For Rishi Sunak, the situation could not be more desperate. He needed a good night facing off against Keir Starmer in the hope of salvaging a viable core post-election. But as this and other MRPs show, Sunak himself can't not pay to ignore his formerly super safe constituency, which is set on becoming a marginal. Sunak then needed to be less the Prime Minister's Questions point scorer, and certainly not repeat his arrogant tones of a couple of years back during the televised Tory leadership debates. He needed to strike the statesman pose, which was certainly going to be the ground on which Starmer pitched his tent.
And as for the Labour leader, this is his election to lose. And that has been the case since Liz Truss entered Number 10. Yet even he and his team know that disgust with the Tories are driving polling numbers, they want to turn that into an enthusiasm for Starmer that has long been lacking. For most people, up until now he has been a grey blur so for many this would be their first serious look at how Starmer comes across. What he had to do was make sure he didn't lose his cool, fluff his lines, and come over worse than the Prime Minister. How did they do?
It was pretty appalling all told. To be fair to Starmer and Sunak, this wasn't entirely their fault. Keeping the head-to-head to just over an hour and cramming in as many questions as possible meant they were limited to 45 second answers. Completely ridiculous. Like much political commentary, this did nothing to enlighten or, as we used to say in the old organisation, "raise the level". ITV had engineered the debate to produce quick time sound bites. It didn't put either leader in much difficulty because none of the questions stretched them. As such, I doubt anyone would have come away with a changed mind.
The substance of "discussion" was pretty meagre. Sunak did like to talk over Starmer a lot and had more chair's actions aimed at him, but then the format did suit what he was selling. Telling viewers to forget about the last 14 years, we needed to have our eyes fixed on the future. According to the Prime Minister, the economy is doing well, NHS waiting lists are coming down, small boats in the channel are falling. He's protecting households from the costs of the green transition by basically doing bugger all about it, and he's thrown more money at the military. But this was very secondary to his main message. Labour can't be trusted with national security, Labour will flood our streets with asylum seekers, Labour will have a deputy PM that doesn't like nuclear weapons, Labour's going to increase energy bills and force people to buy heat pumps and electric vehicles. But most of all, the one thing Sunak would not shut up about was Labour's alleged plan to hike taxes by £2,000/year. Someone was paying attention during the face-to-faces between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn: repeat one thing again and again and again so it lodges in the mind. In fact, one thing that did surprise is that Sunak didn't go lower. Given he's running a core vote only campaign, I'm surprised he didn't make more of his "quadruple pension lock" - the guarantee that pensioners will not pay tax on their state pension. Because Labour aren't backing his scheme, he ventured that Starmer favoured a "retirement tax". But he only proffered this once, which would be more effective with his desired audience than dodgy claims about a phantom tax bill.
Starmer for his part didn't go in for aloof serious vibes. He went for the Tory record. Showing two can play Sunak's game, the words "Liz Truss" paired with "trashed the economy" were uttered almost as much. Initially it seemed he was knocked off balance by the £2k tax gambit, and only revisited it to rubbish it half-way through the show. Of the two, he certainly offered more. He talked about GB energy, plans to build 1.5 million homes, more teachers, action on NHS waiting lists. He promised leadership on Israel Palestine, saying it would be his "solemn duty" to make a resolution a reality. He didn't say much on the economy even in the dedicated economy question, but his response to the climate question linked it to economic growth and opportunity - which differed from Sunak's rendering it as a cost and an obstacle. Basically, Starmer didn't need to bring much to the table beyond his memorised content of the pledge card, and so didn't.
Audience participation was much more muted than the polarised election of 2019, but both men got cheers and applause. Though Sunak distinguished himself by receiving jeers and mocking laughter over his national insurance scheme. Something Starmer can undoubtedly look forward to when he does the next round of these four/five years down the line.
Going back to what both men were trying to achieve with this, I think both will be pretty pleased. Sunak got his attack lines out and was able to peddle his fear-mongering. He wasn't skewered on the Tories' record, thanks both to the format and his relentless conjuring of the anti-Labour terrors. Starmer wasn't ruffled either. He wasn't provoked, and when Sunak hit below the belt rather than booting back Starmer quickly tried to refute his nonsense. In all then, a score draw. But Sunak needed to smash it and have Starmer deflate like a souffle, not making any headway here means certain catastrophic defeat on 4th July.
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7 comments:
Starmer didn't need to bring much to the table beyond his memorised content of the pledge card
What, all ten? Impressive.
You've got people laughing at 'national insurance', btw (which would be a first).
«for the Labour leader, this is his election to lose. And that has been the case since Liz Truss entered Number 10»
Reader health warning: this is going to be about property. Skip if you believe voters vote mostly on individual values and ideas and not mostly shared class interests.
That "since Liz Truss entered Number 10" is I hope just a time marker, because it was not her who caused the disaffection of tory voters for the Conservatives: she was quite popular with Conservative association members, who are to the right of many tory voters, but fairly representative. My usual graph:
https://blissex.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dataukhousingprices2020-2024.png
shows that house prices in the UK stalled pretty much since some months (June 2022) before she became PM, most likely because they had vastly outpaced the usual "doubling in 7-10" years rate of the previous 4 decades. Were her policies that caused inflation and higher interest rates? Well the same happened in the USA and other countries, so at most they made the issue a bit worse.
A previous commenters wrote that "The decay of public services affects homeowners too, and especially those over 60. Private care is costly and soon erodes any sense of affluence and comfort once the bills start to pile up" but that is unrealistic, out of touch with real "Middle England" situations:
* A bottom priced hovel bought for just £300,000 doubles in "lucky ducky" tory areas in 7-10 years, for a £300,000 gross profit (plus rent avoided, minus interest etc. costs).
* That £300,000 initial price on 5-6 times earnings can be bought by a bottom-of-"Middle England" family with household earnings of £60,000.
* The £300,000 over 7-10 years means £30,000 to £45,000 of redistribution from the lower classes every year, usually tax-free and entirely work-free.
* That approximately doubles (or more) the after-tax income of the owner.
Going without that fantastic amount of profit for 2 years now has made tory voters outraged with the Conservatives, they could hardly care less that for the 2 years before that they got much bigger profits than usual redistributed from the lower class.
That redistribution in their favour of £30,000 to £45,000 per year, usually tax-free and entirely work-free, is far more important to them than details like the longer queues at the NHS and meaner public service, never mind meaner welfare, which is worth much, much less than £30,000 to £45,000 per year to them. They might grumble about the NHS, public services, and inflation, but they could well afford to ignore them if they got their usual huge chunk of upwards redistribution, which however has not been forthcoming for 2 years; except for landlords as rents have been booming, but only a minority, even if significant of tory voters, have been enjoying much improved living standards thanks to a gusher of redistribution from "suckers", I mean tenants.
Sorry Blissex, but your very regularly stated claim that the British voter is simply a personal house price monomaniac when deciding which party to back simply doesn't stand up to even cursory real world UK elections scrutiny.
In 2017 the Corbyn led Labour party , on a relatively radical, very broad LEFT offer Manifesto , won Labour its biggest vote share increase since the 1945 election. Whereas in 2019, after two years of an all mass media vilification campaign , and endless sabotage by the PLP Labour majority, against Corbyn personally, Labour got its worst election result since about 1932. This wasn't about house prices at all !
The SNP in Scotland displaced Labour as the leading electoral party in 2015 onwards through outflanking Labour to its Left, but mainly via its crude nationalist 'independence' ideology and offer - not about housing as a priority issue.
And TODAY and in the past Muslim voters have chosen George Galloway re his line on GAZA, not housing at all , three times now ! And masses of Muslim voters look likely to turn their backs on Labour across many constituencies to vote for pro Palestinian independents this election too.
Your mono reason housing model of voting intention just doesn't work as a main driver across all localities and eras, Blissex.
«Sorry Blissex, but your very regularly stated claim that the British voter is simply a personal house price monomaniac»
This is a simple hallucination.
@Blissex. In your example, how does the "bottom of Middle England" family realise this £300,000 windfall as actual income? Other than moving to an area with much lower house prices.
Re-mortgaging? In that case they would be loaded with a £300k debt that would still have to paid off over many years, plus the remaining debt from the original £300k house purchase.
«how does the "bottom of Middle England" family realise this £300,000 windfall as actual income?»
I get this kind of argument *a lot*, and I often consider it done in bad faith or to be sheer buffoonery, because it amounts to the following claim: that someone who does not buy a 300k house that then grows in price to 600k and pays rent is in the exact same financial position as someone who can buy it and gets the 300k profit and does not pay rent. That both have exactly the same options and spending power in life, and proprietor is not 300k better off.
«Other than moving to an area»
Ever heard of people in their 50s cashing in their £1m-2m property bought for £100,000 20 years earlier and retiring to a mansion in France and living in comfortable affluence? Someone who bought a property in much of the north, or who could not afford or risk to buy one on 5 times wages or 10 times savings, cannot do that.
«with much lower house prices. Re-mortgaging?»
Both of those and inheritance.
«In that case they would be loaded with a £300k debt that would still have to paid off over many years, plus the remaining debt from the original £300k house purchase»
So they spent 300k from re-mortgaging, and on sale they get 600k, and they can pay both debts. I think that it might take considerable bad faith to imply that having a 600k asset means that one cannot pay off two 300k debts. A remortgage is in effect the sale of (a slice) of the property without moving out -- best of both worlds.
Again, if someone has 300k in savings and does not get a 300k windfall redistributed from the lower classes in 7-10 years by buying a property that someone is not in the same financial position as someone who buys the property and enjoys that 300k upwards redistribution arranged by Thatcher, Blair and their successors.
And usually it is not just 300k in 7-10 years; a lot of people bought 20-30 years ago at a much lower prices than 300k, or bigger properties than a tiny 300k flat, and have enjoyed much bigger profits redistributed to them from the lower classes.
My usual quote from a commenter on “The Guardian” who wrote in in 2018: «I inherited two properties in 1995 [...] and the value has gone from £95,000 to £1,100,000», that's £43,000 every year on average for 23 years.
My usual example of a 79-year-old retired carpenter in Cornwall, from an article on "The Guardian" in 2022:
«who bought his council house in Devon in the early 80s for £17,000. When it was valued at £80,000 in 1989, he sold up and used the equity to put towards a £135,000 fisherman’s cottage in St Mawes. Now it’s valued at £1.1m. “I was very grateful to Margaret Thatcher,” he said.» That's around 10,000 a year profit redistributed to him in the early 1980s, and that became an average redistribution of £26,000 on average £31,000 between from 1989 to 2022. Very grateful indeed.
Can someone argue in good faith that in both cases the proprietors are in exactly the same financial situation as someone who did not get redistributed a cool £1,000,000 from the lower classes by Thatcher, Blair and successors, because of course neither proprietor can realize their profits? :-).
Oh Good God Bliss, give it a rest! This is exactly why arguments on the internet are a waste of time. You are convinced you are right and nothing anyone ever says will change your mind. Meanwhile, everyone else thinks that while there may be a kernel of truth in your theory, it cannot, does not and will not ever amount to a theory of everything which always and everywhere explains how people vote and negates all other areas of policy.
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