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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday believed he had narrowly edged out a lively live TV debate with Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer, which was dominated by issues of tax and immigration.
Sunak, the Conservative underdog in the UK election campaign, fought back and won the contest by 51-49 according to a YouGov flash poll, an achievement for a prime minister on the ropes.
The confrontation came in the first campaign debate between Sunak and Starmer, an hour-long encounter in Manchester which was broadcast in prime time by ITV.
Sunak promised to “cut your taxes, protect your pension and limit immigration”, repeatedly hitting out at heavily disputed claims that Labor would raise taxes by £2,000 for every working household.
“With Keir Starmer, apart from higher taxes, you don’t know what you’re going to get and neither does he,” claimed Sunak. His impressive performance lifted Tory spirits, but it remains to be seen whether he can turn the campaign around.
Starmer said he would end the “chaos and division we’ve seen over the last 14 years” and sought to portray his Conservative rival as out of touch with the country he governs: “He lives in a different world.”
Sunak’s main line of attack on Starmer was his claim that a Labor government would increase taxes by £2,000 per household due to unfunded spending.
Sunak’s repeated claim, which the Tory leader said was based on an assessment of Labor’s plans by “independent civil servants at the Treasury”, was derided by Starmer as “absolute rubbish”.
The Labor leader said it was based on Tory ministers “pretending Labor policy to the Treasury and then getting fake data”. Starmer said all his promises were fully paid for.
“All you can do is talk about the past,” Sunak said in a distracted closing speech.
“I appreciate why he doesn’t want to talk about the last 14 years,” Starmer replied. “He is shy.”
Although Sunak’s team said before the event that they did not expect it to be a “game changer”, the prime minister desperately needed to deal some blows to his opponent to change the course of the campaign.
Sunak’s Conservatives trail the Labor opposition by more than 20 points in opinion polls, and the prime minister’s personal ratings are even worse than those of his party.
A new, highly detailed ‘MRP’ survey by Survation showed Labor on course for a record majority with 487 seats compared to just 71 for the Conservatives on Tuesday.
In this context, Sunak exceeded many expectations in the debate. “He is very happy,” said one Tory official. But more detailed YouGov polls painted a less favorable picture for the prime minister.
Starmer was seen by viewers as more trustworthy than Sunak (49/39 percent), more likable (50/34) and more relatable (66/17). However, Sunak was seen as more prime minister with a difference of 43/40.
Some of the most heated conversations in the TV studio were about migration, with Sunak saying he could withdraw Britain from the European Court of Human Rights if it blocked his plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“I made myself crystal clear – every time I will choose the security of our country over membership in a foreign court,” Sunak said. Starmer rejected this approach, saying he wanted Britain to be “a respected player on the world stage, not an outcast”.
Sunak claimed Britain would be less safe under a Labor government, prompting Starmer to say: “This is shocking.” The Labor leader was heard sighing in exasperation off-camera during the debate.
The Prime Minister claimed that Starmer defended “extremists” during his time as a human rights lawyer, a familiar allegation which the Labor leader described as “desperate”.
On climate change, Sunak said he had taken “bold” decisions that would mean Britain meets its commitments while protecting the budgets of hard-pressed families. Starmer promised Britain would “win the race” to develop renewable energy under a Labor government.
Both leaders were accompanied by “spin teams” who sought to shape media coverage. Shadow cabinet members Wes Streeting and Jonathan Ashworth were in the Labor team, while Sunak fielded ministers including Michael Gove and Claire Coutinho.
“Keir Starmer was flat on the canvas at the end,” Gove said after the event. Labor focused on denying Sunak’s alleged £2,000 tax hike under Starmer.
Apart from the event in Manchester, Starmer has so far agreed to only one more direct debate with Sunak before polling day on July 4 – a BBC event in Nottingham on June 26 – as he seeks to minimize political risk.
Sunak, who wanted to come from behind in the contest, sought at least half a dozen debates with Starmer in the hope that he could expose the Labor leader’s “unplannedness” and his “bumbling” on policy.
Labor rejects assumptions in Tory tax claims
Rishi Sunak tried to infuriate Sir Keir Starmer during an ITV televised debate by repeating more than ten times the claim that a Labor government would increase taxes by £2,000 per household.
The figure comes from a calculation that Labor flatly rejected three weeks ago.
Conservative MPs said they were surprised at how long it took Starmer to dismiss the claims as “absolute rubbish” during the debate, seeing it as evidence of the Labor leader’s flat debating skills.
The claim was first made by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on May 17 when he said Starmer’s spending plans had a £38 billion fiscal hole.
Mr Hunt said “independent, official calculations” by 50 Labor politicians had identified unfunded spending pledges which he said could mean taxes rose by £2,100 per working household under the Starmer administration.
However, Labor described the calculations as “desperate” at the time. Although the figures were calculated by Treasury officials, they relied on “special advisers’ assumptions” rather than an impartial assessment of the civil service.
On Tuesday night, Labor pointed to more than a dozen flawed elements in the dossier.
For example, Conservative claims included the “golden hello” cost of recruiting more dentists. “We called for this, which led to a welcome change when the government adopted our policy,” Labor said. “The government doesn’t seem to realize that this is its own policy.”
The calculation also suggested Labour’s idea of ​​”neighbourhood health centres” would mean the incoming government would set up 42 new centers on top of existing facilities. “This is not our policy,” Labor said.
The Tories have argued that Labour’s plans for a wave of public service provision would cost taxpayers more money: Treasury officials said they had “low confidence” in the assumption.
Meanwhile, the Tories have suggested halving the number of consultants working in Whitehall would cost money, which Labor describes as dubious.