Sunak V Starmer

Didn't watch it but from the posts here, Starmer has shown what a weak, ineffective person he is. I should like to see Angela Rayner take part in this sort of thing. She has much more life in her.

Katie590

The reality is that Starmer is going to need to find £35 billion to fund his budget, averaged out at £2000 per tax payer. Some will come from tax increase some from benefit cuts some from borrowing.

Ending Non Dom and VAT on private schools is popular with the supporters but is a small part of what is needed, those below average income will not have to pay much, if any extra, which means those above average will have to pay a lot more.

Starmer is going to need to be much better in any future debates, this is not a courtroom where everyone is polite and under control.

Those are assumptions though, based on little concrete information. The format was wrong, how could anybody have gone into the detail to explain exactly what their plans were and how they would be funded in 40 seconds?
In my opinion Starmer doesn’t needs to be ‘better’, he needs to speed up his response time - I don’t think his issue was what he said, it was the ums and ahs while he processed what he was being asked. In that respect Sunak and he are opposites, because Sunak over anticipates and almost answers questions before they are asked while Starmer waits for the final dot at the end of the other person’s sentence and then thinks about it for too long before answering.

Where do your figures come from, Katie590?. They sound extraordinarily like the ones the tories have been pushing.

Curtaintwitcher

Didn't watch it but from the posts here, Starmer has shown what a weak, ineffective person he is. I should like to see Angela Rayner take part in this sort of thing. She has much more life in her.

He didn’t. He showed that he is the more considered and polite of the two, whilst Sunak was rude and reactive. Oh, and I did watch it - I’m not basing that comment on a few posts on a chat site

The trouble is that there is always going to be confirmation bias with things like this, plus, as Casdon says asking big questions and giving 40 seconds to answer is pointless. Also the presenter didn’t stop Sunak from shouting over Starmer. I’d be interested to see a content analysis of the show (and it was a show, rather than a debate) to see how much uninterrupted air time each of them got, to see if that’s my own confirmation bias - I doubt it though.

Laura Kuenssberg would be a sight better than Julie Etchingham.

Yes, or Emily Maitlis.

"Labour must not flinch at flying the flag of St George – it is the patriotic party now”

The English Defence League couldn’t have put it better."

This quote from the show said it all for me.
If we are to have a Labour Government at Westminster, then those of us in Scotland must elect a strong SNP representation or our needs and wants will continue to be overlooked.

The polls appear to give Sunak a tiny edge over Starmer in the debate but, broken down into issues, however, respondents said Starmer did far better on the cost of living, the NHS, education and climate change. Sunak was seen as doing well only on tax and, by a narrow margin, on immigration.

The tax we know was fantasy and the Rwanda plan is never going to work.

So overall…… Sunak will almost certainly not move the dial on the polls.

Regarding the spurious extra £2000 tax burden that Sunak wouldn’t shut up about - if Labour’s going to have to find that money to maintain public service's wouldn’t the Tories have to do the same?

How would the Tories maintain our public services whilst reducing tax - which Sunak says they would do. Where would they get the money from? Or would our public services slide even further into private hands - and that’s gone well so far hasn’t it

Granny23

"Labour must not flinch at flying the flag of St George – it is the patriotic party now”

The English Defence League couldn’t have put it better."

This quote from the show said it all for me.
If we are to have a Labour Government at Westminster, then those of us in Scotland must elect a strong SNP representation or our needs and wants will continue to be overlooked.

I wonder what Emily thought of that quote.

Reading an article - I think in the Spectator, which argues that whole swathes of the population are absolutely determined to get rid of the Tories, and will do whatever it takes to oust them.

This means tactical voting - big time. So the winners will almost certainly be Lib Dem’s and Reform. The Tories are raging a battle on so many fronts - it seems almost as if Labour are the least of their problems.

I read a book and listening to the feedback, I made a good choice

i watched the first 30 mins and had to turn it off, the behaviour of these two grown men was ridiculous and to think one of them is going to be our pm.

I watched 15 minutes and decided to read my murder mystery as more relaxing at 9.30pm.
I didn’t lije the format, found the moderator poor, Sunak rude, entitled and shouting ‘I have a plan, the plan is working’ is simply untrue
Starmer seemed to want to avoid shouty sound bites but if Sunak is allowed to continue shouting over him, he may have to respond in a less measured way.
The £2000 a year tax increase was just addressed on radio 4. The interviewer pointed out to the Tory spokeswoman that it’s £250 a year over 4 years.

petra

Granny23

"Labour must not flinch at flying the flag of St George – it is the patriotic party now”

The English Defence League couldn’t have put it better."

This quote from the show said it all for me.
If we are to have a Labour Government at Westminster, then those of us in Scotland must elect a strong SNP representation or our needs and wants will continue to be overlooked.

I wonder what Emily thought of that quote.

Oddly enough, I came across this on X/twitter this morning, it made me think about the outrage over Emily's image from Rochester.

The author is Nitin Sawhney . A British musician and composer of International repute (says Wikipedia)

I grew up watching flag-waving little Englanders parading their nationality around Rochester like Dickensian caricatures, puffing their chests out in pride over an imperial history carefully reimagined to paint over barbaric cruelty with Constable landscapes and Churchillian swagger… As if the accident of where they were born had been an achievement…

These folk were everywhere… with their arrogant smiles and entitled condescension. They were the National Front-supporting parents of school friends, avoiding eye contact if I dared visit their house via their sons, asking me transparent questions about my ethnicity and explaining how mixed race marriages never work, in case I propositioned one of their vulnerable teenage daughters…

I was taught to consider myself both lucky to be here and self-evidently inferior by virtue of my heritage.

So when I see those same superior, colluding, patronising smiles on the over-rehearsed faces of attention-seeking rabble-rousers like Farage and Tice, I have to remember…

We can’t change the past but we can make damn sure those who belong in the past don’t destroy our future…

Farage is a disease, a malicious vessel of hate… A gleeful provocateur. Everything he touches becomes a toxic wasteland of hopeless misery. He is a cancer waiting to destroy the same host over and over again.

I said this about him in a Channel 4 News interview back in 2014.

I say it again now

This should go on the Farage thread, too...

NotSpaghetti

I forgot it was tonight - but my daughter and son in law played "word bingo" with them - and both won!...

Furlough, Pharmacist, CPS, £2000, 14 years.....would've been on my card!

They make the dreaded Nigel look good. That nasty spiteful tweet only makes him look even better.

MaizieD

Where do your figures come from, Katie590?. They sound extraordinarily like the ones the tories have been pushing.

I happen to agree that a lot more tax is needed to fix the deficiencies in the UK economy £35 billion would fit with that aim.
It amounts to around 7% of public spending, the improvements in services we are all demanding are not going to be paid for out of thin air.

How much do you think is needed to fix the NHS, Water, Police, Care services and all the other deficiencies in the UK.

In a letter from the permanent secretary the Treasury has denied that they had anything to do with the £2,000 'extra tax' figure and that the tories had been asked not to use it.

Of course, the tories are using £2,000 like mad and claiming it's Treasury figures..

I tuned in towards the end and there was a lot of shouting and the presenter trying to gain order. Glad I didn't watch the whole debate.
I will read the fact checks to see the truth of the claims made.

Katie590

MaizieD

Where do your figures come from, Katie590?. They sound extraordinarily like the ones the tories have been pushing.

I happen to agree that a lot more tax is needed to fix the deficiencies in the UK economy £35 billion would fit with that aim.
It amounts to around 7% of public spending, the improvements in services we are all demanding are not going to be paid for out of thin air.

How much do you think is needed to fix the NHS, Water, Police, Care services and all the other deficiencies in the UK.

No, Katie290, I asked you where you got your figures from. You haven't answered..

It's all coming out in the wash, isn't it? The civil service has disowned the figures that Sunak used to lie about Labour's tax plans, saying that they shouldn't have been used as they were false. It's just been on BBC News.

Starmer came across as weak and without answers. It doesn’t bode well for his future as party leader.

Sorry Maisie - I was looking for a source and missed your post.

LizzieDrip

Regarding the spurious extra £2000 tax burden that Sunak wouldn’t shut up about - if Labour’s going to have to find that money to maintain public service's wouldn’t the Tories have to do the same?

How would the Tories maintain our public services whilst reducing tax - which Sunak says they would do. Where would they get the money from? Or would our public services slide even further into private hands - and that’s gone well so far hasn’t it

Yes it would cost that IF the Tories intend to improve the services, I’m not convinced that they are, tax cuts seem to be the main theme, so they cannot do much to change anything.

All that is academic, Sunak is not going to be the next PM, with Farage fronting Reform even safe seats will be at risk.