Oh Dear....

[Bentley Bullet]

Starmer's getting destroyed.....

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Sunak too shouty but Starmer doesn't have any answers so far. It's relegation battle stuff.

[Filo]

Stopped watching it, the chairperson lets Sunak interrupt at will and talk over her and shuts Starmer down sharpish, well out of her depth

[normal rules]

Starmer refuses to ask question about pensioners state pension being taxed under him for the first time in this countries history.

[Superspy]

Let's be fair, this is playing out almost exactly how we might expect.
Starmer not answering about pension tax...Sunak not answering about where ANY of the money is going to come from (unless I missed something?) and just used all his time on a labour attack instead.
Basically neither of them confirming anything that can be construed as negative, Starmer talking about the last 14 years, Sunak trying to deflect from it and attack labour instead.
It's the usual game of not trying to win any votes, but trying to make the other guy lose them (usually by talking over them).

[MachoMadness]

This format is dogshit. How can anyone benefit from this? It's just 30 seconds bursts of shouting. Starmer is so slow and never gets to an answer and Sunak comes across as a whiny brat.

Reminds me of that 0-0 draw with Fleetwood at the Keepmoat about 10 years back.

[Bentley Bullet]

If it were a boxing match the ref would have stopped it. I almost feel sorry for Keir Starmer.

[BillyStubbsTears]

This format is dogshit. How can anyone benefit from this? It's just 30 seconds bursts of shouting. Starmer is so slow and never gets to an answer and Sunak comes across as a whiny brat.

Reminds me of that 0-0 draw with Fleetwood at the Keepmoat about 10 years back.

Absolute worst form of television coverage of politics.

It's the result of the past 30 years of the media seeing politics as entertainment and their job being to try to force the politicians into mistakes.

No intention whatsoever to inform and educate the public on what the policy stances are.

[Superspy]

This format is dogshit. How can anyone benefit from this? It's just 30 seconds bursts of shouting. Starmer is so slow and never gets to an answer and Sunak comes across as a whiny brat.

Reminds me of that 0-0 draw with Fleetwood at the Keepmoat about 10 years back.

Absolute worst form of television coverage of politics.

It's the result of the past 30 years of the media seeing politics as entertainment and their job being to try to force the politicians into mistakes.

No intention whatsoever to inform and educate the public on what the policy stances are.

It's not surprising that the best parts of this have been when they at least try to directly answer a question instead of throwing shade at each other.

[normal rules]

Starmers govt is going to break the criminal smuggling gangs? Because he prosecuted some criminal cases?
He is going to say he will stop drug supply into the uk next.
The bloke is deluded and the voting public will see straight through him.

[Sprotyrover]

 :thumbdown:That hit a raw nerve, Starmer didn’t say a word about Pensioners being taxed ! You know what that means!

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Starmer was much better on the attack of the Tories record that really suited him.  Sunak didn't really have positive ideas I thought though despite his points on labour weakness landing well.

I doubt it's gonna change people's minds, labour a bit of work to do to avoid the no plan, high tax narrative.

I watched it and felt no optimism from either person, quite frustrating.

[SydneyRover]

As a tit for tat comment one could say that criminal smuggling gangs and drugs have been a problem for 14+ without being solved nr

[ChrisBx]

Anyone who claims there was a clear winner on either side is exposing themselves as dishonest.

The format and the host were both shocking.

[Sprotyrover]

Labour no plan high taxes including taxing the State Pension! Chuffing Spiders!

[MachoMadness]

Anyone who claims there was a clear winner on either side is exposing themselves as dishonest.

The format and the host were both shocking.

Exactly this. Reading a recap of it now and realising I'd missed half of the comments that were made because both of them and the host spent all night talking over one another.

[Branton Red]

Got to say Sunak won that hands down.

This format suits him - in a way speech making doesn't. He was confident, on top of his brief and had strong attack lines against his opponent.

Unfortunately in comparison Starmer seemed flustered, at times smug and whiny (for want of a better word).

A lack of eye-catching policy (whether right or wrong) didn't help Starmer in this '45 seconds to speak' contest either.

A format designed for soundbites that suits headline-making policies and garners headlines rather than an intelligent, in-depth analysis and challenge of policy - which the public are clearly thought too stupid/have too short an attention span for.

[wilts rover]

Starmer refuses to ask question about pensioners state pension being taxed under him for the first time in this countries history.

The state pension is already taxed, if you have money from another income, because Sunak didn't raise tax thresholds.

[SydneyRover]

YouGov snap poll suggests Sunak 'won' debate, beating Stamer 51% to 49%
YouGov has released the results of a snap poll of people watching the debate. It suggests that Sunak won by a tiny margin

[wilts rover]

That was appalling. A rude over-entitled public schoolboy who thinks it's OK to shout over people v somebody who hasn't got anything to say.

Thank goodness there are only going to be two of these debates.

[Sprotyrover]

Labour are seemingly relying on 1) Taxing Nom Doms (good luck)
2) Taxing the state Pension!
3) Taxing Private Education ( throwing thousands of Kids into the overcrowded state system)
They seem to think Parents who scrimp and save to get their kids a Private education need to be punished!
4) Cancelling the Rwanda deportation scheme and chucking more money at the French will make it all go away!

[Branton Red]

YouGov snap poll suggests Sunak 'won' debate, beating Stamer 51% to 49%
YouGov has released the results of a snap poll of people watching the debate. It suggests that Sunak won by a tiny margin

Given the GE polls and the strong anti-Tory feelings amongst a majority of the public this would suggest to me that Sunak performed considerably the better of the two - which is how I saw it.

[wilts rover]

Labour are seemingly relying on 1) Taxing Nom Doms (good luck)
2) Taxing the state Pension!
3) Taxing Private Education ( throwing thousands of Kids into the overcrowded state system)
They seem to think Parents who scrimp and save to get their kids a Private education need to be punished!
4) Cancelling the Rwanda deportation scheme and chucking more money at the French will make it all go away!

Labour are not going to tax the state pension.

State schools are closing due to falling pupil numbers

Are you saying parents whose children go to state schools dont work hard? Or are bad parents.

[River Don]

They won't throw thousands into state education. That is a massive exaggeration.

Apart from anything else a huge proportion of private sector school children come from abroad and they aren't going to be finding places in UK state schools.

[SydneyRover]

Labour are seemingly relying on 1) Taxing Nom Doms (good luck)

Sunak said the tories will do the same

2) Taxing the state Pension!

Proof required


3) Taxing Private Education ( throwing thousands of Kids into the overcrowded state system)

They seem to think Parents who scrimp and save to get their kids a Private education need to be punished!


Why should private education be VAT free?

4) Cancelling the Rwanda deportation scheme and chucking more money at the French will make it all go away!

The Rwanda scheme is not working is it and is wasting precious public money.

[Sprotyrover]

Starmer refuses to ask question about pensioners state pension being taxed under him for the first time in this countries history.

The state pension is already taxed, if you have money from another income, because Sunak didn't raise tax thresholds.

That’s right Wilts and I won’t be drawing mine as I am still working and you get 1.5% increase for every 3 months you don’t draw it! But this seems to be the message Labour will tax the state Pension so Oap’s who have it as their only source of income are in the Pooh! Why didn’t Starmer state otherwise? They clearly intend taxing the f#ck out of the Pensioners!

[Boycie]

Yeh people who send their kids to £48,000 a year private schools are really scrimping and scraping.

[Sprotyrover]

Stopped watching it, the chairperson lets Sunak interrupt at will and talk over her and shuts Starmer down sharpish, well out of her depth

Bury your head in the sand and get a sore Gee gee!

[drfchound]

Starmer refuses to ask question about pensioners state pension being taxed under him for the first time in this countries history.

The state pension is already taxed, if you have money from another income, because Sunak didn't raise tax thresholds.

The state pension was already being taxed 1997 to 2010 if people had enough income from other sources.

[SydneyRover]

Anyone who claims there was a clear winner on either side is exposing themselves as dishonest.

The format and the host were both shocking.

As borne out by the snap poll