Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer have faced off in the first TV debate of the general election, with heated exchanges over tax, the NHS and immigration. The Conservative and Labour leaders got scrappy at times, forcing the host of the ITV event to intervene and urge the pair to “lower your voices”. Mr Sunak said Labour wanted to increase tax by £2,000 – a claim Mr Starmer dismissed as “absolute garbage”.
Both leaders used the opportunity to set out their personal stories to voters, talking about how their childhood experiences had shaped their political views. For many analysts, Mr Sunak needed a big performance after a rocky week which had seen abysmal polling for his party and the return of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to frontline politics. He came in bullish from the start, haranguing Mr Starmer on tax policy and frequently talking over his opponent and the chair, Julie Etchingham.
Debate topics were queued up by questions from the audience, the first coming from Paula from Huddersfield.
She was struggling with energy and food bills, she said, and had used up all her savings – a situation the charity Citizens Advice says they are dealing with 6,000 queries on every day. Mr Sunak insisted his plan to grow the economy was starting to work and said Labour would pay for its spending plans with “£2,000 in higher taxes for every working family in our country”. Labour will raise your taxes – it’s in their DNA. Your work, your car, your pension – Labour will tax it,” Sunak said. Throughout the debate he repeated the £2,000 figure.
Conservatives have come up with the number based on how much they say Labour’s spending commitments would cost, dividing this by the number of UK households with at least one person working. While Mr Sunak suggested the costings had been worked out by impartial civil servants, they are based on assumptions made by politically appointed special advisers. One of the most substantive policy points of the evening came with Rishi Sunak appearing to suggest he would be willing to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the Rwanda policy did not work.
Mr Sunak said he believed the UK’s plans were” compliant with our international obligations” but he added: “If I am forced to choose between securing our borders and our country’s security or a foreign court I’m going to choose our country’s security every single time. Pushing back on this, the Labour leader said the UK would “not pull out of international agreements and international law which is respected the world over”.
He said he wanted the UK to be a “respected player on the world stage, not a pariah.
Source: BBC
In other news – Buckingham Palace makes big announcement after Kate Middleton’s emotional statement
Buckingham Palace has made a major announcement regarding King Charles and Queen Camilla a day after Prince William and Kate Middleton issued an emotional statement. The palace confirmed that the Emperor and Empress of Japan will pay a state visit to the U.K. from June 25 to June 27.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will be the guests of King Charles, during the state visit to London, hosted by the monarch and his wife Camilla. Read more
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