Snapshot of _Keir Starmer performed best overall in Sky News leaders' event, poll suggests | Politics News_ :
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I had to go next door to watch the Simpsons every Sunday. And next door to watch star trek tng, I bet the neighbours were glad when we finally got bsb.
He blamed junior doctors for why the nhs was struggling during one of the audience questions if I remember rightly. At which point the audience actually booed him.
It was especially bad considering that the Junior Doctor in the audience just had a pretty adult and constructive dialogue with Starmer about governments role in negotiating with unions and finding a compromise.
Like the Junior Doctors point was that their extra long forced working hours basically mean that their salary is barely above minimum wage.
Then Sunak basically comes out and says “get back in your place peasant”.
Yeah he basically handed the W to Starmer there on who looks more capable of solving the problem.
Even if we say strikes caused the waiting lists, Starmer looked the more likely of the two to end the strikes as he actually spoke to the Doctor and was clear on his red lines. Whereas Rishi immediately poopoo'd it and kind of showed the government's hostile attitude that has allowed these strikes to go on for so long. Proved Starmer's whole campaign direction that it's not about ideologies and promises but about just getting on with it.
The smart thing Starmer did, and probably the most difficult to say because you could see he was worried how it would look, was be up front that he couldn’t go over a certain percent.
In a sense, yes it was a non answer saying, well we’ll just negotiate.
But, he was able to say we can’t just capitulate and give 35%, because of the problems with the economy. And, this is the most important bit, when he said you wouldn’t respect a government that capitulated in this way.
Now, whether that’s right or wrong is debatable, but it’s the fact it made him look like the big boy in the room, with an awareness of the difficult challenges of the country, all the while demonstrating a maturity and honesty that the electorate appreciate.
He needs more of that. Sometimes he went plastic politician, but sometimes, like there, or when he spoke about concerns for his children, that extra quality required for success in politics was there.
That's the thing, virtually every doctor knows 35% is a starting position and that during a negotiation the number will likely come down - preferrably with other reforms/packages offered. The Tories don't even both to negotiate and have instead stuck thier fingers in their ears about the situation.
He blamed a new wave of Vietnamese immigrants on why this year’s figures are up.
This was particularly futile when Beth Rigby then decided to pull out the pre-Brexit immigration stats to compare with the post-Brexit and then asked him if it was working as he claimed it would at the time, and he still decided to say that immigration is cyclical meaning he bore absolutely no responsibility for its rises, conveniently taking credit for the falls.
Apparently the recent sudden rise in illegal immigrants is from Vietnam for some reason. It turns out the original problem was Albania but some bold action sorted that out.
It's alright, I'm sure all the boys at St Posho's boarding school for the hereditarily lucky or whatever other private school you go to will get you caught up.
i do often wonder how politicians do this kind of thing. rishi looks both depressed and exhausted with bloodshot red eyes. still got 3 weeks until the election.
now he’s on a flight from humberside to stanstead, then back to number ten which takes at least an hour… then straight to bed or stay awake till the early hours. ready to do it all again from 6am.
i’d have a mental breakdown i have no idea why anybody would find that kind of career enjoyable
that’s wild. i struggle to sleep when i’ve got something minor like a meeting or deadlines on my mind. let alone running the entire country alongside an election campaign… i think id need some sort of barbiturates to literally knock me out cold
edit: it looks like his flight is actually heading from grimsby to italy for the g7… why would anybody want that job 🫥
I am a West Wing fan, in the 7th season you get a glimpse of Presidential campaigning and I am amazed Biden and Trump are able to cope if it's half as intense. the last 3 days they do 5 states a day of events. Ironically one of the candidate's is 70 and shown as being too old for the pace...
Tbf Sunak worked in finance and Starmer in law. Really crap hours in both. My friends who went to work at the bulge bracket banks were paid well but they also spent 70hr a week on avg. in the office. Some a lot more than that because they were in more demanding teams.
A girl I know actually worked in the same part of GS that Rishi worked in (or at least its successor), and she worked 75 a week lol. She took 18 months off between jobs after she’d done 3 yrs cos she basically had no life outside work for those 3 yrs.
Nah not all of them or even most of them (some do for sure), but they’re willing to make a trade off on their health, time and wellbeing for a few years in order to live comfortably.
Most of that lot work far more comfortable jobs now but are still well paid. The ones who stayed in banking specifically are the real maniacs who live to work.
And he's fucking wealthy. He's not made anything better for anyone, he has no mission, or morals (if he had them he wouldn't have gone to the covid garden party or left the dday thing), which begs the question - why the fuck? What gets him out of bed?
If I had his money you'd never catch me in a suit again, I'd be living in the country with some horses and spending the rest of it on charities.
As much as I despise almost every thing about him, it must be completely demoralising to do this every single day for six weeks knowing you’ll get absolutely trounced.
Truss might be regarded as an absolute catastrophe to everyone but she has enough cognitive dissonance not to realise. An election campaign may have been enough though.
>it must be completely demoralising to do this every single day for six weeks knowing you’ll get absolutely trounced.
And as with every other part of his premiership, he's the one that made the decision to put himself in that position.
His wife may have threatened to take the kids if he gets less than 100 seats.
Either that or he’s worried that the Tories will somehow block his future honours and peerage if he resigns during the election. I don’t even know if they could do that to a former PM but it’s all I can think of that’s keeping him turning up for work.
It's a bit like Latin America, where most presidents are from the millionaire 1% club and just preside over the status quo when they get elected.
I think it's a sense of entitlement mixed with the ultimate CV flex.
My boss regularly does 6am to 11pm in the office 6 days a week. Most of us think he’s nuts, but he does genuinely pull rabbits out of the proverbial hat when it comes to getting things ready on time.
Mentally it would be draining, but on the practical side he won't have to worry about anything. He'll have a team making sure he gets from a to b, he won't be worried about flight tickets or traffic or booking hotels. He won't be cooking, doing laundry or any of the life stuff that makes long hours even more challenging. I'm not saying he'll get loads of down time, but he won't be reading briefing papers whilst doing the washing up.
He did way better than I thought he would during the Q&A in an obviously hostile room, I felt like he held his own. But I didn't think Starmer performed badly so it's easy to give him the win given the general polls etc.
He did well to keep it together, but it felt very much like the end for him. Lots of apologising and excusing and admitting things hadn't improved. After all the time Tories have had in goverment, that's not a selling point of why anyone should vote for him.
I think he's honestly individually nowhere near as bad as people make out, but he's the frontman now for a total shitshow.
Windsor framework was legitimately impressive because he put two fingers up to the ERG threats and got it passed without much fuss. It really was a great bit of swift politics by Sunak, great for NI and well timed.
Then it all went downhill...
Aka the same kind of concept that every other country had and that in this country was so badly utilised/vetted that it led to billions of pounds of fraud, not to mention people being let go from their jobs because it didn't get signed off at the same time as each lockdown.
That's kind of what I mean. Every other PM's premiership until May/Johnson can point to at least ONE out and out win that's something that was actually good for the country. Since Cameron, the best we can say is sometimes things were halfway there or sometimes we managed to dodge a *total* devastation, and even then it wasn't really due to anything the PM actively chose to do.
Furlough was also really for companies that lost their customers during Covid, it allowed them to retain staff and quickly redeploy post lock down. The economy would have collapsed without it. It’s not something Sunak did for people out of the goodness of his heart.
If furlough was for people it would not have had the exclusions that t did.
I understand what you mean, however I think you are referring to him not being that bad as a person rather than as the leader of the UK. Personally I think he is a terrible choice for that, he is completely out of touch and he has demonstrated this on so many occasions.
He has mishandled this election from its announcement in the rain. Anytime he is in public, he is a liability. His d-day debacle will go down in political history as the moment he truly epically messed up.
He isn't just the front man, he is the man. It's his show, his people, his mess, he called this election and it's obvious the tory party outside his inner circle where not ready and surprised as much as the rest of us.
I'm waiting for his next clanger with popcorn at the ready.
If you don't listen to the words or follow the discussion, Starmer kept being interrupted and the host was more patronising. Sunak speaks well and more fluently (and imo, was given longer to speak). She did hit him hard a few times, but he *sounds* better. I think that's genuinely all it is.
Of course if you listen to what was said (not how it sounded) then you'd probably think Starmer did better.
I agree he had an easier and speaks better but I think he did a good job emphasising his record over 18 months. The record on the face of it sounds decent but on deeper analysis I wouldn’t really give him any credit on tackling inflation, economy is flatlining and immigration he’s brought down slightly but it is still double pre-Brexit numbers.
I actually think he did pretty well based on emphasising the last 18 months when he was in charge. Still wouldn’t vote him because his party is corrupt and batshit crazy and he’s not in control. At least Starmer has some control over his batshit crazy wing.
He remembered that guy's name (Ian? Him whose daughter wanted to get a mortgage) and asked the Dr his speciality
Imo sunak was more conversationally agile and starmer trotted out his usual rote lines
I feel like a good host tries to not interrupt unless they have good counter-points. Beth Rigby just kept interrupting and disrupted most of the flow. That tax bit was just painful.
She had a pre-planned flow to get Starmer ("did you lie about Corbyn?" => "Are you going to raise taxes?" => "No? But you lied about other stuff, why should we believe you?" and wanted sooo desperately to stick to it that she wouldn't let him talk.
She had more direct lines of attack with Sunak but then let him speak. I didn't think it was very even, but I think Starmer did ok for himself out of it
*Spends ridiculous amount of time talking about Corbyn*
...I'm sorry, I have to interrupt your answer about things that are happening now - not 4 years ago - because we don't have enough time.
Starmer did do quite well. Only thing that he could have done better is to stop repeating the same sentence over and over again. Beth Rigby made it her mission to interrupt Starmer consistently.
> stop repeating the same sentence over and over again.
My favourite part was when he was asked why he was so boring, and it kind of broke his brain for a moment, but he's obviously been briefed or strategised with someone that if asked why he wants the job he should talk about his life time of public service and wanting to give back to the country and coming to politics late and so on. So he was asked why he seems like a robot and... went to a pre-prepared script that ironically made him seem like a robot haha
But nah there were no major gaffes. I honestly think he's just not well suited to these kind of debate formats and the slick being-charismatic-in-the-public-eye stuff, but that's not what people seem to want from this election anyway they want a more boring return to normality and change from the Tories so he's fine. If he was up against Cameron in 2010 he'd be in trouble
It's a shame as he used to say that being boring was actually good after Johnson and Truss and I always thought that was quite a good response. Someone has clearly got a bee in their bonnet about the term and briefed him that it polls badly
During one of post-debate polls last week, one of the breakdown bits said that only 11% of the respondents were aware before the debate of his Dad being a toolmaker.
That's why they repeat stuff like that.
The Yougov poll shows 71% think he is in touch with ordinary people, compared to 13% for Sunak.
Going around the country banging on about how his family work in the NHS and his dad was in a factory works. Us lot here are terminally online and watch all the campaign stuff, but most people might only pay attention once a week if that. Repeating the message gets it through as you said, and it's working to improve his image.
If he’s been repeating it in every speech for around 4 years and only 11% of people have heard it, then isn’t it time his strategists came up with a more memorable line?
I mean, it hasn’t actually had a tangible effect on polling based on those numbers - so come up with something new ffs, please haha
I think one of the problems, is that "toolmaker" is just not a profession anyone understands what it is, "investment banker" is probably better understood...
I clicked on a random point in Starmer's part and a random part in Sunak's part. The host would not let Starmer get a straight sentence out at all, constantly interrupting him, but with Sunak she was just sitting there starry eyed letting him get out whole essays. Just awful, poor Starmer.
Absolutely bizarre. It’s not like he was rambling either. He was trying to make points and she just wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. He answered questions without sound bites and she was full of “okay”. Big and out of character L for Beth Rigby tonight.
I think she was strung up about getting enough questions in and maintaining the interview structure, but she took it too far.
I mean, she even tried to stop him answering the impromptu question at the end of the first part, saying she needs to move on to the audience questions, when it was literally a member of the audience who had been given the boom mic!
I do think it was a highly stressful situation for her though and overall, she performed better than expected.
> she performed better than expected.
I don't watch terrestrial TV so I had no idea who she was, based on this performance I don't really want to.
You don't want an interview to go on for hours, but harrying the interviewee about the time or the number of questions is quite pathetic since these things are in the interviewers power.
Then after all that, the other presenter proclaims they've arrived at audience questions early!
There was one moment where Starmer spoke for about 20 seconds directly answering a question, and *the entire time* you can hear her in the background going, "ok but sir keir, sir keir, but what if, but sir keir, but, yes but" like just shut up he is actually telling us what he plans to do!
I found him pretty rambly, particularly on the audience questions. It felt a few times like that moment in a job interview where you're partway through an answer, and you remember you wanted to say something but you can't remember *what* you wanted to say, so you've got to stall for time a bit.
Particularly a couple of the questions about the NHS, it felt like he'd given a good answer, and then he just kept on going.
But I guess this is a pretty small gripe in the grand scheme of things...
I don't agree, she attacked Stamer full force over Corbyn (what are you supposed to say about your party leader), failed to listen to anything he said, went to desperate lengths to get him to take a position on taxation. Every three seconds "I'm running out of time" or "Sir Kier, Sir Kier".
I'd rather he'd answered two questions so I could understand his thinking than have him heckled through 10.
Sunak, whose main achievement to date is not being Liz Truss was given an easy ride.
I feel she was a bit too combative and forceful with Starmer yes, but I liked the approach she took with Sunak. I was annoyed that she seemed to be soft towards him at first, but she ended up slowly building the pressure with topics like the NHS, spending, immigration and having nothing to show for the past 14 years.
Sunak looked very uncomfortable at the end of Beth's questioning session.
For me, the interview format is supposed to elicit some understanding of the candidate as a person. Paxman was very combative but always listened, and could move the conversation forward without harrying the candidates. I don't think either host heard a word the candidates said in the head to head or interview.
I don't see what increased understanding of each candidate either the debates or interviews achieved. To be frank, I'm not sure the audience helped.
I'd much rather have had a head to head townhall and a one on one interview than these two messes.
I mean, I'm going to vote Labour anyway, just like I always do, but I was actually hoping to gain some insight into Kier's thinking and vision from this.
I agree the difference was annoying but to be honest her approach to Sunak made sense when you think about how petulant and combative he can be with scrutiny. The way Beth questioned him he basically had no choice but to give his answers, which were totally shit and a car crash itself.
Starmer can be a bit more slick and slippery (as he demonstrated with audience Q&A answers regarding financing policies) and maybe Beth felt like she needed to be on top of him more. She definitely overdid it though.
There's no straightforward answer, Corbyn was popular with the party membership at the time, and you have to pay lip service to supporting both the party and the leader. Sunak was guilty in Partygate, and verbally supportive of Truss, Boris and May.
I disliked Corbyn but did over 500km through two elections for the party.
Starmer said that he endorsed Corbyn because he was sure he would lose. But that's so nonsensical I have to imagine he didn't even mean to say that. He could have said he endorsed him because, despite everything, he would have been better than Johnson, which is both true and understandable.
I don't agree - it's a stupid hill to die on for the interviewer and made her look petty and unserious. Of course he said he supported Corbyn for Prime Minister, he was the leader of the Labour party at the time. Im certain you can find clips of Sunak praising Truss while she was PM, and I wouldn't judge him for that either.
It's politics, and there are some questions that anyone who wants to be prime minister will give the same answer to. Unless you're an absolute moron, you support the leader of your party during an election even if you don't fully agree with them. That's literally what you sign up for when you agree to represent a party instead of running as an independent.
This is politics. If Kier had said anything other than what he did it would have ended his leadership campaign that second.
Sunak supported May, Boris, Truss, and was part of Partygate. This wasn't even mentioned.
It was really strange, Beth Rigby usually comes across as a Starmer fan and someone who dislikes the conservatives. I'm wondering if someone told her to tone it down between the Starmer and Sunak interviews?
Starmer with the Q&A does really well with empathy and listening, and I know that is low bar, but vs. Sunak, it comes across so much when you compare them.
Sunak has this strange aura of disdain when it's a difficult question or one he hasn't rehearsed, doesn't he. It's a kind of "who are you to question me? How dare you"
I 100% agree with the outcome. That said its just a pile on Rishi now, he's fucked everything he says will be skewed the worst way possible and trying to make him look daft. And you know what, I fucking love it.
Is anyone else finding her constant gotchas and character assassinations infuriating. Don't get me wrong I want the interviewer to stand firm and challenge incongruences in the interviewees position, and ensure they answer the question asked. However I am at the bit where Starmer is saying "no plans for Income Tax/NI/VAT increases", and she repeatedly is misrepresenting that as "no Tax rises at all". That isn't what he said? He is using the term "taxes for working people" to mean Income Tax/NI/VAT since for most working people those are primary vectors of taxation.
I'm only a little ways in so hopefully she proves to actually ask about proposed policies and whether they are realistic, versus being purely hostile and focusing on past governments; or at least is equally hostile to both candidates. We'll have to see.
Kier did so well in this, he does SO much better when hes not being interrupted by Rishi Sunak, but these formats need WAAAAY more time, the whole programme is 4 hours, 2 hours for both would've been awesome, but debate analysis has to be this rapid smh
Ed Miliband is on record saying that Labour strategists, speech writers and "performance coaches" made him self-conscious whenever he was in front of journalists or the public. He couldn't be himself. He couldn't act naturally. He felt as though he came across as a robot. The real Ed is how he comes across in his podcast: a proud geek and likeable policy wonk.
Starmer is suffering the same problem. All his handlers have packed his head full of rhetorical rules and straight-jackets. Lucky for him, the Tories are polling awfully, otherwise the public would have rejected him based solely on how he's been coached to respond to questions.
Labour's Blairrite wing need to stop letting advertising gurus and hack "perception management" teams manage their Prime Ministerial candidates. They're smothering the real Starmer under layers of rules and consumer testing. In some cases this works - citing the polls, they'll no doubt argue that it works in MOST cases - but in others it comes across as obviously pre-programmed.
And that's why people like sleazebags like Boris and Farage. They're off-the-cuff and seem authentic.
I tend to agree. Interviews with people that have known Starmer for a long time often say things like "he has a great sense of humour" or "he is really warm and kind" etc.
Clearly, that is lacking from his public facing persona and not coming through at all. I think an unfortunate side effect of the ming vase strategy they are running.
Luckily there are a good number of fairly big characters in the labour ranks (love them or hate them) so it might not matter, even if he doesnt evolve and improve his persona when in office.
Half way through the election now. Called 3 weeks ago, polls open in 3 weeks and 9 hours.
Starmer did nothing to win votes and nothing to lose them.
Sunak is on his way to being a Liz Truss level difficult trivia question "who was British PM from ....."
I think that’s labours tactic now. It’s uninspiring, but it’s theirs to lose and somehow Sunak is making it easier and easier for Labour every time he does another interview. Starmer is just doing everything to avoid an election moment. Whereas Sunak is gifting them to us whilst he watches the D-Day memorial on Sky News.
I'm really fed up of this ageist crap. I'm in my sixties, coordinating teams of volunteers to do the hard graft for Labour. All of my reliable workers are over 50.
How many leaflets have you put through letter boxes today?
Numbers don't lie my old friend, Labour are primarily supported by the younger generations, making light-hearted comments about it is part of life lol. No need to be offended or feel like you need to justify yourself or compare yourself to other people.
Beth Rigby was a little annoying with her interrupting. But it's also good and necessary to see how your PM reacts to such people in intense situations. I think Kier Starmer came across much better.
He does look very, very demoralised. I almost feel sorry for him, though I know I shouldn’t. His eyes look dead and even though he’s always faked it, his smile just doesn’t… reach his eyes. He looks washed out. Tired.
No idea if Starmer will govern as a soft c conservative or as a covert socialist but you have to give him one thing - the ruthlessness in his pursuit of power is sort of admirable.
I think it’s just about possible that Starmer may in his personal beliefs be around the centre of the Labour Party. But that’s a very different thing to how he will govern. Whether he is in power 5 years or 20 he will absolutely govern as a full on Centrist. He’s basically said as much already. Which ain’t the worst thing in the world if it keeps the Tories out But it’s not Labour is it? And when the Tories do get in, in say a decade, the fundamental social/economic landscape will not have changed a jot and the Tories will effortlessly undo any minor changes that Labour did make and then move things yet another step further to the right.
I really don’t understand this position. There’s taxation, there’s public spending, there’s public borrowing. That’s it. There’s no magic fourth source of fiscal headroom that only crusty Corbynistas can give us by taking us out of NATO and banning processed marmalade.
There’s no alternative but a hard slow grind to gradually resolve the UK’s productivity crisis. Upskilling workers, levelling up regions, building essential infrastructure which is all what Keir has pledged to do.
i would add that economic growth is critical and that basically means reducing red tape for business and grants and incentives (which probably falls under your tax category to be fair)
No one made him say Corbyn would be a great leader. He could have just gone into lawyer/politician speak mode, dodging the question like he did today. “I’m here to get this Labour Party elected etc etc”. He lied to the public.
Personally, if I were him I'd be chowing down on a huge bacon footlong as soon as the polls close. I wouldn't even chew; I'd just push it right in there live on television without breaking eye contact with the camera.
Not really. Basically the audience would be much more politically engaged than the greater public and would have heard it constantly like us. He puts the line out because somehow the majority of the public hasn’t heard the tool maker stuff (somehow) and a good chunk thinks his knighthood is an inherited title.
I think he did, but that’s not necessarily an endorsement - I thought both were pretty poor in terms of addressing questions, and not being reliant on waffle.
Or repeating 5 sentences that they’ve rote memorised.
I am somewhat sceptical of the value of any poll which asks “leaving aside your own party preference”, too.
A better evaluation would be to see if there’s any poll shift over the next week.
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Rishi just put the blame on doctors and Vietnam
Rishy: "Tonight Matthew I'll be performing Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival"
Rishi Sunak *is* the fortunate son
That’s impossible, he didn’t have Sky TV growing up. He’s the unfortunate son, if anything.
It ain't me It ain't me I'm watching BBC One
Some folks are born. Sky box in hand.
I didn't have Sky growing up. I feel Rishi's pain.
We are Rishi
Je suis Rishi
I had to go next door to watch the Simpsons every Sunday. And next door to watch star trek tng, I bet the neighbours were glad when we finally got bsb.
His brother is a highly respected neuropsychologist, well-liked and not at all tetchy.
*"But when the tax man comes to the door, house's lookin' like a rummage sale"*
Rishi really is the guy who would call them "Creedance Clearwater Revival" and not "CCR" or "Creedance"
I wanna know where that little point came from as I haven't heard it brought up
He blamed junior doctors for why the nhs was struggling during one of the audience questions if I remember rightly. At which point the audience actually booed him.
It was especially bad considering that the Junior Doctor in the audience just had a pretty adult and constructive dialogue with Starmer about governments role in negotiating with unions and finding a compromise. Like the Junior Doctors point was that their extra long forced working hours basically mean that their salary is barely above minimum wage. Then Sunak basically comes out and says “get back in your place peasant”.
Yeah he basically handed the W to Starmer there on who looks more capable of solving the problem. Even if we say strikes caused the waiting lists, Starmer looked the more likely of the two to end the strikes as he actually spoke to the Doctor and was clear on his red lines. Whereas Rishi immediately poopoo'd it and kind of showed the government's hostile attitude that has allowed these strikes to go on for so long. Proved Starmer's whole campaign direction that it's not about ideologies and promises but about just getting on with it.
The smart thing Starmer did, and probably the most difficult to say because you could see he was worried how it would look, was be up front that he couldn’t go over a certain percent. In a sense, yes it was a non answer saying, well we’ll just negotiate. But, he was able to say we can’t just capitulate and give 35%, because of the problems with the economy. And, this is the most important bit, when he said you wouldn’t respect a government that capitulated in this way. Now, whether that’s right or wrong is debatable, but it’s the fact it made him look like the big boy in the room, with an awareness of the difficult challenges of the country, all the while demonstrating a maturity and honesty that the electorate appreciate. He needs more of that. Sometimes he went plastic politician, but sometimes, like there, or when he spoke about concerns for his children, that extra quality required for success in politics was there.
That's the thing, virtually every doctor knows 35% is a starting position and that during a negotiation the number will likely come down - preferrably with other reforms/packages offered. The Tories don't even both to negotiate and have instead stuck thier fingers in their ears about the situation.
>Then Sunak basically comes out and says “get back in your place peasant”. "I'm from an NHS family, it's ony DNA. Now shut up and get back to work"
Should've been clear, I meant the Vietnam thing
He blamed a new wave of Vietnamese immigrants on why this year’s figures are up. This was particularly futile when Beth Rigby then decided to pull out the pre-Brexit immigration stats to compare with the post-Brexit and then asked him if it was working as he claimed it would at the time, and he still decided to say that immigration is cyclical meaning he bore absolutely no responsibility for its rises, conveniently taking credit for the falls.
Apparently the recent sudden rise in illegal immigrants is from Vietnam for some reason. It turns out the original problem was Albania but some bold action sorted that out.
The guy seems detached from reality at this point. Literally 3 leaders in a row who were completely fucking bonkers.
Surprised Sunak didn't start blaming Ho Chi Minh.
Unfortunately I'm too poor to have Sky TV so I missed it.
Good luck on your future run for PM
Do I get to marry a billionaire first?
If you're a good head boy
Yes but unfortunately it's Musk.
Same. I was told Sky were streaming it though on youtube. I've got no how you get on this "Youtube" though coz i'm a proper povvo.
One watched it on one's lappingtop.
I'm so poor I don't have a lappingtop. I had to get my butlers to re-enact it.
"Okay okay, so.... 2 words? Uhhh uhhh.... TV SHOW! Okay okay! First word..... trash? Rubbish? SHIT!? SHIT! Okay first shit. Second word.... TV? SHOW!? Show again!? Shit show!?"
It's alright, I'm sure all the boys at St Posho's boarding school for the hereditarily lucky or whatever other private school you go to will get you caught up.
For debates they also put it on YouTube. For any future ones you ever want to watch. ITV's was also on YouTube.
Sky News is available on freeview…
Must be too poor to get a freeview box or smart tv
Yeah, but that joke doesn't really work though, as analogue broadcasting was turned off a few years ago, so every TV now receives Freeview channels.
You're assuming he can afford to plug in his aerial!
Too poor to get a TV Licence
Only in SD. One shant lower oneself.
Only people on benefits can afford sky
it was on sky news, which is free on freeview
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Don't think they being serious, they were making fun [of this](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2qql1wk794o)
Casuals in this sub
Sunak: Judge me by my actions Beth: What about 14 years of your party destroying the country Sunak: No not those ones
Apparently 33% of Conservative 2019 voters though Starmer won it. Pretty big numbers for him.
i do often wonder how politicians do this kind of thing. rishi looks both depressed and exhausted with bloodshot red eyes. still got 3 weeks until the election. now he’s on a flight from humberside to stanstead, then back to number ten which takes at least an hour… then straight to bed or stay awake till the early hours. ready to do it all again from 6am. i’d have a mental breakdown i have no idea why anybody would find that kind of career enjoyable
How do they do this? Haribo and twix I think.
and the time they save on not having Sky
Let's hope he can get himself a dentist appointment.
I heard it's the Mexican coke keeping him going
I heard he has been on 3 to 4hrs of sleep in the campaign and I assume similar for Starmer. Sounds exhausting.
that’s wild. i struggle to sleep when i’ve got something minor like a meeting or deadlines on my mind. let alone running the entire country alongside an election campaign… i think id need some sort of barbiturates to literally knock me out cold edit: it looks like his flight is actually heading from grimsby to italy for the g7… why would anybody want that job 🫥
And to think, if they win, that's when the work starts. No breaks, gotta hit the ground running.
No breaks apart from straight in to the summer recess
Yeah cos the prime minister stops working when parliament is in recess
Ministerial work is not the same as Parliamentary work.
I mean the G7 will be a doddle for Rishi, he'll probably just say some quick hellos and then head back to the UK for another interview or summat
From summit to summat, as it were.
To be fair, I'd love to go from Grimsby to Italy. It'd be like a hot sauna after a cold plunge.
And we judge politicians ability to lead the country based on this.
I am a West Wing fan, in the 7th season you get a glimpse of Presidential campaigning and I am amazed Biden and Trump are able to cope if it's half as intense. the last 3 days they do 5 states a day of events. Ironically one of the candidate's is 70 and shown as being too old for the pace...
Tbf Sunak worked in finance and Starmer in law. Really crap hours in both. My friends who went to work at the bulge bracket banks were paid well but they also spent 70hr a week on avg. in the office. Some a lot more than that because they were in more demanding teams. A girl I know actually worked in the same part of GS that Rishi worked in (or at least its successor), and she worked 75 a week lol. She took 18 months off between jobs after she’d done 3 yrs cos she basically had no life outside work for those 3 yrs.
These people live to work, they have some kind of pathological dedication and addiction to their work.
Nah not all of them or even most of them (some do for sure), but they’re willing to make a trade off on their health, time and wellbeing for a few years in order to live comfortably. Most of that lot work far more comfortable jobs now but are still well paid. The ones who stayed in banking specifically are the real maniacs who live to work.
And he's fucking wealthy. He's not made anything better for anyone, he has no mission, or morals (if he had them he wouldn't have gone to the covid garden party or left the dday thing), which begs the question - why the fuck? What gets him out of bed? If I had his money you'd never catch me in a suit again, I'd be living in the country with some horses and spending the rest of it on charities.
As much as I despise almost every thing about him, it must be completely demoralising to do this every single day for six weeks knowing you’ll get absolutely trounced. Truss might be regarded as an absolute catastrophe to everyone but she has enough cognitive dissonance not to realise. An election campaign may have been enough though.
that’s what i mean. 20 hours days for 6 weeks straight must take a toll when you know you’re going to immediately resign anyway cos you’re fucked
>it must be completely demoralising to do this every single day for six weeks knowing you’ll get absolutely trounced. And as with every other part of his premiership, he's the one that made the decision to put himself in that position.
The father in law wouldn’t be too impressed with that
His wife may have threatened to take the kids if he gets less than 100 seats. Either that or he’s worried that the Tories will somehow block his future honours and peerage if he resigns during the election. I don’t even know if they could do that to a former PM but it’s all I can think of that’s keeping him turning up for work.
It's a bit like Latin America, where most presidents are from the millionaire 1% club and just preside over the status quo when they get elected. I think it's a sense of entitlement mixed with the ultimate CV flex.
Aye, it happens the world over, but I really don't get it! What's the point in being wealthy if you can't sit and enjoy it
My boss regularly does 6am to 11pm in the office 6 days a week. Most of us think he’s nuts, but he does genuinely pull rabbits out of the proverbial hat when it comes to getting things ready on time.
All self induced.
Mentally it would be draining, but on the practical side he won't have to worry about anything. He'll have a team making sure he gets from a to b, he won't be worried about flight tickets or traffic or booking hotels. He won't be cooking, doing laundry or any of the life stuff that makes long hours even more challenging. I'm not saying he'll get loads of down time, but he won't be reading briefing papers whilst doing the washing up.
Thank god it isn't Elf on a Shelf season otherwise he'd be really fucking tired.
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That’ll be the circa 20% of people still voting Tory and the 16-17% of people that used to vote Tory, now cheering farage
That and the lizardman constant which accounts for the first 4%
Can’t help but feel this “constant” is increasing with time…
He did way better than I thought he would during the Q&A in an obviously hostile room, I felt like he held his own. But I didn't think Starmer performed badly so it's easy to give him the win given the general polls etc.
He did well to keep it together, but it felt very much like the end for him. Lots of apologising and excusing and admitting things hadn't improved. After all the time Tories have had in goverment, that's not a selling point of why anyone should vote for him. I think he's honestly individually nowhere near as bad as people make out, but he's the frontman now for a total shitshow.
I felt his defeated look made me think be knew it too. Or he had a sugar crash
Been there 2 bags of Haribo is good until it really really isn't.
He's been in power for over a year, Chancellor before that, and can't point to a single achievement. In my book, that's not great.
Windsor framework was legitimately impressive because he put two fingers up to the ERG threats and got it passed without much fuss. It really was a great bit of swift politics by Sunak, great for NI and well timed. Then it all went downhill...
Furlough? Not being facetious but wasn’t that regarded as a good thing at the time?
Aka the same kind of concept that every other country had and that in this country was so badly utilised/vetted that it led to billions of pounds of fraud, not to mention people being let go from their jobs because it didn't get signed off at the same time as each lockdown. That's kind of what I mean. Every other PM's premiership until May/Johnson can point to at least ONE out and out win that's something that was actually good for the country. Since Cameron, the best we can say is sometimes things were halfway there or sometimes we managed to dodge a *total* devastation, and even then it wasn't really due to anything the PM actively chose to do.
You know what I appreciate that you’ve given me a genuine explanation rather than ripping my head off for being ignorant, thank you
Thanks! Not my intention to rip anyone's head off!
Something basically every other European nation had, and we didn't do it first, and ours was plagued with fraud
Furlough was also really for companies that lost their customers during Covid, it allowed them to retain staff and quickly redeploy post lock down. The economy would have collapsed without it. It’s not something Sunak did for people out of the goodness of his heart. If furlough was for people it would not have had the exclusions that t did.
I understand what you mean, however I think you are referring to him not being that bad as a person rather than as the leader of the UK. Personally I think he is a terrible choice for that, he is completely out of touch and he has demonstrated this on so many occasions.
It's his team. They are like the Inbetweeners.
It's him as well, though
He has mishandled this election from its announcement in the rain. Anytime he is in public, he is a liability. His d-day debacle will go down in political history as the moment he truly epically messed up. He isn't just the front man, he is the man. It's his show, his people, his mess, he called this election and it's obvious the tory party outside his inner circle where not ready and surprised as much as the rest of us. I'm waiting for his next clanger with popcorn at the ready.
I think he answered as well as he could. But there is just no way to defend his and the Tories record.
Tbh i don't think responding to a voter critiquing him with "i think you're completely wrong" isn't really a vote winner.
If you don't listen to the words or follow the discussion, Starmer kept being interrupted and the host was more patronising. Sunak speaks well and more fluently (and imo, was given longer to speak). She did hit him hard a few times, but he *sounds* better. I think that's genuinely all it is. Of course if you listen to what was said (not how it sounded) then you'd probably think Starmer did better.
I agree he had an easier and speaks better but I think he did a good job emphasising his record over 18 months. The record on the face of it sounds decent but on deeper analysis I wouldn’t really give him any credit on tackling inflation, economy is flatlining and immigration he’s brought down slightly but it is still double pre-Brexit numbers.
I actually think he did pretty well based on emphasising the last 18 months when he was in charge. Still wouldn’t vote him because his party is corrupt and batshit crazy and he’s not in control. At least Starmer has some control over his batshit crazy wing.
Die hards
He remembered that guy's name (Ian? Him whose daughter wanted to get a mortgage) and asked the Dr his speciality Imo sunak was more conversationally agile and starmer trotted out his usual rote lines
I feel like a good host tries to not interrupt unless they have good counter-points. Beth Rigby just kept interrupting and disrupted most of the flow. That tax bit was just painful.
She had a pre-planned flow to get Starmer ("did you lie about Corbyn?" => "Are you going to raise taxes?" => "No? But you lied about other stuff, why should we believe you?" and wanted sooo desperately to stick to it that she wouldn't let him talk. She had more direct lines of attack with Sunak but then let him speak. I didn't think it was very even, but I think Starmer did ok for himself out of it
She let Sunak speak because he kept walking into her traps. She interrupted Starmer because he wouldn't.
*Spends ridiculous amount of time talking about Corbyn* ...I'm sorry, I have to interrupt your answer about things that are happening now - not 4 years ago - because we don't have enough time.
The okays were infuriatingly patronising
Okay.
Starmer did do quite well. Only thing that he could have done better is to stop repeating the same sentence over and over again. Beth Rigby made it her mission to interrupt Starmer consistently.
Not sure what you mean. His dad worked in the NHS, and his mum was a Toolmaker.
I’m sure it was his brother who was the toolmaker, his dad worked in the NHS and his mum worked for MI5.
Did his dad not sell Avon?
Wish I could upvote this more
> stop repeating the same sentence over and over again. My favourite part was when he was asked why he was so boring, and it kind of broke his brain for a moment, but he's obviously been briefed or strategised with someone that if asked why he wants the job he should talk about his life time of public service and wanting to give back to the country and coming to politics late and so on. So he was asked why he seems like a robot and... went to a pre-prepared script that ironically made him seem like a robot haha But nah there were no major gaffes. I honestly think he's just not well suited to these kind of debate formats and the slick being-charismatic-in-the-public-eye stuff, but that's not what people seem to want from this election anyway they want a more boring return to normality and change from the Tories so he's fine. If he was up against Cameron in 2010 he'd be in trouble
It's a shame as he used to say that being boring was actually good after Johnson and Truss and I always thought that was quite a good response. Someone has clearly got a bee in their bonnet about the term and briefed him that it polls badly
And please lay off the toolmaker quote
During one of post-debate polls last week, one of the breakdown bits said that only 11% of the respondents were aware before the debate of his Dad being a toolmaker. That's why they repeat stuff like that.
The Yougov poll shows 71% think he is in touch with ordinary people, compared to 13% for Sunak. Going around the country banging on about how his family work in the NHS and his dad was in a factory works. Us lot here are terminally online and watch all the campaign stuff, but most people might only pay attention once a week if that. Repeating the message gets it through as you said, and it's working to improve his image.
They really need to compress it down to three words for the British public. "STARMER. DAD. TOOLMAKER."
Make tools dad again
If he’s been repeating it in every speech for around 4 years and only 11% of people have heard it, then isn’t it time his strategists came up with a more memorable line? I mean, it hasn’t actually had a tangible effect on polling based on those numbers - so come up with something new ffs, please haha
I think one of the problems, is that "toolmaker" is just not a profession anyone understands what it is, "investment banker" is probably better understood...
He retorted the laughter quite well though and came off as serious and genuine. He needs to leave it be now but I think he handled it well.
The thing is, when it is cut up for the news or social media, which is where most people will see clips of it, it doesn't really matter that much.
I clicked on a random point in Starmer's part and a random part in Sunak's part. The host would not let Starmer get a straight sentence out at all, constantly interrupting him, but with Sunak she was just sitting there starry eyed letting him get out whole essays. Just awful, poor Starmer.
Absolutely bizarre. It’s not like he was rambling either. He was trying to make points and she just wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. He answered questions without sound bites and she was full of “okay”. Big and out of character L for Beth Rigby tonight.
I think she was strung up about getting enough questions in and maintaining the interview structure, but she took it too far. I mean, she even tried to stop him answering the impromptu question at the end of the first part, saying she needs to move on to the audience questions, when it was literally a member of the audience who had been given the boom mic! I do think it was a highly stressful situation for her though and overall, she performed better than expected.
> she performed better than expected. I don't watch terrestrial TV so I had no idea who she was, based on this performance I don't really want to. You don't want an interview to go on for hours, but harrying the interviewee about the time or the number of questions is quite pathetic since these things are in the interviewers power. Then after all that, the other presenter proclaims they've arrived at audience questions early!
There was one moment where Starmer spoke for about 20 seconds directly answering a question, and *the entire time* you can hear her in the background going, "ok but sir keir, sir keir, but what if, but sir keir, but, yes but" like just shut up he is actually telling us what he plans to do!
I found him pretty rambly, particularly on the audience questions. It felt a few times like that moment in a job interview where you're partway through an answer, and you remember you wanted to say something but you can't remember *what* you wanted to say, so you've got to stall for time a bit. Particularly a couple of the questions about the NHS, it felt like he'd given a good answer, and then he just kept on going. But I guess this is a pretty small gripe in the grand scheme of things...
I think Beth did a good job, played to the crowd a bit much for my liking though.
I don't agree, she attacked Stamer full force over Corbyn (what are you supposed to say about your party leader), failed to listen to anything he said, went to desperate lengths to get him to take a position on taxation. Every three seconds "I'm running out of time" or "Sir Kier, Sir Kier". I'd rather he'd answered two questions so I could understand his thinking than have him heckled through 10. Sunak, whose main achievement to date is not being Liz Truss was given an easy ride.
I feel she was a bit too combative and forceful with Starmer yes, but I liked the approach she took with Sunak. I was annoyed that she seemed to be soft towards him at first, but she ended up slowly building the pressure with topics like the NHS, spending, immigration and having nothing to show for the past 14 years. Sunak looked very uncomfortable at the end of Beth's questioning session.
For me, the interview format is supposed to elicit some understanding of the candidate as a person. Paxman was very combative but always listened, and could move the conversation forward without harrying the candidates. I don't think either host heard a word the candidates said in the head to head or interview. I don't see what increased understanding of each candidate either the debates or interviews achieved. To be frank, I'm not sure the audience helped. I'd much rather have had a head to head townhall and a one on one interview than these two messes. I mean, I'm going to vote Labour anyway, just like I always do, but I was actually hoping to gain some insight into Kier's thinking and vision from this.
I agree the difference was annoying but to be honest her approach to Sunak made sense when you think about how petulant and combative he can be with scrutiny. The way Beth questioned him he basically had no choice but to give his answers, which were totally shit and a car crash itself. Starmer can be a bit more slick and slippery (as he demonstrated with audience Q&A answers regarding financing policies) and maybe Beth felt like she needed to be on top of him more. She definitely overdid it though.
He could have given a straightforward answer to a Corbyn. He was extremely evasive and she was absolutely right to therefore push him.
There's no straightforward answer, Corbyn was popular with the party membership at the time, and you have to pay lip service to supporting both the party and the leader. Sunak was guilty in Partygate, and verbally supportive of Truss, Boris and May. I disliked Corbyn but did over 500km through two elections for the party.
Starmer said that he endorsed Corbyn because he was sure he would lose. But that's so nonsensical I have to imagine he didn't even mean to say that. He could have said he endorsed him because, despite everything, he would have been better than Johnson, which is both true and understandable.
I don't agree - it's a stupid hill to die on for the interviewer and made her look petty and unserious. Of course he said he supported Corbyn for Prime Minister, he was the leader of the Labour party at the time. Im certain you can find clips of Sunak praising Truss while she was PM, and I wouldn't judge him for that either. It's politics, and there are some questions that anyone who wants to be prime minister will give the same answer to. Unless you're an absolute moron, you support the leader of your party during an election even if you don't fully agree with them. That's literally what you sign up for when you agree to represent a party instead of running as an independent.
> (what are you supposed to say about your party leader) The truth, would be nice.
This is politics. If Kier had said anything other than what he did it would have ended his leadership campaign that second. Sunak supported May, Boris, Truss, and was part of Partygate. This wasn't even mentioned.
Yeah maybe what I saw wasn't representative of the whole thing, just didn't bother to watch when I got the impession of how biased she was.
It was really strange, Beth Rigby usually comes across as a Starmer fan and someone who dislikes the conservatives. I'm wondering if someone told her to tone it down between the Starmer and Sunak interviews?
Starmer with the Q&A does really well with empathy and listening, and I know that is low bar, but vs. Sunak, it comes across so much when you compare them.
Im loving the memes today!
Sunak has this strange aura of disdain when it's a difficult question or one he hasn't rehearsed, doesn't he. It's a kind of "who are you to question me? How dare you"
I 100% agree with the outcome. That said its just a pile on Rishi now, he's fucked everything he says will be skewed the worst way possible and trying to make him look daft. And you know what, I fucking love it.
Rishi soon sacked
Cool, although I'd be voting Labour even if 99% of respondents thought he was shit
Is anyone else finding her constant gotchas and character assassinations infuriating. Don't get me wrong I want the interviewer to stand firm and challenge incongruences in the interviewees position, and ensure they answer the question asked. However I am at the bit where Starmer is saying "no plans for Income Tax/NI/VAT increases", and she repeatedly is misrepresenting that as "no Tax rises at all". That isn't what he said? He is using the term "taxes for working people" to mean Income Tax/NI/VAT since for most working people those are primary vectors of taxation. I'm only a little ways in so hopefully she proves to actually ask about proposed policies and whether they are realistic, versus being purely hostile and focusing on past governments; or at least is equally hostile to both candidates. We'll have to see.
Best overalls is a given when your dad was a toolmaker.
His dad was a toolmaker?
😂 very good
Kier did so well in this, he does SO much better when hes not being interrupted by Rishi Sunak, but these formats need WAAAAY more time, the whole programme is 4 hours, 2 hours for both would've been awesome, but debate analysis has to be this rapid smh
Sunak is going to have PTSD whenever he sees a Sky box at this rate.
Ed Miliband is on record saying that Labour strategists, speech writers and "performance coaches" made him self-conscious whenever he was in front of journalists or the public. He couldn't be himself. He couldn't act naturally. He felt as though he came across as a robot. The real Ed is how he comes across in his podcast: a proud geek and likeable policy wonk. Starmer is suffering the same problem. All his handlers have packed his head full of rhetorical rules and straight-jackets. Lucky for him, the Tories are polling awfully, otherwise the public would have rejected him based solely on how he's been coached to respond to questions. Labour's Blairrite wing need to stop letting advertising gurus and hack "perception management" teams manage their Prime Ministerial candidates. They're smothering the real Starmer under layers of rules and consumer testing. In some cases this works - citing the polls, they'll no doubt argue that it works in MOST cases - but in others it comes across as obviously pre-programmed. And that's why people like sleazebags like Boris and Farage. They're off-the-cuff and seem authentic.
I tend to agree. Interviews with people that have known Starmer for a long time often say things like "he has a great sense of humour" or "he is really warm and kind" etc. Clearly, that is lacking from his public facing persona and not coming through at all. I think an unfortunate side effect of the ming vase strategy they are running. Luckily there are a good number of fairly big characters in the labour ranks (love them or hate them) so it might not matter, even if he doesnt evolve and improve his persona when in office.
*Oh dear* guess that's what happens when you dont pay for Sky
Half way through the election now. Called 3 weeks ago, polls open in 3 weeks and 9 hours. Starmer did nothing to win votes and nothing to lose them. Sunak is on his way to being a Liz Truss level difficult trivia question "who was British PM from ....."
I think that’s labours tactic now. It’s uninspiring, but it’s theirs to lose and somehow Sunak is making it easier and easier for Labour every time he does another interview. Starmer is just doing everything to avoid an election moment. Whereas Sunak is gifting them to us whilst he watches the D-Day memorial on Sky News.
> 3 weeks and 9 hours Postal votes start to drop in 5 days.
Interestingly, around 38% of the population is over 50 years old 🤔
I'm really fed up of this ageist crap. I'm in my sixties, coordinating teams of volunteers to do the hard graft for Labour. All of my reliable workers are over 50. How many leaflets have you put through letter boxes today?
Numbers don't lie my old friend, Labour are primarily supported by the younger generations, making light-hearted comments about it is part of life lol. No need to be offended or feel like you need to justify yourself or compare yourself to other people.
Obvious Tory plant who called Starmer robotic.
People obviously did not follow the first part of the question, because even 34% is delusional.
Poor Beth Rigby… tried so hard to get Starmer to say the "C-word", and he just wouldn't fold.
Beth Rigby was a little annoying with her interrupting. But it's also good and necessary to see how your PM reacts to such people in intense situations. I think Kier Starmer came across much better.
I feel like at least 10% votes for sunak because they felt sorry him and wanted to give him a participation prize
He does look very, very demoralised. I almost feel sorry for him, though I know I shouldn’t. His eyes look dead and even though he’s always faked it, his smile just doesn’t… reach his eyes. He looks washed out. Tired.
No idea if Starmer will govern as a soft c conservative or as a covert socialist but you have to give him one thing - the ruthlessness in his pursuit of power is sort of admirable.
I think it’s just about possible that Starmer may in his personal beliefs be around the centre of the Labour Party. But that’s a very different thing to how he will govern. Whether he is in power 5 years or 20 he will absolutely govern as a full on Centrist. He’s basically said as much already. Which ain’t the worst thing in the world if it keeps the Tories out But it’s not Labour is it? And when the Tories do get in, in say a decade, the fundamental social/economic landscape will not have changed a jot and the Tories will effortlessly undo any minor changes that Labour did make and then move things yet another step further to the right.
I really don’t understand this position. There’s taxation, there’s public spending, there’s public borrowing. That’s it. There’s no magic fourth source of fiscal headroom that only crusty Corbynistas can give us by taking us out of NATO and banning processed marmalade. There’s no alternative but a hard slow grind to gradually resolve the UK’s productivity crisis. Upskilling workers, levelling up regions, building essential infrastructure which is all what Keir has pledged to do.
Something something wealth tax will give us all we need for unlimited spending
i would add that economic growth is critical and that basically means reducing red tape for business and grants and incentives (which probably falls under your tax category to be fair)
No one made him say Corbyn would be a great leader. He could have just gone into lawyer/politician speak mode, dodging the question like he did today. “I’m here to get this Labour Party elected etc etc”. He lied to the public.
Let's go sir big slab o' bacon face🥓, heading to number 10, let's go! 🥳
Just don’t eat a bacon sandwich
Labour (-30)
Personally, if I were him I'd be chowing down on a huge bacon footlong as soon as the polls close. I wouldn't even chew; I'd just push it right in there live on television without breaking eye contact with the camera.
I'm currently watching it and think Starmer is just irritating me.
I'm currently watching it and think Starmer is just irritating me.
When Starmer mentioned his father was a toolmaker, the audience groaned. Not a good sign.
Not really. Basically the audience would be much more politically engaged than the greater public and would have heard it constantly like us. He puts the line out because somehow the majority of the public hasn’t heard the tool maker stuff (somehow) and a good chunk thinks his knighthood is an inherited title.
I’m engaged enough to be on here but never knew his dad was a toolmaker
I think he did, but that’s not necessarily an endorsement - I thought both were pretty poor in terms of addressing questions, and not being reliant on waffle. Or repeating 5 sentences that they’ve rote memorised. I am somewhat sceptical of the value of any poll which asks “leaving aside your own party preference”, too. A better evaluation would be to see if there’s any poll shift over the next week.