The two men clashed over the issues of taxes, health and the cost of living, during a heated debate which resulted in no final blow.
The leaders of the UK’s two main political parties clashed in their first live televised debate of the election campaign, tackling issues ranging from tax to immigration to the National Health Service (NHS). ).
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, spoke in the northwestern city of Salford on Tuesday evening, a month before the deadline. July 4 Election.
Sunak, whose party trails by around 20 percentage points in opinion polls, took a combative approach, attacking Labor over taxes, pointing out that inflation had fallen to 2 percent and that he had a plan to revive the flagging economy.
Starmer highlighted the austerity of the early years of Conservative government and the chaos of the more recent past, which saw the dismissal of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson amid financial and ethics scandals, and the brief but devastating delay of 49 days. term of Liz Trusswhose tax cut plans have caused mortgage lending to skyrocket.
Sunak became party leader and prime minister in October 2022.
The Labor leader said the election was a choice between more “chaos and division” with the Conservatives and “turning the page and rebuilding with Labour”.
The two were repeatedly asked not to speak to each other and to lower their voices as they clashed over issues ranging from immigration to education to health care , but neither has presented new plans.
Sunak, a former banker and one of the UK’s richest people, raised groans when he placed blame for NHS waiting lists. the doctor goes on strikeand was met with laughter when he said the numbers were falling “because they were higher” before.
But he appeared to catch up with the audience when he discussed how he plans to tackle immigration, saying his controversial plan to send some asylum seekers in Rwanda was dissuasive.
Starmer said he also had a plan to tackle immigration and would consider processing asylum applications in a third country as long as it did not breach international law.
After the debate ended, a YouGov snap poll gave Sunak a slight edge, with 51 per cent saying he was performing better overall, compared to 49 per cent for Starmer.
However, broken down by issues, those surveyed said Starmer was doing much better on the cost of living, the NHS, education and climate change. Sunak was seen as performing well only on tax and, only narrowly, on immigration.
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said the evening would likely be seen as a good thing for Sunak since his party is lagging far behind in the polls.
“Will this matter in the end?” Probably not. But it’s a bit of good news for the Cons(ervatives) after a few pretty difficult days. It will at least help morale,” he wrote on X.
The period before the shock was overshadowed by the populist politician Nigel Faragewho announced this week that he would campaign for a seat in Parliament as leader of the anti-immigration right-wing Reform Party.
Farage, who previously sat in the European Parliament, failed to become a British MP seven times. He is running this time in the eastern seaside town of Clacton, which supported his favored Brexit policy and where the Tory incumbent won a majority of almost 26,000 votes in 2019.
Opinion polls suggest Labor’s lead remained firm against the Conservatives, in power since 2010, almost two weeks into the campaign.
Several more debates are planned before Election Day, some featuring multiple party leaders as well as the two frontrunners.
