At a Sky TV election event tonight, Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak faced some sometimes awkward questioning from presenter Beth Rigby before studio viewers got the chance to question the leaders. Here, our writers give their opinions on who performed best.
Tim Stanley says the public suffered from the unpleasant encounter. Sunak might as well give up. Tom Harris claims Starmer's swagger has meant he has struggled under the spotlight. Janet Daly says Sunak was more persuasive.
The winner of the Sky debate is Grimsby Town Hall – its mural looks great. Second place? Beth Rigby. Her questions were strict; The opening questioning about Keir Starmer's affair with Jeremy Corbyn was compelling.
As for the candidates, Starmer seemed boring and Sunak irritable. Keir's first mention of a toolmaker dad got a lot of laughs; he was accused of being a robot and responded with a series of ones and zeros. However, his announcement that the country had fallen apart was well received. We can say that he will win.
As for Rishi, he was attacked by an audience that seemed to be made up of a representative cross-section of the far left. He apologized profusely for leaving D-Day early (so much attention was paid to it that you'd think it cost us the Second World War), but when Beth challenged his figures on debt, migration and the NHS, a flare-up erupted. furious calculator.”
The real disappointment was the audience. As this debate continues, one obviously begins to tire of the candidates, but also of the public who sit with their arms crossed, demanding billions for their sector and booing when the answer does not reflect their lived experience.
< p> “The number of police is high,” the Prime Minister said with a sigh, who was not immediately believed. He might as well give up.
Keir Starmer approached the Battle for Number 10 on Sky News with an impressive degree of confidence and swagger.
But within minutes of political editor Beth Rigby's questioning, that confidence turned into something less attractive. The Labor leader knew what he had to say and nothing – least of all questions from Rigby herself – could stop him from delivering his message.
It is not good for a male politician to treat his interlocutor, especially a woman, with such a degree of impoliteness, blatantly ignoring her repeated requests to answer briefly and get to the point of her questions.
In this campaign so far, Starmer has largely avoided the scrutiny of his now-famous series of U-turns, most notably those of Jeremy Corbyn, his “friend” and shadow Brexit secretary, and then as Labour leadership candidate, when he promised to build a full-fledged socialism on the Corbyn model. The claim that his Damascus address was based on his belief that “country is more important than party” did little to convince his audience.
Perhaps aware of the dangers of talking to Rigby and even some of the audience members asking questions, Starmer began to give more succinct answers, and the applause as he took a bow seemed genuine enough.
His opponent, Rishi Sunak, was given a much less friendly reception, despite giving more direct answers to questions. This is a Prime Minister who simply cannot afford to dissemble or dissemble. However, direct answers on immigration and taxes – areas in which he has every right to defend himself – failed to impress skeptical audiences, either in the studio or at home.
Beth Rigby's questions were expertly crafted to hit both sides' weak points. Keir Starmer seemed determined to discuss problems rather than solve them. The only way to avoid answering a question he couldn't answer was to make it all about his character and not his plans for the government.
What was the reason for his repeated policy changes? And his newfound repudiation of Jeremy Corbyn, to whom he once pledged allegiance? It was not an opportunistic turn at all, it was a virtue: he simply decided that loyalty to “my country” was more important than tribal loyalty to “my party.”
You may notice that this doesn't answer the pertinent question: did he ever believe that Corbyn's Labor Party would be the right answer for the country? If not, then why did he support it at all? The most fundamental question of whether tax increases will be needed to finance improvements to public services has not been answered conclusively.
Rishi Sunak had to apologize repeatedly for his mistake on D-Day, which is quite unfair. , for Liz Truss's budget, which he opposed and immediately overturned. His account of his own plans was certainly more detailed and therefore more convincing than Starmer's, and he seemed to speak in good faith where Starmer seemed evasive and frighteningly vague.
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