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UK Politics General Discussion

What will be the result of the UK’s General Election?

  • Conservative Majority

    Votes: 3 2.5%

  • Conversative Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Labour Majority

    Votes: 87 72.5%

  • Labour Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 28 23.3%

  • Other Result (Please specify in your post)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    120
  • Poll closed .
"I'm Rishi Sunak and I have a plan!"

It does get dull hearing Tories talk about how they'll definitely fix _insert issue here_ if they get voted back in. 13 years later.
 
There was way too much interrupting and talking over each other, it didn't help that the chair seemed quite out of her depth. There also needs to be a fact check of the debate as the two were regularly making claims about each other which often conflicted.
 
Just watching BBC news night now and they are suggesting polls of how the two leaders performed with a UGov panel put Starmer at 49% and Sunak at 51% in terms of well they thought each leader did.
 
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Not a great debate from either leader to be honest, but then that was to be expected. I don’t think many of the general public are truly bothered about these debates, and I don’t think there was a whole lot in there to encourage voters to change their minds whichever way they’re voting. Too much shouting and 45 seconds on the clock is nowhere near long enough to get into answering the question. Starmer concentrated on empathising with the questioner too much, leaving little time for an answer. Sunak came across as being very tetchy with his constant shouting, much like he did in the leadership debates. Neither covered themselves in glory tonight.

I’m not a fan of the whole debate format in the first place, even less so when there’s no manifestos to actually base all of their points off at the moment. Give me a grilling in a one to one interview once manifestos have been published any day over the US inspired slanging matches.
 
Enjoyable telly for me, but nothing more. The timing is wrong without manifestos, so it was inevitably going to be just a personality contest. The format was wrong as well, not enough time to answer any questions, which allowed the pair of them to wriggle out of them. Some excellent heartfelt questions put forward, none of them answered. Why bother with such an early debate that wouldn't provide enough time to answer them anyway?

We learnt nothing new and saw a continuation of the strategies we've been witnessing all campaign so far from both.

Sunak has no record to stand on, so was aggressive, spouting conspiracy theories at times, mentioning the word 'plan' a lot, and just trying desperately to ramp up fear about Labour. All that he can do now really.

Starmer was relaxed, he mentioned that he used to be the Director of Public Prosecutions, he was evasive, he mentioned that he was the Director of Public Prosecutions, and seems like he's just running down the clock until 4th July. Did he mention that he was Director of Public Prosecutions? Well in case you didn't know, he used to be the Director of Public Prosecutions.

It gave me a good old laugh and I personally love a political showdown. But a poor format, and poorly timed. More light entertainment, than serious debate that did nothing for democracy.
 
Only watched to see if there were any entertaining gaffes or whatever. All I learned was that according to Starmer interest rates are going back up later in the year (thanks for the info) and I think Sunak might have mentioned once or twice that Labour plan to cost everyone an extra £2,000 a year in taxes. Fell asleep half way through but I was tired anyway due to work. "Keir, why do you want to put everyone's tax up by £2,000" :tearsofjoy: :tearsofjoy: :tearsofjoy:
 
I stopped watching hustings debates about thirty years ago...it is easier to stomach five minute of "highlights" on the news, rather than the other fifty five minutes of lowlights.
And back to Farage...no bricks, no knives, just a well deserved drink.
My understanding of the situation is blurred by political spin doctoring, but reports are coming in that the milkshake concerned was of the banana variety, and it would like it made clear that the protest was political, not personal.
To think that the tosser once voted green!
 
The education piece got me. Work harder hey Rishi so we chose to send our children to private school?
Is he for real - I bet 99.9% of us work hard on here and have no hope in hell of paying these fees. It’s only a small few - the top % of earners who can afford this.

Any luxury should be taxed. Sorry Rishi you look out of touch with reality - as always.
 
No, come on, private education is in the spotlight here.
For 95% of the population, it really isn't even a luxury option.
Twenty grand a year for one child is not an attainable optional extra for your average parent.
 
An abysmal "debate", made 100% worse by the moderator letting Rishi rant on and on whenever he felt like it. Can we just skip to the election now?
 
I’m not quite sure what to think after the debate last night. I’m not sure that either man came across terribly well, and I’m not sure I could easily declare a “winner”.

I think Sunak’s approach possibly suited the style of the debate a bit better, as he did get some effective sound bites in there (“£2,000 more tax under Labour” was a point that he repeated a lot and Starmer did little to counteract) and he also seemed like he was able to get his plans across a bit better. However, I thought he also seemed a bit tetchy and had a terrible habit of interrupting Keir Starmer an awful lot (similar to how he was with Liz Truss in the Tory leadership debates of 2022), and he also said some things that sounded to me like either conspiracy theories or blatant scaremongering. For instance, he talked about how “they’ll make you spend thousands to convert your house and change your car!” with regard to Labour’s green policies, talked about how Labour were bringing in a “retirement tax” for pensioners, and implied that the CPS was some sort of terrorist organisation when referencing people that Starmer had previously worked with as a reason why he was a threat to national security. I also noticed that Sunak got laughed at or groaned at a few times by the audience (particularly when talking about national service). He also made the notable gaffe of trying to claim that NHS waiting lists had gone down when Starmer reminded him that the waiting list was 7.2 million when he made the promise and 7.5 million now; Sunak claimed that “they have gone down, from when they were higher!” to laughs from the audience…

Starmer said some good stuff, particularly with regard to Great British Energy and housing. I thought he came into his own a bit more later in the debate, and when he was allowed to go into a bit more depth about explaining a policy, I thought that he did this quite well. However, he answered many of the questions by deflecting to the Tories’ record in government even when it was a direct question asking him what he’d do or asking him his reasoning behind a policy stance. When asked by Sunak about “why he wanted to tax pensioners”, Starmer just spoke about how “Liz Truss crashed the economy”. When a voter asked him about what he would do to relate to people struggling with cost of living, he simply spoke about how “the Tories have crashed the economy”. When a voter asked him about what he’d do to solve problems in education and the NHS, he simply spoke about how “the Tories have broken the NHS and public services”. I fear that Starmer just deflecting to the Tories’ record in government only plays into Sunak’s attack line that “Labour have no plan”. I don’t think quickfire suits him very well, either; he seemed in some cases like he was building to a good answer, but was cut off before he could properly get his point across.
 
I've noticed that in the last few days I've been rather bombarded with online ads from the Tories, none from labour. Whether this is representative overall of what is being pumped out, or whether I have hit some Tory target algorithm sweet spot I don't know.

The message I am supposed to be recieveing, presented in a number of ways, is that Labour will cost me out of my pay packet. If the idea is to get that into the subconscious by seeing it so many times while scrolling, when the brain isn't fully engaged, I could see that working to some extent, less so on people that have had their income hit by far greater numbers by the current administration.
 
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pluk said:
I've noticed that in the last few days I've been rather bombarded with online ads from the Tories, none from labour. Whether this is representative overall of what is being pumped out, or whether I have hit some Tory target algorithm sweet spot I don't know.

The message I am supposed to be recieveing, presented in a number of ways, is that Labour will cost me out of my pay packet. If the idea is to get that into the subconscious by seeing it so many times while scrolling, when the brain isn't fully engaged, I could see that working to some extent, less so on people that have had their income hit by far greater numbers by the current administration.
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I too am getting quite a few Conservative adverts pumped my way, particularly on Facebook. I’ve been getting both adverts from the wider Conservative Party and from my local Conservative MP regarding the Forest of Dean Conservatives and rubbishing changes made by the Green-controlled local council and waved through by Labour councillors.

I find this odd, because as a nearly 21 year old student, I’m definitely not in the prime Tory-voting demographic!
 
South West is prime Tory territory though. It'll be area based marketing as well.

For example, not seen anything Tory related in Leeds.

Having a debate prior to any manifestos being provided was always going to be pointless. Especially when having an actual serious debate in politics seems a distant memory. Gotta show off that Eton style education.

Also Treasury have distanced themselves from the "Labour will force you to pay an extra £2k in tax" comments. Damage already done though in that sense.
 
Matt N said:
I think Sunak’s approach possibly suited the style of the debate a bit better, as he did get some effective sound bites in there (“£2,000 more tax under Labour” was a point that he repeated a lot and Starmer did little to counteract)
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I actually felt like Sunak was allowed to make this claim several times but Starmer was not allowed to counter it, being told "we need to move on" or "we'll come back to tax later" every time he tried to. In my opinion, Julie Etchingham was completely out of her depth.

This £2000 figure rumbles on today with the chief Treasury civil servant, James Bowler, stepping in to say they didn't produce this figure... so who did?

The letter, addressed to shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, says in full:
As you will be aware, when costing the policies of opposition parties HM Treasury and the wider civil service established guidance set out in the Directory of Civil Service Guidance.

As per this guidance, the costings produced by HM Treasury and the wider Civil Service are published on the gov.uk website.

As you will expect, civil servants were not involved in the production or representation of the Conservative Party's document 'Labour Tax Rises' or in the calculation of the total figure used.

In your letter you highlight that the £38bn figure used in the Conservative Party's publication includes costs beyond those provided by the Civil Service and published online by HM Treasury.

I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service. I have reminded Ministers and advisers that this should be the case."
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