Tonight's debate 7.30pm BBC 1

[BastardisMendacem]

Anyone fancy a discussion thread?

Politicians often get on much better in real life and don’t spend their time hating each other. It is a job. Actual dislike is rare. Angela did her job, so did Penny.

I hear Sunak and Starmer really do dislike each other; but this is quite unusual.

I thought Mordaunt did a good job with an awful wicket. What could she say really? But she did it and it will have got her some points.

I though immigration question guy looked darker skinned and was sat further back?
The whole head shake thing was very annoying and bizarre.

Head guy was at the front wasn’t he, BBC loading the editing, they’re a bit obvious

👏👏

They were different people. The man the BBC kept showing was anti-Farage (just happened to have a camera perfectly positioned on him) but I don't think he spoke.

Yes my Momentum family member hates Jess Phillips with a passion as she was once seen talking to Jacob Rees-Mogg. It's ludicrous.

Yeah, the guy mid-crowd was the immigration guy and there was the guy doing pantomime disapproval at the front.

I’m still holding on to the (very unlikely) hope that he may set up a proper centrist party that we politically homeless can vote for in the future. I’d guess it’ll take seeing the Tories lurch to the right after this election to start people thinking about true centre options.

The House of Commons is a work place. Most of what we the public see is the political theatre to show the difference between policies. Mercifully personalities are not considered important unless you are Nigel Farage.

Labour and Conservatives in practice are friendly; no one can go around boiling with anger about politics if you are at work. They would all have heart attacks.

I don't understand this either

Given that people are getting on boats abroad, how does Labour think they have any control over the gangs there?

The level of immigration is an issue for voters but it's a red herring. It wouldn't matter what the numbers were if the immigration policy and strategy had been set up so that plentiful housing had been built, public services had improved, and the level of friction caused by changes to communities had been managed well.

It shouldn't matter whether immigration is high, net zero, or negative, so long as there is a rationale behind the policy and a good strategy for it. For example putting a "cap" has no rationale behind it if bringing a huge number of builders into the country would get it back on it's feet. Similarly net zero is pointless if it would ease the burden on the Country for the population to reduce. There seems to be little rationale for these choices but a lot of rhetoric behind them.

Easy to get confused really.

The whole time Farage was answering the question the camera kept going back to head-shaking guy, so if you missed the question being asked (like I did) you might assume he was the one that asked it.

I think selling the idea that prosecuting smugglers (and then presumably hoping that new people won't want to pick up the baton for these newly unoccupied and incredibly lucrative job openings) will be the tipping point to fight illegal immigration, should offend the intelligence of the electorate.

I'm getting a little confused about the 'schools are too full because of immigrants' narrative.
Numbers are dropping. We won't be replacing teachers this year. This should mean lovely, smaller classes. But it won't.
What is happening, is more kids being shoved into classes. Children who are EAL tend be ignored in many schools, because if they've been dropped in and don't have ks2 data, they won't count anyway.
The children of immigrants aren't the problem in education.

It should. It would other electorates hence no one is selling it in.

We’ll be trying it out soon though

I think this is the kind of issue that lands much harder in some constituencies harder than others.

Question Time, are you joking? Every one in five programmes being from Brexit Boston or somewhere else we only ever hear about on QT?

Or is it that 6 out of 7 don’t want to discuss it.

I think it's also because she was critical of Corbyn and there was a clip of her laughing when someone lost their seat once. Can't remember who...

I quite like her, but I know Corbynistas hate her.

Who what when where are these ' polls ' that take place ? Nobody ever asks me, or anybody that I know, to take part.

Sign up to Yougov online.
I was, however, asked to do one yesterday. I think it may have been on the election I don’t know as you don’t know what it’s about until you open it. When I did the whole site had crashed. Too many people doing it maybe.

6 out of 7 on the debate programme? Probably. With reason - they know it's not a big issue for most voters.

I think this is more like it. The candidates probably get a veto on questions.

Yes that’s what I thought @BloodyHellKenAgain

To respond to @Zonder i appreciate not all voters consider this an important issue. But many women do ! and as it wasn’t discussed in the Starmer / Sunak debate I assumed it would be in this one.

I’m pretty sure they don’t. It would completely defeat the object of the debate. Every single issue voter - no matter what the issue is - is an obsessive who can’t understand why the whole world isn’t marching to the beat of their drum.

Our economy is shot, tax is the highest for 70 years, our justice system is so broken we might as well not have one, 25% of children are living in poverty, NHS waiting lists are at record levels, another pan European war is on the doorstep. Those are the things people are concerned about.