Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer met for the last time in a televised election debate this Wednesday, and both decided from the first minute that their strategy involved questioning the integrity and leadership of their rival. Labor and tories have been marred by the polling scandal, with candidates trying to profit by betting on the election date, although Starmer, the leader of the opposition, has tried to make clear in his first speech that the difference in the response had been notable: “As soon as I heard about our candidate, I ordered his suspension. The Prime Minister delayed and delayed in giving a response. And besides, it is not the first time. The partygate [el escándalo de las fiestas prohibidas en Downing Street durante el confinamiento] elicited the same kind of elusive response. “There are 14 years of conservative governments without the slightest integrity,” Starmer attacked.
“I consider myself a person with leadership, who makes the decisions he must make and is consistent. “My rival has not stopped changing his mind at any time,” responded Prime Minister Sunak, who always reminds Labor of his past efforts to achieve a second referendum on Brexit.
The BBC debate, held in Nottingham, was the last opportunity for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to modify polls that have remained unchanged throughout the campaign. The British seem determined to turn the page, after 14 years of governments tories. Labor leader Keir Starmer’s lead has remained above twenty percentage points in all polls.
Sunak has repeatedly threatened that a Labor government will inevitably raise taxes and allow irregular migrants to easily cross the UK’s borders. Starmer tried again and again to make it clear that the prime minister’s statements were a lie, in the face of a conservative candidate with the slogans finally well learned, and that he would not remain silent.
The emergence of the populist Nigel Farage, who finally decided to enter the electoral competition as a candidate for the party he helped found, Reform UK, has crushed Sunak’s expectations. Some sociological companies give even a higher percentage of support to extreme right-wing formations than to the tories. In the British majority electoral system, which only awards seats to the party with the most votes in each constituency, Farage’s formation could cause damage of historic proportions to the Conservatives.
Its candidate, Sunak, who tried to present himself from the beginning as the only contender capable of offering economic stability and security to the United Kingdom during the current uncertainty, has demonstrated throughout these weeks a notable strategic clumsiness, which has been accompanied by considerable dose of bad luck.
Join Morning Express to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
From the announcement of the electoral advance, at the doors of Downing Street, in which he ended up soaked in an untimely rain before even concluding his speech, to the clumsiness of abandoning the celebrations in France of the Normandy landings in mid-air to attend an interview electoral, the prime minister has demonstrated during the campaign a lack of political skill that has been taken advantage of by his rivals.
The betting scandal, which for many critics of the Conservatives was definitive proof of the party’s lack of morality and ethics, was the last straw: the only moment of the campaign in which Sunak showed irritation that he until then he had not shown off. He promised the full weight of the law, and expulsion from the party, for deputies and conservatism staff who had tried to profit from bets on the election date, using privileged information. There are at least five investigated.
The tax battle
In the first of the only two television debates that have pitted the two main candidates, Sunak and Starmer, against each other, the prime minister achieved a coup that encouraged the conservative camp. Based on calculations and analysis from the Treasury Department commissioned by the Government itself on the cost of the electoral measures proposed by the Labor Party, Sunak announced on the ITV network that his rival was going to tax an extra 2,000 pounds (about 2,360 euros) each British home. The Labor candidate, confused, was unable to give a forceful response to the accusation, and limited himself to muttering that it was nonsense. The main opposition party dedicated all its efforts in the following days to explaining to the media that the figure used by Sunak was false. And the Treasury officials themselves were not responsible for the calculations used by the candidate Tory.
Sunak has repeated his successful strategy in the second debate, including again the £2,000 charge.
Left out of both debates was an in-depth discussion of the consequences of Brexit, the great absentee in a campaign in which none of the candidates wanted to revive the issue. Sunak, because he has played all this time at selling the idea that leaving the EU has already begun to provide advantages to the United Kingdom – which the Prime Minister is unable to specify. Starmer, because he still fears that the slightest suggestion of a greater alignment of London with Brussels will scare away all those voters with a historical Labour tradition who in 2019 turned their backs on the party and offered Boris Johnson their electoral support.
It had to be the citizens who participated in the two debates, and posed direct questions to both candidates, who put the issue of Brexit on the table. And it has become clear that it is a hot potato for both candidates: the furthest Starmer has dared to go this Wednesday is to promise that he will try to improve trade relations with the EU, but without specifying what he is willing to offer in exchange.
Follow all the international information on Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.
.
.
_
