Sunak Vs Starmer: The Argument in the Parliament.
I didn’t see any pinned or stickied posts so here’s one for the shit posting political discussion.
The ‘45 seconds to respond’ format was a mistake. Fewer topics with longer responses might actually have been interesting, but this stifled all opportunity for any thought to be expressed in anything more than trivial detail.
It’s the Twitter effect. Kids these days can’t hold their attention for longer than 45 seconds.
shakes fist at clouds
Strong agree
The format excluded any proper discussion and left space only for the pre-rehearsed soundbites we all expect anyway. Combined with the ineffective moderation and the whole thing was a tedious watch, shambles over substance.
ITV took 70 minutes of my life and I want them back.
Sunak actually getting a clap from the audience after saying he won’t bow to Junior Doctor Union demands of a 35% pay increase.
I’m actually surprised at that!
Docs have made a strategic mistake for striking in the middle of election when negotiations are impossible.
or they’ve made a great decision to embarrass this government just before an election and help to oust them
Except they’re not going to get anything from Labour either.
There is no government at the moment, parliament isn’t sitting, there isn’t a health minister, there is no one for the docs to negotiate with. All this does is further increase the backlog for operations which is not something that typically endears you to the public.
Wait, how much of the cabinet currently exists?
All of the government is still in place.
Ministers are not supposed to start new projects or make long term decisions during purdah if possible.
Most people understand that 35% is completely unreasonable, so I’m not surprised that the audience approve.
Doctors do become very well paid later in their careers as consultants so there is probably limited amount of sympathy for the rough years as junior doctors where they are significantly underpaid.
That’s true, however people can be junior doctors for a surprisingly long time so you can see why they are pissed off! I assumed it was the first 3 years after graduation or something until one of my friends who is a doctor explained it to me.
Junior doctors are qualified doctors in clinical training.
They have completed a medical degree and can have up to nine years’ of working experience as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to five years working and gaining experience to become a general practitioner (GP).
Question two: Be honest about the NHS and what it’s going to take to fix it.
Both candidates:
Only one winner tonight
Orange man: bad
Orange Britain: 👌
Starmer hits a clanger on Sunak.
Starmer: Explain how the waiting figures are coming down, they were 7.2 million and now they’re 7.5 million and he’s supposed to be good at maths!
Sunak: B…B…But they came down from a higher figure before?
I’d guess the discrepancy is waiting times being different from the total number of people waiting. Both of those stats could feasibly be true if demand is growing all of the time.
There’s hardly enough time for questions here, terrible debate
Agreed. TV debates are more a test to the public of whether you sweat too much under studio lights these days.
That’s it! Thanks for playing. My summary:
Yes, but your commentary was more entertaining than the event itself!
I thought Starmer started off well but he’s getting some push back from Rishi that he needs to tackle otherwise he’s going to get swamped by Rishi’s combative style. Round One pretty indecisive. 😕
Moderator sounding like a stressed out supply teacher
GB Energy seems like a genuinely interesting idea from Labour. Say more on this old man! 😜
Something like the third time Starmer has told us his dad was a tool maker.
🎶 My old man’s a tool maker he wears a tool man’s hat…
Second audience clap of the night is for Starmer’s private school tax policy. 👏
Okay, I’m now done watching too. I dunno if this is because I’m biased, but while neither performance was fantastic, Starmer overall came across better than Sunak. By the incredibly low standards set by politicians, Starmer seemed more honest, and I definitely noted him being irritated with some of Sunak’s more blatant lies. Sunak came across as a smug public school boy who always feels like he has to be right. I was particularly not impressed with Sunak making out that Labour would require people to replace boilers and cars “when they don’t need to”, when it’s bloody obvious that the plan would be to replace them with more climate-friendly options when existing stock wears out. I wish Starmer had been more deft in challenging him on that kind of bullshit.
Starmer’s experience as a lawyer helped him here, I think. He’s used to debating, although clearly he’s more used to a courtroom where he can speak at length to make his point. He’s not good at succinct so the 45 second time limit didn’t give him a chance to do his best debating. Sunak treated it more as an argument where it was more important to win than to put across a serious and thoughtful point.
Overall, I’m not a huge fan of Starmer, but I’m still happy to say I would rather have him as prime minister than Sunak.
Thank you everyone for your comments. I wasn’t going to watch and you’ve summarised nicely.
In a post-Trump, post-Brexit, post-Johnson world, I thought journalists had gotten better at calling out direct lies. Yet the moderator allowed Sunak repeatedly to lie about Labour’s tax plans and to lie that the Treasury backed those figures. Just outrageous.
To be fair, so did Starmer.
I agree the moderator had a hard time getting anything of basic value from either candidate. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say she encouraged Sunak’s lies. She just wanted to get it over with.
