The problem here is Starmer is in the lead in the polls, so had everything to lose going into the debate. Rather than actually answer questions on what Labour is going to do, he is relying on the fact that he is "not Tory" to push Labour over the line. This allows Sunak to set the agenda, push his policies and give people an idea of what the Tories want to do in the next 5 years.

So the choice becomes either vote on what happens in the past and not being Tory. Or vote on well defined plans that actually seem to address some of the issues while remaining within constraints we have to operate under, like funding.

Starmer lost this debate and is taking a big risk here. It will be interesting to see the manifestos when they come out. Personally I don't want another debate with Starmer standing there opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. Even if I don't want him to win, I'd like to think there is actually some policy and substance behind Labour as there is a significant chance we are going to get them.

Come on - it's not that the £2,000 isn't verified!

Made up numbers to suit their purposes and then a second lie when he suggested it was independently checked.

Lied 11 times on national tv in one hour!

It was exactly what my DD was told by another student when she started university. He very smugly said his parents cared so much and prioritised his education. DD said as they had ended up on the same course at the same university and she actually had better A levels than him her parents had probably made a more sensible choice.

Well it’s not so much “in the wings” it’s sat right next to him on the front bench

That comes from a position of privalge, or ignorance.

to tax the full state pension, you need to reduce the personal allowance, that’s what’s being planned. So it impacts everyone, and then if you’re living off a state pension and need to pay tax on it, you fall into even more poverty.

a lot of pensioners who live on the state pension cannot afford it. I’m happy for you that you can. But many many can’t. And they will be dismayed that you are happy for them to be taxed due to your own privaleged position.

I think if you re committed to the NHS and the concept of the NHS, then Kier gave the right answer.

If you re in power and at the first sign of trouble you reach for your wallet to by-pass the issues most people face but don't have the money to solve, what does that say about you and your commitment to solve the nations problems?

Sunak also uses private GP services, so why he should he care if the rest of us cannot get a GP appointment? he doesn't, so GP services keep getting worse.

He simply has no skin in the game.

I think Sunak totally screwed up with that answer

Starmer lost that debate last night by pretty much every metric I have seen.

Did you miss these?

https://x.com/JLPartnersPolls/status/1798258155391942656
https://x.com/Savanta_UK/status/1798241264225427534

Should we vote for Sunak then?

Err it was the tories that took away the pensioners allowance during austerity.... they also created this more recent problem by freezing tax thresholds for 5 years.

This has made poor people even poorer, doesn't effect the rich.

....but Labour!!!

Quite. Women’s rights also spring to mind. He’d rather allow potentially predatory men into all women’s and children’s spaces, than admit no women have penises. So captured is he by an ideology.

I only both looking at stuff I think is likely to be a realistic assessment.

I am sure there is a lot of pro Labour and pro Tory stuff out there claiming all sorts of nonsense, but I'm not interested in any of that.

Keir had an opportunity last night to put to bed and clear up any issues currently thrown about in the media. But he didn't. This is the best chance Labour have had in years to wipe the floor with the Tories. But he was scarily weak and left us none the wiser what he's going to bring to the table. It was more of what he didn't say than what he said. Telling people what they want to hear without detail.

Polls aren't pro labour or pro Tory, they are just a snapshot at what people thought, done by independents but as a Tory, you'll dismiss anything that isn't in the Cons favour.

50/50 in one, 60/40 in another or thereabouts.

Either Labour have no policies or they do and they don’t want to tell us about them - why would that be?! I think that Ed Davey should have been allowed to take part in the debate as we need to determine whether there is another viable option.

‘Telling people what they want to hear without detail’

Sadly Starmer did not even manage to do that. So utterly weak and ineffective was his presentation.

He could have stood up there, said "I'm not the Tories" and then left in 5 seconds.

And his contribution would have been pretty much the same in terms of impact.

This was a big opportunity for him to reveal policy and he didn't.

When Sunak asks him the question repeatedly "what are you going to do?" he comes up with nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Which means either he has no clue. Or he is scared because he doesn't want to tell people the truth.

As opposed to lying about figures having been told not to.

Have you not seen this morning's news? Starmer didn't put the tax claims to bed because he knew about the Treasury letter which shows it hasn't been costed by civil servants as Sunak claimed. Tory SpAds are behind the assumptive figure. So he let Sunak repeat his lie to the nation, knowing it would be exposed this morning. It's a classic lawyer trap.

They have yet to release their manifesto, so it's impossible to say with confidence Labour has no clue. If they release it and it's bogus, fair enough. Really the debate should've been scheduled for after the manifestos were released, so they could argue about actual pledges, not each other's idea of what their policies might be.

i Don’t think that at all. Rishi have an honest answer.

Why would Starmer, who can pay for treatment want to clog up the NHS unnecessarily? Surely it would be better to let someone else move up the waiting list.

As I said, nothing noble about his answer, he’s literally willing to see his loved ones suffer unnecessarily for the sake of his ideology.

There is a reason why pensioners have been given a rebate, one day you will understand that.
Yes on surface level shallow analysis, you can say 25k salary and 25k pension should attract same tax.

But this was his opportunity to say what they would do, he completely fluffed it let’s be honest here.