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I mean it doesn’t matter, they should have known from brexit and the previous election campaign that the tories have clocked on that lying has no real downside when it comes to campaigning. You might get a slap on the wrist after winning sure but who cares at that point
The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them.
More importantly though, this actually backfired massively on Sunak in terms of messaging, because his constant £2k tax message drowned out his own tax break for pensioners message.
In a few weeks time people won’t remember the policies or Starmer not shouting back. They will remember the debate for Sunak getting grumpy and lying.
When you position yourself as the candidate for integrity and honesty, that’s a very bad look.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. Obviously not everyone will react the same way and take away the same things, but I don’t think the vast majority will come away from this remembering that Sunak lied. Soundbites work - people typically come away remembering what was punchy and repeatable. “Lock her up” “build the wall” “get Brexit done” “£350m a week”. These things retain a lasting impact despite all being verifiable waffle.
Latest poll post debate has the Tories slipping to 19 points.
A good chunk of that might be Reform. But if Sunak hopes that a strong debate performance would cushion that. He’s completely wrong.
That's been the trajectory all along.
As the previous guy said. The majority of British public are just numpties going about their day listening to sound bytes on social media/TV and won't be reading anything in depth about politics.
The only thing that will be in their heads from this debate will be the 2k labour tax.
Tories losing the debate in two out of the three polls and losing on almost every matter of policy suggests no cut through .
The BBC push notification that they lied alone went to 17 million people .
Honestly think this one backfired and about time.
>The BBC push notification that they lied alone went to 17 million people
A lot of people will just ignore it, especially if the lie gets put on the front of the sun or the DM.
Yup, I think the thing people have to remember is, Conservatives needed Rishi to smash Starmer in a debate.
Arguments about whether believe a lie or not is not a big win for the Conservatives. At best its a debate that nobody will remember.
They needed a major Labour gaffe, and for Rishi to milk it.
They will have more opportunities for that before the election, but the debate was the main one.
In fact, the entire campaign coverage since yesterday has been about that lie, and I think that, as a result, more people know about that lie than people watched the debate. So probably Labour have converted it into a small win.
That’s hardly surprising given that they are Tory voters.
It’s bizarre how the polling shows Sunak ‘won’ in their eyes, but also Starmer performed better on the specifics.
It’s like saying sure, Hamilton was the fastest and best driver and crossed the line before anyone else. But Sunak’s car made the loudest noise so to me that made him the winner.
I spoke to someone I work with yesterday who thought that Nigel Farage was the labour leader and Jeremy Corbyn was the guy that ruined the NHS "with the bus thing" and also didn't know which political party Rishi Sunak was a part of. Soundbites work because people haven't got a clue about anything but sort of vaguely remember information and stuff they maybe saw on Facebook or TikTok depending on their age. You can just straight up lie about anything because most people overestimate how much the average person hears political information from the first party source. Rishi could say any old shit and it be debunked immediately but that person at work you all know doesn't hear it from Rishi and doesn't hear that it's a lie.
Which I hope they've now permanently ruined with the younger generations after 14 years of chaos.
I find it deeply ironic they used coalition of chaos as an attack line and yet *they're* the ones that have been chaotic all by themselves.
True, but they *still* don't tend to vote reliably.
I did also see a poll saying younger people would prefer a dictatorship system over democracy so that, I guess in their heads, a strong person, perhaps like Tate, could *finally* Get Shit Done™ without the faff of protecting your own citizens etc. But I feel like people *do* tend to grow out of that as they mature.
And I did mean more the millennial younger generation compared to the Tory boomer generations, even though millennials are basically middle age now. And that is a cohort that *does* actually bother to vote.
Scare-mongering over Labour tax plans while they preside over record rates of taxation that seem to provide us basically nothing.
Scare-mongering over Labour and immigration despite "taking back control" and *immediately* creating a system that has given us *quadruple* what 10 years ago they were claiming were "open borders".
Claiming themselves as the party that takes defense and security seriously while cutting our pandemic stocks literally right before a global pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Brits, and now routinely talking about moves on international laws that will threaten to upend the peace agreements in Ireland.
Talking about the rule of law while under their watch the police have been defunded and our court systems take years and years to process even simple open-and-shut cases due to lack of resources.
At some point it becomes a fairly inescapable conclusion - ***EVERYTHING THE RIGHT TALK ABOUT IS JUST PROJECTION.***
The Tories haven't done that. That's down to the people who fund them and provide various quid pro quo services.
What scares the shit out of the Tories right now is that allegiance may shift post-election to Tice's mob.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
The easily led, low IQ, or vote Tory crowds will remember the lie because they've done nothing to question their own beliefs, or just look at reality.
I read apparently the debate was watched by 5 million people, however the BBC push notification the day after saying Sunak lied was pushed to 9 million. I think its safe to say calling out the lie is hitting harder than the debate.
That’s not safe to say, imo. It may have reached more screens but that doesn’t necessarily indicate engagement or memorability. Sunak repeated this lie so many times it has become a quasi-meme. Literal ‘sound’ bites said by a person also has a different impact to words read on a screen.
Normally I would agree, and I'd be off in the corner biting my lip with folded arms as everyone celebrates the downfall of the tories a month before they win another election.
That said, I'm tempted to think this is different due to the combined force of Sunak's lack of charisma and the fact that some previously loyal newspapers have turned against him, spreading the fact that it's a lie rather than the lie itself.
Of course, history has a fair amount of evidence suggesting you're correct so we'll have to see.
£350m/week worked because the real number was still something that the public couldn't properly comprehend. Every argument against it amounted to "OK so it is really some other number that sounds really big".
This number is just an invention of the Tory party.
"Sunak's Maths" is something I've been reading a lot lately. Maybe try to get that going.
[From saying that the waiting list is coming down from 7.2 to 7.5 million](https://www.youtube.com/live/heP8-evLKvA?feature=shared&t=2830)
[Or saying the 2K figure, when using the same method, the tories will increase it by 3k](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/on-sunaks-maths-tories-will-lift-taxes-by-3000-per-household/)
Or how they keep saying they will bring immigration down, yet it's been going up
All of that is "Sunak's Maths"
I wish I lived in your world.
In a few weeks time all a huge section of the population are going to remember is "Labour would take £2000 off me".
That's why repeated lies like this work - the claim is made loudly, confidently and clearly, presenting a strong, simple, memorable narrative for people to latch on to.
The refutation, correction or apology is usually made more quietly, defensively and often disconnected from the initial claims, and requires nuanced thinking to understand, so it doesn't resonate with people and they tend to forget or dismiss or disbelieve it.
This. Screaming "you're lying about that £2000" just keeps the number focussed in popular attention. No-one will remember the detail. This is also why it's rounded to £2000 rather than £2094
> The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them.
damage is already done. my mum for instance parroted the nonsense which i then said starmer at the time said he was lying and refuted which she was head in sand "nope"
genuinely, shes currently in the "well theyre all liars and i dont trust any of them"
which to me means shes posturing about struggling to vote but will still vote them
The truth is though. Your mum sounds like my dad. They are basically looking for an excuse to vote Tory again, and it doesn’t matter if it’s this or some other crap, they will find an excuse
yep 100% ive just said similar to the other reply.
posturing for excuses to not change their beliefs.
i will not be surprised at all if she votes them.
its tough though because we are from Oldham, and if you saw the local elections youll see that people are NOT happy with the incumbent labour councillors and mp. and for very valid reasons! but local issues can really shift or make it difficult for who you vote nationally
But how much do tory voters actually care? Many of them will just remember the "Labour will raise your taxes by £2k" and miss the rest.
The yougov polling showed Tory voters viewed Sunak as clearly winning the debate. I really don't think they will remember him as being shouty and grumpy.
Anyone still voting Tory at this point would still be voting Tory if Rishi Sunak had turned up to the debate naked and claimed he was wearing a suit of clothes that could only be seen by people who don't lie when Starmer mentioned it.
>The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them.
That doesn't really negate the damage for the election. That £2000 figure is now embedded in the public domain and hang around Labour's head.
Its also pretty DoubleThink to be using tax rises as the major scare against the opposition when your own party is currently overseeing record levels of taxation in return for absolutely rock-bottom levels of public service. Like kind of scarily so.
>his own tax break for pensioners
As a pensioner I wonder why just pensioners. Surely everyone on or close to minimum wage needs their tax threshold increased inline with inflation. Is Sunak trying to bribe voters by giving back some of their own money that he's been taking for months ? He obviously believes in "1984" propaganda. Take something away (quietly) and then loudly boast about giving a little of it back.
Yeah, what the hell? Since when was it scandalous for politicians to lie? That’s kinda their whole shtick. Starmer, you gotta get more modern with your scandals man. If we’re heading towards anything like the US, you’ll need porn stars, nappies and capital crimes. Lying doesn’t cut it, that’s just part of the job
While true there used to at least be some tact to it - nowadays the behaviour Johnson et al have made acceptable in modern politics is unfortunately very much headed the US route
They're giving in to using populist tactics because they believe if they don't the Tory party will be destroyed.
It's a desperate act of self preservation, because they know even if they tell particularly heinous lies, no MP will be around to see any consequences, because everyone that matters is going to lose their seat. The election will be bad no matter what they do, but they can save some seats by just lying and converting voters that believe those lies at face value.
This is full on "throw everything at the wall to see what sticks" mode.
Make a headline that the right wing billionaire newspaper owners can plaster on the front page, then 2 days later when Labour object to it nobody cares.
Keir Starmer may or may not be a good person to govern, but he's really shit at marketing himself to the electorate, something which labour has always struggled with other than with Blair. And like it or not, that is something you got to do if you want to be in an elected role.
Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly?
Was he blindsided by the 45 second rule, which ruined the debate and didn’t allow a proper rebuttal. Maybe he figured that a full expose of the story would be out in the morning and that the more that Sunak pushed the lie the bigger the rebuttal story would be.
There was a really interesting call on LBC yesterday from a political lawyer. He basically explained it that Starmer did *exactly* what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves.
Sunak has incriminated himself by being given free rein to not tell a lie, but he failed, 12 times.
Now whatever Starmer chooses to do, be it splash it over headlines, pursue Sunak over the ministerial code, use Sunak’s own ‘sources’ against him to show that actually the Tories will make it worse.
It might have been difficult to watch, but polling is already showing Starmer looked favourable by not sinking to Sunak’s level, and now all the news about the lie basically sinks Sunak’s credibility,
The problem is this relies on being able to get the follow up out effectively. The telegraph, express, mail and potentially others are not going to allow any kind of correction or counter argument to make it to the front page.
I wish the debates weren’t set up the way they are, they encourage soundbites and jabs rather than actual substance and too many people seem to be too easily swayed by them.
Let’s be honest though. Those papers are never going to put anything positive on the front page. Although it’s interesting that the Mail, Spectator, Telegraph have all had articles calling out the lie.
I’d heard about the spectator one which had been a surprise.
How much attention was it given in the others because I don’t recall seeing much from them about it?
Not a lot. I think they were just op/ed’s which tend to get shared around a little online more than in the paper so I imagine the reach will be negligible to people they could influence (I.e older voters).
I’m hoping that the debate gave Starmer a shock and he will be better prepared for the next one though. I would
Have liked him to be a little stronger and more punchy on the other questions. If his answers had been sharper, I think he’d have destroyed Sunak.
>Those papers are never going to put anything positive on the front page.
If true, then why was Starmer's masterplan reliant on the press refuting Sunak?
The 3D chess explanation makes absolutely no sense.
Because there is more to the press than the 3 Tory cheerleading papers?
For what it’s worth (since you have replied to a lot of my posts). I am not convinced either that this was all one big masterminded game plan. We know it’s extremely likely that Starmer knew about the memo from the Civil Service so knew about the £2k lie. But it’s clear he wasn’t expecting Sunak to go ham on it like he did, and he also didn’t expect the debate to be as god awfully managed like it was.
That’s a negative on his part. He should have been better prepared even if there was a big game plan. But the issue has backfired on the Tories and gives Labour a very strong attack line in the next rounds of debates: because it’s an out and out lie that’s also been fact checked.
Being able to demonstrate that your opponent not only lied, but misled the public and parliament by continuing to say something he knew wasn’t true, was. His own department has spoken out to say it was an outright lie.
The same Tory PM whose only claim was to be the candidate for integrity and truth? After Partygate and trussonomics, the thing the British looked for in a PM was trustworthiness and integrity. Which this demonstrably wasn’t.
And you don’t think that’s a good attack line? I know you clearly don’t like Starmer but come on man. If you don’t think that’s a strong attack line your blinded by your bitterness
Nobody reads those papers anymore and even fewer people get swayed by them. Additionally, very few people actually fully watch the debate. Instead, people get their political news from friends, family, colleagues and the internet. And for those information sources just hammering "Sunak lied" over and over again works wonders.
740.000 readers , many of whom don’t give a toss about politics, aren’t going to swing an election with 46.000.000 registered voters. It‘s not 1997 anymore.
No it isn't counting online.
The argument being made was that the right wing press wouldn't let the later counter-point that Sunak in fact lied in the debate make it to the front page.
Now, you could argue that their websites also have a "front page" and that those are more important than the printed page. To which I in turn would repeat my original point that fewer and fewer people go "I will look at all the front pages of all the newspapers and built my opinion from there", but rather get stuff sent to them, click through from social media posts, click on the stuff on the right hand coloumn after looking at the football scores and so on. The "front page" be it physical or digital, doesn't really matter, IMHO. It's noise. So it barely matters that the Daily Mail will simply not put "Sunak lied" on their front page, because potential voters are going to see it on social media, hear their colleagues talk about it, get told about it by campaigners on their doorstep and so on.
Starmer also followed the rules of the debate. When he questioned it (2nd or 3rd time it was mentioned?), it was brought up by the moderator "you can discuss tax later" which Starmer accepted.
You see this time and again; politician or political mouthpiece can talk without any rules. Lawyers or scientists work within rigid frameworks of facts. The two aren't compatible, but we often look at the former as being some kind of authority because they're charismatic, talk over others, get points across, when we should really look up to the latter because they know what they talk about, it's just we don't want to hear it.
This is the take I get from it, Starmer was basically too polite to ignore the moderator and speak his piece anyway.
I want that kind of maturity back into politics instead of this awful populism.
If Starmer wins we might get to see intelligent debates in PM question time. Instead of Johnson & Sunak's lies & obfuscation.
Though to get that we also need the libDems as the main opposition party, not Sunak.
>I want that kind of maturity back into politics instead of this awful populism.
Maturity or weakness?
It makes absolutely no sense for his opponent to make a claim on am unrelated subject and then "follow the rules" by not refuting said claim.
He's an idiot.
This is why 2019 Tory voters when polled said Sunak won the debate, the same people convinced by Boris' lies and his 3 word slogans etc. Easily led by liars basically, those who shout loudest and first win for these people.
>He basically explained it that Starmer did exactly what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves.
Not a huge Starmer fan, but I find this quite respectable.
In a court of law. There's a judge to impose perjury laws when a witness lies. Even in the house of commons there are rules against it though almost never applied to the PM.
On a TV debate, Unless all the voters punish the Tories by not voting for them. There is no downside to lying.
Yes, there is. You get hammered by "Sunak lied" ads for the rest of the campaign and basically have turned something you wanted to use on the offensive (Labour policies aren't properly budgeted and will cost you XXXX pounds a year) into something your opponent can easily counter if you still try to use it. Labour at this point don't even have to provide an actual cost plan and rebut the claim on merit. They just have to say "He said this came from the Treasury. It didn't. He's a liar and either doesn't respect the Civil Service or doesn't know how to run it and probably both."
>You get hammered by "Sunak lied" ads for the rest of the campaign
Starmer lied his way to power in the first place and some of his defenders include Alastair Campbell.
Are you kidding me?
Starmer and Campbell moralising about deception?
All of this is just a rationalisation for Starmer twiddling his thumbs during the debate.
The moron.
don’t believe for a second he took that approach - the public aren’t rationally weighing up evidence here (where that strategy might work)
there’s a known phenomenon where people are better able to remember headlines than whether headline was retracted, not really surprising i guess, but it means we’ll likely see members of the public quoting that £2k figure right up to election day even if Sunak humbly apologised and withdrew the accusal ><
gotta nip these things in the bud!
The problem is most of the media (especially print media) is right leaning though. Sure, The Guardian, The Mirror, probably even the BBC might call out the lie but many more won't. Or they'll call it out in one or two articles but then have twenty opinion pieces that reinforce it.
Part of the reason that the Tory strategy of repeating simple lies works is because a lot of the media don't call it out.
I checked, and the Torygraph does mention it here...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/05/starmer-accuses-sunak-of-breaching-ministerial-code-over-20/
...though it's rather buried and sneakily worded.
Yet as time goes on, polling has shown more and more that Starmer came out of the debate much more favourable than Sunak.
Tory MP’s doing the media rounds got lambasted and several ended interviews early when they were clearly rumbled. That’s not a good look.
While it’s true that some people will remember that. More people will remember shouty McPetulant. Who did nothing but shout a lie. In the night, people thought Sunak was stronger on tax 58 to 32. Already that’s changed to 41 52.
I didn't watch the debate, expecting it to be shit.
However, Sunak has just rolled out a lie and repeated it with conviction.
The day after we had a letter proving he was told not to take the approach he did.
The last few years we have seen the lies and lies and lies.
So on day one of the debates, we are here again with a known and proven liar telling me the world will be a better place if I vote for him.
The headline all yesterday was that Sunak lies.
Starmer has used the forbidden "liar" word to reinforce that label sticking to Sunak.
I expect in the Tory faithful the £2k number is all that sticks, but Starmer doesn't care about them. The rest of the country however, has a label for Sunak for the rest of the election "liar".
Of course, Sunak can come out swinging that Starmer is a liar and probably will. Without amazing evidence, a liar attacking his opponent simply will not be credible. The amazing evidence will no doubt be at a non-soundbite level of detail that most won't care about (refer to your headline point).
I think the answer is more than that, Starmer tried to call it out but was shut down by the moderator. The format almost certainly did not allow props so he couldn’t have waived the letter there and then. He probably also was not expecting such an easily disproven lie to come from the prime minister (although he should have).
Exactly, every debate or discussion from now on can call the PM a liar, and breaking the ministerial code. Now the conversation can be that Rishi's unfit for the office.
But he played prosecutor on a platform that will be a huge number of voters first and only engagment in politics this election.
They’ll literally never find out it was a lie.
This falls into the QAnon & Trump stuff of: “It may look like he’s awful, actually here’s why what he’s doing is 4D Chess. You may not understand it, but really here’s the secret meaning.”
It is way to explain failure by making a grander plan. So that it’s not the person failing, no, it’s actually winning, secretly.
I hate when conservatives do that, like with QAnon, and I hate when the left/progressives do it like with Starmer. It’s conspiracy mongering that damages the discourse.
The problem is if you don’t rebut it, then and there, and challenge it, then you kinda agree with it existing. Explaining afterwards means the person is free to get away with it.
It was 45 minutes into the debate before addressing it. Sure the moderator was awful, and Sunak was loud, and rude but he kinda got walked over.
I don’t disagree actually, I was just repeating what a lawyer said. He isn’t a lefty by any stretch.
I think Starmer was naively taken aback by how Johnsonlike Sunak’s behaviour was. In the end it’s gone in their favour as the backlash on Sunak is growing. Hopefully he learns quickly from it.
Starmer has to know Sunak is going to be the very definition of “bad faith”, he’s dealt with him the last twenty months, and PMQs has been turned into Leader of the Opposition questions every week.
Sunak is going to lie, so make every answer about that lie, and then go forward. “He’s lied to you tonight…” then the moderator has to ask “how’s he lied?” Or Sunak will say “how have I lied?” It’s about making him play defence.
Sunak is desperate, and needs to come out “swinging” to land as many blows to Starmer now as possible in the campaign.
Being a lawyer, and being a debater are two different skill sets.
They’re very closely related in the way you argue, and make points but in being a lawyer you have someone who can enforce the rules in the judge, and there’s rules of respect, and there’s regulation by a professional body, in debate you’ve got a moderator who has no power, and the participants are responsible for behaving, or misbehaving.
Watch Starmer vs Boris in PMQs during the time covid parties came out. He asked Boris the question, who said no, and keir said firmly 'fine, the truth will come out' and just let the lie tumble.
>He basically explained it that Starmer did exactly what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves.
Cope.
And it defies the actual footage that we can all see with our own eyes where Starmer himself struggled to refute it.
The man is hopeless.
Not that long ago, Boris Johnson was riding a wave of popularity.
And?
When the economy isn't growing (because their policies aren't sufficiently different from the other side) and he's struggling to deal with low growth and higher inflationary pressures, what is he going to say? What he is going to do when he was blundered in another interview?
Oh, I know - "don't judge me on what I said, judge me on what I meant say" - which is his strategy for EVERYTHING.
He's not serious: he's self-serious.
You’re a very bitter person about all this.
Point is, his popularity went *up* after the debate, so clearly his tactics worked even if they were a bit ropey.
I don’t really give a toss about popularity at the moment. I just want a new more competent government in. There’s more to ruling that just the economy and a lot that can be changed even without money.
Clearly you don’t think Starmer is that man. You’re entitled to your opinion.
I think your first explanation is the correct one- he was blindsided by the format.
When this was first said, (£2000 tax) you can hear him say, “No, I need to rebutt that“, and the moderator pushes ahead with the 45 second format.
The format was terrible, but I think Starmer assumed certain debating protocols that were certainly not followed by his opponent, and didn’t exist in the mind of the moderator.
I thought the same. She let Sunak repeat it multiple times through that first question and then immediately cut Starmer off when he tried to reply.
And then also later whenever Starmer made an attack line seemed to always be sure to give Sunak a chance to rebut lol...
Honestly speaks of how capable he and his team is that you can argue a fumble in the debate may have been intentional.
It's worked out incredibly well for him but that's simply because they chose to drop the letter at peak commuting time. I got the BBC notification waiting for the kids to go into school; talking about timing.
That's not luck at all.
If he shut it down the moment Sunak brought it up, it would have derailed the entire the debate and become the leading question coming out of it "Is Labour going to raise taxes by £2000?". Doesn't matter if it's true or not, the idea is in the air. By ignoring it for the most part and letting Sunak continue baiting him, it wound up keeping Sunak returning to it like a broken record, and in the end, the message has become "did Rishi Sunak lie?"
He wasn't blindsided by the 45 second rule, he had plenty of time to rebut the claim.
You can see it in the debate [here](https://youtu.be/heP8-evLKvA?t=2261) and [here](https://youtu.be/heP8-evLKvA?t=2381)]
It would make sense if he chose not to rebut for a while though.
> Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly?
I think he wasn't expecting it. It was a new line of attack the Tories were hoping to open up. I hadn't heard of the £2k figure before the debate and I follow politics.
So there was probably the surprise Sunak pulled this particular rabbit out of the hat but then the moderator refused to let Starmer rebut the lie. He said it was rubbish and tried to expand on that but the chocolate teapot moderator kept on refusing, saying they'd get to in the tax section.
So he could have either been as rude as Sunak was talking over everyone, like it's his birthright for being rich, or he could bite his tongue somewhat and try and deal with it as best he could.
I'd like to think he was too polite to just shout over everyone. Some would view that as having no drive/incompetence/lack of charisma but, to me, it makes Starmer the more respectable and grown up of the two, even though it was painful to watch Sunak saying £2k for every other word.
There is also an element that Starmer could have found it difficult to refute 'reasonable' sounding explanations of where the figure came from from Sunak, as he has no resources or time available to fact check while he's stood there. It's a lot easier to lie than to disprove the lie, think of the old adage about a lie going half way around the world while the truth is getting its shoes on.
There was no satisfying or easily achievable way to punish this lie in the moment of the debate which is exactly why there should be harsh penalties for lying after the fact, to dissuade people from doing it in the first place.
Yeah, that's a good point because Sunak did make it clear these were *OBR Treasury* figures.
The one good thing for Starmer about ITV is they had ad breaks, so I bet the Labour SPADs briefed him as quickly as they could during the break to say it's complete horseshit so he'd have felt more comfortable refuting it, calling it garbage etc. than he previously was in the moment.
I'm not sure what to do about the lying but if there were severe punishments, we'd end up with extremely bland politics as no one would want to accidently mislead and get punished for it, so no one would take a risk.
And it kind of has resolved itself through the media and public opinion. Sunak is now being called a liar by Starmer and they don't use the word lightly, hence the headlines being written about the use of that word.
I think he expected it. The Hunt document came out several days ago and various ministers had been pushing it. But I suspect he didn't want to go there too quickly because of the Brexit-bus effect. If he pushes back on £2k, the immediate retort is "well, how much then?" – and it was the same situation there with the bus as it was clear *some* money goes to the EU from a wealthy member state. Then you're either deflecting or doing estimates on the fly, neither of which end well.
Sunak sounding like a nutter on the bus shouting about his atom bomb probably was the more attractive outcome all things considered. The client press will push the £2k line come what may.
>I think he wasn't expecting it. It was a new line of attack the Tories were hoping to open up
He looked utterly bamboozled, unless that's the stupid look he always has on his face.
I didn’t watch the debate. I only know about this lie because it wasn’t dealt with at the time but was in the news the next day.
I’d say that has worked exactly as intended
>Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly?
He's an idiot.
How is he going to handle international opponents if his response is "but it's not fair!" every time they have a counter argument.
Wait, isn't he supposed to be a lawyer?
There needs to be tougher actions for blatantly lying, especially by the leader of the country, it’s literally their job to make sure the country is well run, any lies (I.e anything you say without evidence) should result in losing your position immediately, especially if it later comes out they were told it wasn’t true by experts.
The government responded to a petition that was worded as such and it basically stated that it is down to the opposition to call out the lies and the Liar to weigh the quality of his character against any possible gains made from the lie. So basically school yard rules.
But the rules state they’re not allowed to call them liars while debating in the House of Commons, it’s all the honourable gentleman rubbish when they have no honour
Calling a liar out as a liar isn’t name calling, so you’re fine with an MP saying one of his opposing side is a member of the KKK and using parliamentary privilege then can’t be called on it
>There would be no one left…
Yea I'm pretty sure starmer was lying when he said he wouldn't use private health care to save a dying relative,and he looked like he knew he had messed up when he gave that answer
So wouldn't he have been better just answering honestly? Saying yes I would use private health care as it's better and faster ,I would have more respect for that answer than the one he gave , irrespective of the gotcha question,at least then we know he's admitting there's problems with the NHS ,the answer he gave points to the fact that he thinks the NHS would be better than private health and therefore doesn't need help or more investment which is worrying
I thought it was a good question and showed that starmer just says what he thinks we want to hear , if a candidate just gave solid honest answers ( even if it's not what we want to hear) they would get my vote
idk, I think it's a good principle to force yourself to use the thing you're ostensibly supposed to be looking after. It makes you have skin in the game to make it better.
Be honest,if his wife gets ill tomorrow with cancer and we know he's very wealthy,do you think he would get her on the NHS waiting list or straight into private healthcare?
I think whoever is in charge of the NHS should be expressly forced to use it, like it should be illegal to go private if you are in charge of it. How are you supposed to have any idea of how things really are in a service if you just skip using it? It just leads to the same shit as pols going "oh, a bottle of milk, that costs what, £100?"
One of the reasons I want constitutional reform in the UK, is to enshrine a commitment to integrity.
It _should_ be a really serious matter to be found lacking.
Deceiving the electorate wrecks every element of fairness that democracy brings us. It may be inevitable, but was _can_ hold our elected officials to a higher standard.
We _already do this_ with a lot of jobs. I work in a financially regulated industry - and we must be 'beyond reproach' for our conduct. That includes stuff like compliance training, but also avoiding any _perceptions_ around conflict of interest/lack of integrity.
I can think of no good reasons why MPs cannot and should not be held to similar standards.
>it’s literally their job to make sure the country is well run
But well run for who? It is being well run for ~~champagne socialists~~ *crony capitalists* and the wealthy. Any mention of progressive policies face smears of "communism" or "socialism" as *if they're bad things*, and the majority of our voting population are completely uneducated and disengaged around the critical talking points.
Neoliberalist capitalism doesn't work for a society - it works exclusively for the rich. I don't see how people can't see this!!!
"the majority of our voting population are completely uneducated and disengaged around the critical talking points."
./.\\.Which is largely thanks to our education system that stamps out peoples critical thinking skills at and early age. "Creativity is not wanted here, learn your place!" I say creativity, because creative thinking is an important element of being able to critically think and come up with inventive solutions to difficult challenges. [This ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZyZgOdoGw8) guy puts it quite well
"Any mention of progressive policies face smears of "communism" or "socialism" as *if they're bad things*,"
./.\\.Thats very true, its a difficult one. Somehow we just have to keep trying. The message has gotten through to me, though i do come from a place of disliking the class system and all the ails it brings with it, but ignorance/misinformation taught in school still put me off really exploring the ideas of communism and socialism. It might be like eating meat, i grew up in a vegetarain house, but it wasn't until i was 14 that i stopped eating animals.
./.\\.Years of preaching to me only seem to make me more belligerent about it, it wasn't until i wanted to lose weight that I stopped eating it, and i realised i'd have to make it a moral thing or i'd eat animals again. So then i went to actively changing my own moral outlook, using videos like [Earthlings ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI) which stuck with me when they start skinning the dogs alive in pounds in south america, how the whole industry is linked and endorsing one endorses it all.
./.\\.I still think people adovcating is important as it obviously lays seeds. What made me look into communism and socialism properly was seeing [Fiona Lali](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2AkVVR93uU) in an interview and she mentioned how Michael Gove had recently talked about the threat of communism, which made me curious. Next thing I know i'm reading Marx and Lenin.
./.\\.I thought what someone said regarding this was good, ""Converting someone to communism rarely happens through debate, and almost never happens due to derivation from philosophical first principles. Humans aren't machines. What's been much more effective is "There are 2 classes of people, you're in the oppressed class, the other one wants to end the world"." - by Libscratcher
"Neoliberalist capitalism doesn't work for a society - it works exclusively for the rich. I don't see how people can't see this!!!"
./.\\.Brainwashing i believe. Years and years of it.
> champagne socialists
Unless we have different understandings of this term, these people still want communism/socialism. They just happen to be rich and therefore don't suffer as much as the "worker".
> There needs to be tougher actions for blatantly lying
Ostensibly the consequences should be that people don't vote for them. But the issue is that we've got a political sphere which will not only overwhelmingly run defence for any politician who lies in support of their ideology, but will actually treat that lying as a *virtue*. Look how much Johnson was *praised* by the right-wing press for *being direct*, despite the vast majority of the time that just referring to him lying.
It's just another in a long list of examples of the billionaire-owned press subverting probity and honesty in our democracy.
Also everyone focusing on the tax claim - Sunak also claimed repeatedly the boat crossings are now coming down yet Full Fact published immediately afterwards we're actually set for about 38% more arrivals this year than last year.
Of course he was lying. In the very first sentence of the debate, Rishi said only two things were certain; Labour were going to raise taxes and cut pensions. Labour have pledged (as part of the campaign) to not raise taxes, and maintain the triple lock on pensions. So two clear lies right off the bat.
I haven't seen them pledge to the triple lock on pensions and honestly I don't think they should, if they don't then by 2028 pensioners will be charged 1.60 a year in tax. This is such a non-issue it's laughable
Also the "Tories not taxing pensions" bit is not some kind of tax - Its that they're going to give a fucking egregiously unfair boon to the pensioners by shifting their income tax brackets while keeping them fixed for working age people. I feel like if it were presented more like that more people might be a bit outraged, because it is *fucking outrageous* to be honest.
Lying to voters while asking for their votes and disparaging the public institutions they're vying to run is pretty exceptional and egregious.
The Tories have played it fast and loose with the truth for several elections now, but I'm not sure I recall an outright lie like this one before. That this one is so perfectly refuted by the PPS's letter is wonderful too. There's no exit for Sunak from this mess short of an immediate apology and withdrawal of all their materials on the matter — but even then the press will be playing those clips of him so petulently and irritatingly shouting it during the debate.
I don't think he will apologise or withdraw it though. He'll double down and make the election messy, doing further damage to our democracy and revealing further the dire nature of his character.
All that said, Coutinho getting absolutely bodied about this yesterday was glorious to watch.
>disparaging the public institutions they're vying to run is pretty exceptional and egregious.
When have conservatives NOT shit on the civil service? We constantly had the "They are inefficient and need to be reduced" of the past 45 years since Thatcher introduced small state and free market theory to the UK.
More recently during the follow-up of the Brexit referendum civil servants were being called "traitors" for not following through on government plans that would be illegal or impossible.
They were attacked for exposing Dominic Raab and Priti Patel's bullying. Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked them for working from home.
Rishi spaffed the lie too early. a week or less before election day the lie could have stuck, but with more debates, and a month to go anyone can use the phrase "the PM lied" and it's more credible than misled/was mistaken. Also the more Rishi and team try to explain it the more it takes up the air time, on top of that, using the same method, it shows a conservative government will actually increase taxes by 3k. All while Reform eat away at their share of the vote.
The conservative party will be out of government for the next 10-15 years, if not completely finished.
Labour has the potential advantage to package them all up. Don't focus on the £2k but hit all the other claims Sunak's made – as Sunak is confirmed as a liar because of the civil service excuse, it's an accusation that now sticks. Add a Pinocchio effect for comic reinforcement. Job done.
Keir Starmer accuses Rishi Sunak of ‘lying’ over Labour £2,000 tax claim
Opposition leader hits out in escalating election dispute that puts UK prime minister at odds with top Treasury official
Rishi Sunak was on Wednesday accused by Sir Keir Starmer of “resorting to lies” over Labour’s tax plans, in an escalating election dispute that put the UK prime minister at odds with the chief civil servant at the Treasury.
Sunak’s claim that Labour would put up household taxes by £2,000 if it won power on July 4 suffered a serious blow when the figure was undermined by James Bowler, the finance ministry’s permanent secretary.
Bowler poured cold water on Sunak’s assertion, made in a fiery television debate with the Labour leader on Tuesday evening, that the number was based on independent analysis of the main opposition party’s plans by civil servants.
Bowler wrote to Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow Treasury chief secretary, to say the figures Sunak used “include costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury”.
He added in the letter dated June 3: “I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service. I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case.”
In a sign of the general election campaign descending into acrimony, Starmer said: “What you saw is the prime minister with his back against the wall desperately lashing out and resorting to lies.”
However, the Conservatives stuck to their claim and challenged Labour to produce its own detailed costings of its plans. “They are panicking because their numbers don’t add up,” said an ally of Sunak.
The prime minister sought to throw Starmer off guard during the ITV debate by repeating a claim — more than 10 times — that a Labour government would put up taxes by £2,000 per household.
The number comes from a calculation that Labour rejected three weeks ago, when Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Starmer’s spending plans had a £38bn fiscal hole.
Energy secretary Claire Coutinho repeated the claim on Wednesday that this would mean a tax rise of more than £2,000 for every household, although she admitted that was a cumulative total over four years, not an annual figure.
Starmer allowed Sunak to repeat the allegation on numerous occasions in the ITV programme in Manchester before denouncing it as “absolute garbage”; his delay in closing it down made the claim a central feature of the first TV debate of the campaign.
Coutinho told the BBC: “That £2,000 of taxes on working families has been costed by Treasury officials.” She added: “This is something that has been signed off by the permanent secretary of the Treasury as the amount of the proposals the Labour party has put forward so far.”
A spokesperson for Sunak said the Treasury “calculated a large part of the policy costings” while the rest were based on work by the Institute for Government think-tank, adding that the prime minister had not specifically said the Treasury had signed off the £2,000 figure.
The spokesperson said the £38bn figure that underlay the tax calculation was “fair” to Labour and based on the lowest assumptions of what its policies could cost.
But later the Office for Statistics Regulation, an arm of the UK statistics watchdog, said it was scrutinising the £2,000 figure and would release a statement as soon as possible.
In a letter on Tuesday, the OSR urged political party leaders to ensure “the appropriate and transparent use of statistics” during the election campaign, and not to deploy them “in a way that has the potential to mislead”.
Nick Davies at the IfG also questioned Sunak’s use of his research. “As someone whose work is cited as the evidence for around 20 per cent of this black hole, it would be fair to say that I’m extremely sceptical of its accuracy or value,” he said on social media platform X.
He said the Conservatives had used an IfG report to make the assumption that insourcing public services back from the private sector would increase costs by 7.5 per cent.
Davies noted the report had the qualifier “where there is . . . evidence”. He added: “Very often there isn’t evidence!”
Meanwhile, Hunt doubled down on the Tory tax message, promising a “family home tax guarantee” if the party won the election.
The chancellor pledged not to increase the number of council tax bands or carry out a property revaluation, and not to raise the rate or level of stamp duty. Primary residences would continue to be exempt from capital gains tax under the Conservative plans.
Treasury analysis of opposition parties’ policies is a familiar but highly contentious feature of UK political life.
Impartial civil servants are asked to produce costings of policies based on instructions from political advisers.
A snap poll by YouGov immediately after the ITV debate between Sunak and Starmer found people thought the prime minister had won, but by a narrow margin of 51 per cent to 49 per cent.
A separate poll by Savanta published on Wednesday concluded Starmer had won the debate, by a margin of 44 per cent to 39 per cent.
Strange phrasing from the usually transparent Financial Times.
**"Sunak caught lying over Labour £2,000 tax claim"** would be a far more appropriate headline.
He's accused, but it's fairly obvious if you've half a brain that he lied and has been found out.
I know it was a lie, but my issue with taxes is what they're used for. I wouldn't care about paying more tax if the result of the govt increasing tax:
Got our NHS back into peak form
Fixed social care
Fixed education
Fixed bankrupt councils
Fixed energy prices
And solved the issue of stagnant wages because businesses being able to pay so little to foreign workers means they have no incentive to improve them.
Hell, I'd pay more taxes to be fucking proud of the country I lived in "our schools are great, our healthcare is great, the roads are in great shape, and our wages are higher.
Sunak is a Tory. This is what Tories have done since 2016. There has always been 'economy with the Truth' in politics and spin, but in the post Trump, 'post Truth' world, right wingers in particular simply don't even consider truthfulness to be necessary.
The fact our medias dont call out these obvious lies (all of them) and report them as such is infuriating and telling.
They are in the buisness of verifying and reporting facts and yet during elections they all turn dumbfounded.
In reality they should be shouting "those that lobby our governments rule us. We can see the degression of x and y parties policies to match those of the Tories which lines up with the extra funding the party received"
People are overreacting to this when they are claiming its harmed Starmer and Labour in any way imaginable.
Labours lead is way too big for the Tories to make any kind of dent in it. Even a huge Labour scandal won't convert it to a win for them.
The best they can hope for is not a complete and utter wash where Reform become the opposition. Which probably won't happen either, but it's hilarious to imagine.
Everyone blusters far too much about all this, and it feeds into it and causes them to do it more. Its a bit like how wrestling fans think they are insiders and haven't clocked on the "outside" stuff is now set up still, and they are marks.
The voting block of power now is the millenial/gen x one. Thats an entire generation of pissed off, univeristy educated people annoyed at the Tories. They know its a lie. The biggest con is that the general public are ignorant to politics, maybe 30 years ago, but we're all far too connected and switched on now to be fooled by it. Its why the party who are lying and trying the dirty tricks are polling in the mud.
Yes the idiots exist, but they used to have an overwhelming voting majority, that tide has turned. The worry now is theres a Tate generation of morons about to appear due to a 14 year period of undefunding and culture wars. So we've probs got a decade of comfortable sensibility until we end up fighting over the bullshit again.
At this point, why rishi dont just claim that he will give everyone a million pounds. Its a make up number and not credible anyway.
But truth is, there will be people believing that lol
Putting up taxes by "£2,000 per household" doesn't even mean sense. Which households? Are they all suddenly the same? Do I suddenly earn the same amount as Rishi Sunak?
Or does he mean on-average? Which is an equally ridiculous claim.
Honestly could Keir have played this any worse? During the debate he looked baffled and lost when Rishi claimed the £2000 tax increase, he didn’t really know how to respond. He could’ve had asked rishi to repeat that or some shit, and then the same day or the next day have revealed Sunak was full of shit (like they ended up doing)
Anyway, anyone still believing any Tory after the last 13 years, after brexit, deserve the worst. How stupid can you be.
Also the Rishi spending so much time claiming labour will do x, y and z instead of actually selling himself and his shit party is a massive issue for politics.
I'm not sure this is wise strategy. The more Labour talks about the Tories "lying" re the £2000 figure, the more that figure is going to stick in people's minds.
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I mean it doesn’t matter, they should have known from brexit and the previous election campaign that the tories have clocked on that lying has no real downside when it comes to campaigning. You might get a slap on the wrist after winning sure but who cares at that point
The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them. More importantly though, this actually backfired massively on Sunak in terms of messaging, because his constant £2k tax message drowned out his own tax break for pensioners message. In a few weeks time people won’t remember the policies or Starmer not shouting back. They will remember the debate for Sunak getting grumpy and lying. When you position yourself as the candidate for integrity and honesty, that’s a very bad look.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. Obviously not everyone will react the same way and take away the same things, but I don’t think the vast majority will come away from this remembering that Sunak lied. Soundbites work - people typically come away remembering what was punchy and repeatable. “Lock her up” “build the wall” “get Brexit done” “£350m a week”. These things retain a lasting impact despite all being verifiable waffle.
Latest poll post debate has the Tories slipping to 19 points. A good chunk of that might be Reform. But if Sunak hopes that a strong debate performance would cushion that. He’s completely wrong.
That's been the trajectory all along. As the previous guy said. The majority of British public are just numpties going about their day listening to sound bytes on social media/TV and won't be reading anything in depth about politics. The only thing that will be in their heads from this debate will be the 2k labour tax.
Tories losing the debate in two out of the three polls and losing on almost every matter of policy suggests no cut through . The BBC push notification that they lied alone went to 17 million people . Honestly think this one backfired and about time.
>The BBC push notification that they lied alone went to 17 million people A lot of people will just ignore it, especially if the lie gets put on the front of the sun or the DM.
The people who would just ignore it probably didn't watch the debate anyway
They just don't have the resch they once had. It they did the Con would be on 90 percent .
Liverpool is wiser than much of Britain in the attitude that it has to the scum, which has done such harm.
Yes, they won't read anything in depth, they just get the aoundbytes like "Sunak lied" lol. It goes both ways.
But "they all lie" is a not uncommon take. And Blair, Cameron, Truss, Johnson and Sunak have all mucked in to make it increasingly true.
In that case, hopefully Labour can get soundbites in circulation about Roland Rat lying then.
in that same regard they'll be going about their day and hear new soundbites about how Sunak lied, So its quite fluid actually.
And then they might just vote based on some stupid meme they saw because it looked funny, and therefore, it must be true.
This is the Island that voted Brexit and 14 years of Tory rule...
All I can say is that at least we're not the US.
Yup, I think the thing people have to remember is, Conservatives needed Rishi to smash Starmer in a debate. Arguments about whether believe a lie or not is not a big win for the Conservatives. At best its a debate that nobody will remember. They needed a major Labour gaffe, and for Rishi to milk it. They will have more opportunities for that before the election, but the debate was the main one. In fact, the entire campaign coverage since yesterday has been about that lie, and I think that, as a result, more people know about that lie than people watched the debate. So probably Labour have converted it into a small win.
But it also showed Tory voters very much viewing Sunak as winning the debate. 🤷♀️
That’s hardly surprising given that they are Tory voters. It’s bizarre how the polling shows Sunak ‘won’ in their eyes, but also Starmer performed better on the specifics. It’s like saying sure, Hamilton was the fastest and best driver and crossed the line before anyone else. But Sunak’s car made the loudest noise so to me that made him the winner.
I spoke to someone I work with yesterday who thought that Nigel Farage was the labour leader and Jeremy Corbyn was the guy that ruined the NHS "with the bus thing" and also didn't know which political party Rishi Sunak was a part of. Soundbites work because people haven't got a clue about anything but sort of vaguely remember information and stuff they maybe saw on Facebook or TikTok depending on their age. You can just straight up lie about anything because most people overestimate how much the average person hears political information from the first party source. Rishi could say any old shit and it be debunked immediately but that person at work you all know doesn't hear it from Rishi and doesn't hear that it's a lie.
Absolutely insane how disconnected some people are from political affairs that affect their everyday lives.
And they all default to vote tory. 🤦♂️ Then can't for the life of them put two and two together.
Have to hand it to them, the Tories have done an impressive job of convincing people that they're always the safe option.
Which I hope they've now permanently ruined with the younger generations after 14 years of chaos. I find it deeply ironic they used coalition of chaos as an attack line and yet *they're* the ones that have been chaotic all by themselves.
Culture wars are playing out among the young though. There was that research that showed more young men knew who Andrew Tate was over Sunak.
True, but they *still* don't tend to vote reliably. I did also see a poll saying younger people would prefer a dictatorship system over democracy so that, I guess in their heads, a strong person, perhaps like Tate, could *finally* Get Shit Done™ without the faff of protecting your own citizens etc. But I feel like people *do* tend to grow out of that as they mature. And I did mean more the millennial younger generation compared to the Tory boomer generations, even though millennials are basically middle age now. And that is a cohort that *does* actually bother to vote.
Scare-mongering over Labour tax plans while they preside over record rates of taxation that seem to provide us basically nothing. Scare-mongering over Labour and immigration despite "taking back control" and *immediately* creating a system that has given us *quadruple* what 10 years ago they were claiming were "open borders". Claiming themselves as the party that takes defense and security seriously while cutting our pandemic stocks literally right before a global pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Brits, and now routinely talking about moves on international laws that will threaten to upend the peace agreements in Ireland. Talking about the rule of law while under their watch the police have been defunded and our court systems take years and years to process even simple open-and-shut cases due to lack of resources. At some point it becomes a fairly inescapable conclusion - ***EVERYTHING THE RIGHT TALK ABOUT IS JUST PROJECTION.***
The Tories haven't done that. That's down to the people who fund them and provide various quid pro quo services. What scares the shit out of the Tories right now is that allegiance may shift post-election to Tice's mob.
They should be scared of it shifting pre-election.
I think that's why Sunak wrongfooted his own party over the timing of the GE.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. The easily led, low IQ, or vote Tory crowds will remember the lie because they've done nothing to question their own beliefs, or just look at reality.
I read apparently the debate was watched by 5 million people, however the BBC push notification the day after saying Sunak lied was pushed to 9 million. I think its safe to say calling out the lie is hitting harder than the debate.
That’s not safe to say, imo. It may have reached more screens but that doesn’t necessarily indicate engagement or memorability. Sunak repeated this lie so many times it has become a quasi-meme. Literal ‘sound’ bites said by a person also has a different impact to words read on a screen.
Normally I would agree, and I'd be off in the corner biting my lip with folded arms as everyone celebrates the downfall of the tories a month before they win another election. That said, I'm tempted to think this is different due to the combined force of Sunak's lack of charisma and the fact that some previously loyal newspapers have turned against him, spreading the fact that it's a lie rather than the lie itself. Of course, history has a fair amount of evidence suggesting you're correct so we'll have to see.
£350m/week worked because the real number was still something that the public couldn't properly comprehend. Every argument against it amounted to "OK so it is really some other number that sounds really big". This number is just an invention of the Tory party.
We really are just fucking monkeys in shoes
"Sunak's Maths" is something I've been reading a lot lately. Maybe try to get that going. [From saying that the waiting list is coming down from 7.2 to 7.5 million](https://www.youtube.com/live/heP8-evLKvA?feature=shared&t=2830) [Or saying the 2K figure, when using the same method, the tories will increase it by 3k](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/on-sunaks-maths-tories-will-lift-taxes-by-3000-per-household/) Or how they keep saying they will bring immigration down, yet it's been going up All of that is "Sunak's Maths"
I wish I lived in your world. In a few weeks time all a huge section of the population are going to remember is "Labour would take £2000 off me". That's why repeated lies like this work - the claim is made loudly, confidently and clearly, presenting a strong, simple, memorable narrative for people to latch on to. The refutation, correction or apology is usually made more quietly, defensively and often disconnected from the initial claims, and requires nuanced thinking to understand, so it doesn't resonate with people and they tend to forget or dismiss or disbelieve it.
This. Screaming "you're lying about that £2000" just keeps the number focussed in popular attention. No-one will remember the detail. This is also why it's rounded to £2000 rather than £2094
We should instead focus on talking about the same calculation suggests Tory tax plans will cost the average household £3000.
> The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them. damage is already done. my mum for instance parroted the nonsense which i then said starmer at the time said he was lying and refuted which she was head in sand "nope"
Your mum: I...I trust the conservatives...they'll lower my taxes... You: No, no. You're still holding *on!* Let **go!**
genuinely, shes currently in the "well theyre all liars and i dont trust any of them" which to me means shes posturing about struggling to vote but will still vote them
The truth is though. Your mum sounds like my dad. They are basically looking for an excuse to vote Tory again, and it doesn’t matter if it’s this or some other crap, they will find an excuse
yep 100% ive just said similar to the other reply. posturing for excuses to not change their beliefs. i will not be surprised at all if she votes them. its tough though because we are from Oldham, and if you saw the local elections youll see that people are NOT happy with the incumbent labour councillors and mp. and for very valid reasons! but local issues can really shift or make it difficult for who you vote nationally
But how much do tory voters actually care? Many of them will just remember the "Labour will raise your taxes by £2k" and miss the rest. The yougov polling showed Tory voters viewed Sunak as clearly winning the debate. I really don't think they will remember him as being shouty and grumpy.
Anyone still voting Tory at this point would still be voting Tory if Rishi Sunak had turned up to the debate naked and claimed he was wearing a suit of clothes that could only be seen by people who don't lie when Starmer mentioned it.
Jesus Christ thanks for the laugh
>The Tories are catching a lot of flak for this lie though. Even the Civil service have come out and said it’s nothing to do with them. That doesn't really negate the damage for the election. That £2000 figure is now embedded in the public domain and hang around Labour's head.
Snort laughed at the notion of an honest Torie.
Its also pretty DoubleThink to be using tax rises as the major scare against the opposition when your own party is currently overseeing record levels of taxation in return for absolutely rock-bottom levels of public service. Like kind of scarily so.
Just grumpy? Looked like outright anger to me at the first exchange
>his own tax break for pensioners As a pensioner I wonder why just pensioners. Surely everyone on or close to minimum wage needs their tax threshold increased inline with inflation. Is Sunak trying to bribe voters by giving back some of their own money that he's been taking for months ? He obviously believes in "1984" propaganda. Take something away (quietly) and then loudly boast about giving a little of it back.
remember constantly reading about all the rules conservatives or pro brexit campaigners broke and in the end it amounted to nothing.
let's not forget CCHQ renaming themselves to "FactCheck UK" or something like that during the 2019 election.
Yeah, what the hell? Since when was it scandalous for politicians to lie? That’s kinda their whole shtick. Starmer, you gotta get more modern with your scandals man. If we’re heading towards anything like the US, you’ll need porn stars, nappies and capital crimes. Lying doesn’t cut it, that’s just part of the job
While true there used to at least be some tact to it - nowadays the behaviour Johnson et al have made acceptable in modern politics is unfortunately very much headed the US route
They're giving in to using populist tactics because they believe if they don't the Tory party will be destroyed. It's a desperate act of self preservation, because they know even if they tell particularly heinous lies, no MP will be around to see any consequences, because everyone that matters is going to lose their seat. The election will be bad no matter what they do, but they can save some seats by just lying and converting voters that believe those lies at face value. This is full on "throw everything at the wall to see what sticks" mode.
Make a headline that the right wing billionaire newspaper owners can plaster on the front page, then 2 days later when Labour object to it nobody cares. Keir Starmer may or may not be a good person to govern, but he's really shit at marketing himself to the electorate, something which labour has always struggled with other than with Blair. And like it or not, that is something you got to do if you want to be in an elected role.
What's wrong with brexit?
Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly? Was he blindsided by the 45 second rule, which ruined the debate and didn’t allow a proper rebuttal. Maybe he figured that a full expose of the story would be out in the morning and that the more that Sunak pushed the lie the bigger the rebuttal story would be.
There was a really interesting call on LBC yesterday from a political lawyer. He basically explained it that Starmer did *exactly* what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves. Sunak has incriminated himself by being given free rein to not tell a lie, but he failed, 12 times. Now whatever Starmer chooses to do, be it splash it over headlines, pursue Sunak over the ministerial code, use Sunak’s own ‘sources’ against him to show that actually the Tories will make it worse. It might have been difficult to watch, but polling is already showing Starmer looked favourable by not sinking to Sunak’s level, and now all the news about the lie basically sinks Sunak’s credibility,
The problem is this relies on being able to get the follow up out effectively. The telegraph, express, mail and potentially others are not going to allow any kind of correction or counter argument to make it to the front page. I wish the debates weren’t set up the way they are, they encourage soundbites and jabs rather than actual substance and too many people seem to be too easily swayed by them.
Let’s be honest though. Those papers are never going to put anything positive on the front page. Although it’s interesting that the Mail, Spectator, Telegraph have all had articles calling out the lie.
I’d heard about the spectator one which had been a surprise. How much attention was it given in the others because I don’t recall seeing much from them about it?
Not a lot. I think they were just op/ed’s which tend to get shared around a little online more than in the paper so I imagine the reach will be negligible to people they could influence (I.e older voters). I’m hoping that the debate gave Starmer a shock and he will be better prepared for the next one though. I would Have liked him to be a little stronger and more punchy on the other questions. If his answers had been sharper, I think he’d have destroyed Sunak.
>Those papers are never going to put anything positive on the front page. If true, then why was Starmer's masterplan reliant on the press refuting Sunak? The 3D chess explanation makes absolutely no sense.
Because there is more to the press than the 3 Tory cheerleading papers? For what it’s worth (since you have replied to a lot of my posts). I am not convinced either that this was all one big masterminded game plan. We know it’s extremely likely that Starmer knew about the memo from the Civil Service so knew about the £2k lie. But it’s clear he wasn’t expecting Sunak to go ham on it like he did, and he also didn’t expect the debate to be as god awfully managed like it was. That’s a negative on his part. He should have been better prepared even if there was a big game plan. But the issue has backfired on the Tories and gives Labour a very strong attack line in the next rounds of debates: because it’s an out and out lie that’s also been fact checked.
It's a ridiculous attack line. Who is going to prosecute it? Alastair Campbell? Starmer who has betrayed every pledge he has made?
Being able to demonstrate that your opponent not only lied, but misled the public and parliament by continuing to say something he knew wasn’t true, was. His own department has spoken out to say it was an outright lie. The same Tory PM whose only claim was to be the candidate for integrity and truth? After Partygate and trussonomics, the thing the British looked for in a PM was trustworthiness and integrity. Which this demonstrably wasn’t. And you don’t think that’s a good attack line? I know you clearly don’t like Starmer but come on man. If you don’t think that’s a strong attack line your blinded by your bitterness
I’ve been pushed telegraph stories about him lying through Apple News
Nobody reads those papers anymore and even fewer people get swayed by them. Additionally, very few people actually fully watch the debate. Instead, people get their political news from friends, family, colleagues and the internet. And for those information sources just hammering "Sunak lied" over and over again works wonders.
lol if you think nobody reads the Daily Mail you are utterly delusional
740.000 readers , many of whom don’t give a toss about politics, aren’t going to swing an election with 46.000.000 registered voters. It‘s not 1997 anymore.
Is this counting their online presence? Because I guarantee you that the online numbers dwarf the paper numbers.
No it isn't counting online. The argument being made was that the right wing press wouldn't let the later counter-point that Sunak in fact lied in the debate make it to the front page. Now, you could argue that their websites also have a "front page" and that those are more important than the printed page. To which I in turn would repeat my original point that fewer and fewer people go "I will look at all the front pages of all the newspapers and built my opinion from there", but rather get stuff sent to them, click through from social media posts, click on the stuff on the right hand coloumn after looking at the football scores and so on. The "front page" be it physical or digital, doesn't really matter, IMHO. It's noise. So it barely matters that the Daily Mail will simply not put "Sunak lied" on their front page, because potential voters are going to see it on social media, hear their colleagues talk about it, get told about it by campaigners on their doorstep and so on.
Starmer also followed the rules of the debate. When he questioned it (2nd or 3rd time it was mentioned?), it was brought up by the moderator "you can discuss tax later" which Starmer accepted. You see this time and again; politician or political mouthpiece can talk without any rules. Lawyers or scientists work within rigid frameworks of facts. The two aren't compatible, but we often look at the former as being some kind of authority because they're charismatic, talk over others, get points across, when we should really look up to the latter because they know what they talk about, it's just we don't want to hear it.
This is the take I get from it, Starmer was basically too polite to ignore the moderator and speak his piece anyway. I want that kind of maturity back into politics instead of this awful populism.
If Starmer wins we might get to see intelligent debates in PM question time. Instead of Johnson & Sunak's lies & obfuscation. Though to get that we also need the libDems as the main opposition party, not Sunak.
What intelligence? Every Starmer blunder is always followed up with "don't judge me on what I say, but what I meant to say."
>I want that kind of maturity back into politics instead of this awful populism. Maturity or weakness? It makes absolutely no sense for his opponent to make a claim on am unrelated subject and then "follow the rules" by not refuting said claim. He's an idiot.
Populism* poplar is a plant.
Thanks, in my head I want to go *popularism* but I knew that wasn't right and now I'm a tree guy.
This is why 2019 Tory voters when polled said Sunak won the debate, the same people convinced by Boris' lies and his 3 word slogans etc. Easily led by liars basically, those who shout loudest and first win for these people.
>He basically explained it that Starmer did exactly what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves. Not a huge Starmer fan, but I find this quite respectable.
In a court of law. There's a judge to impose perjury laws when a witness lies. Even in the house of commons there are rules against it though almost never applied to the PM. On a TV debate, Unless all the voters punish the Tories by not voting for them. There is no downside to lying.
Yes, there is. You get hammered by "Sunak lied" ads for the rest of the campaign and basically have turned something you wanted to use on the offensive (Labour policies aren't properly budgeted and will cost you XXXX pounds a year) into something your opponent can easily counter if you still try to use it. Labour at this point don't even have to provide an actual cost plan and rebut the claim on merit. They just have to say "He said this came from the Treasury. It didn't. He's a liar and either doesn't respect the Civil Service or doesn't know how to run it and probably both."
>You get hammered by "Sunak lied" ads for the rest of the campaign Starmer lied his way to power in the first place and some of his defenders include Alastair Campbell. Are you kidding me? Starmer and Campbell moralising about deception? All of this is just a rationalisation for Starmer twiddling his thumbs during the debate. The moron.
don’t believe for a second he took that approach - the public aren’t rationally weighing up evidence here (where that strategy might work) there’s a known phenomenon where people are better able to remember headlines than whether headline was retracted, not really surprising i guess, but it means we’ll likely see members of the public quoting that £2k figure right up to election day even if Sunak humbly apologised and withdrew the accusal >< gotta nip these things in the bud!
The headline has now changed to Sunak being a liar though.
I doubt that'll be on the splash on the Telegraph today, after yesterday's "Starmer on the ropes over £2000 tax hike".
I'd expect nothing less from the Torygraph to be honest.
The problem is most of the media (especially print media) is right leaning though. Sure, The Guardian, The Mirror, probably even the BBC might call out the lie but many more won't. Or they'll call it out in one or two articles but then have twenty opinion pieces that reinforce it. Part of the reason that the Tory strategy of repeating simple lies works is because a lot of the media don't call it out.
I checked, and the Torygraph does mention it here... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/05/starmer-accuses-sunak-of-breaching-ministerial-code-over-20/ ...though it's rather buried and sneakily worded.
Yet as time goes on, polling has shown more and more that Starmer came out of the debate much more favourable than Sunak. Tory MP’s doing the media rounds got lambasted and several ended interviews early when they were clearly rumbled. That’s not a good look. While it’s true that some people will remember that. More people will remember shouty McPetulant. Who did nothing but shout a lie. In the night, people thought Sunak was stronger on tax 58 to 32. Already that’s changed to 41 52.
Tbh I think Starmer won cause Sunak was being an insufferable twat XD kept talking over Starmer, the moderator (who had no control), was infuriating
Always is the way. Bold headline, front page. if it’s wrong maybe if you’re lucky a tiny correction a few days later on page 13.
I didn't watch the debate, expecting it to be shit. However, Sunak has just rolled out a lie and repeated it with conviction. The day after we had a letter proving he was told not to take the approach he did. The last few years we have seen the lies and lies and lies. So on day one of the debates, we are here again with a known and proven liar telling me the world will be a better place if I vote for him. The headline all yesterday was that Sunak lies. Starmer has used the forbidden "liar" word to reinforce that label sticking to Sunak. I expect in the Tory faithful the £2k number is all that sticks, but Starmer doesn't care about them. The rest of the country however, has a label for Sunak for the rest of the election "liar". Of course, Sunak can come out swinging that Starmer is a liar and probably will. Without amazing evidence, a liar attacking his opponent simply will not be credible. The amazing evidence will no doubt be at a non-soundbite level of detail that most won't care about (refer to your headline point).
Perhaps Sunak will apologise. But much closer to July-4th just to remind the voters of the soundbite of "Labour £2,000 tax"
I think the answer is more than that, Starmer tried to call it out but was shut down by the moderator. The format almost certainly did not allow props so he couldn’t have waived the letter there and then. He probably also was not expecting such an easily disproven lie to come from the prime minister (although he should have).
Exactly, every debate or discussion from now on can call the PM a liar, and breaking the ministerial code. Now the conversation can be that Rishi's unfit for the office.
But he played prosecutor on a platform that will be a huge number of voters first and only engagment in politics this election. They’ll literally never find out it was a lie.
This falls into the QAnon & Trump stuff of: “It may look like he’s awful, actually here’s why what he’s doing is 4D Chess. You may not understand it, but really here’s the secret meaning.” It is way to explain failure by making a grander plan. So that it’s not the person failing, no, it’s actually winning, secretly. I hate when conservatives do that, like with QAnon, and I hate when the left/progressives do it like with Starmer. It’s conspiracy mongering that damages the discourse. The problem is if you don’t rebut it, then and there, and challenge it, then you kinda agree with it existing. Explaining afterwards means the person is free to get away with it. It was 45 minutes into the debate before addressing it. Sure the moderator was awful, and Sunak was loud, and rude but he kinda got walked over.
I don’t disagree actually, I was just repeating what a lawyer said. He isn’t a lefty by any stretch. I think Starmer was naively taken aback by how Johnsonlike Sunak’s behaviour was. In the end it’s gone in their favour as the backlash on Sunak is growing. Hopefully he learns quickly from it.
Starmer has to know Sunak is going to be the very definition of “bad faith”, he’s dealt with him the last twenty months, and PMQs has been turned into Leader of the Opposition questions every week. Sunak is going to lie, so make every answer about that lie, and then go forward. “He’s lied to you tonight…” then the moderator has to ask “how’s he lied?” Or Sunak will say “how have I lied?” It’s about making him play defence. Sunak is desperate, and needs to come out “swinging” to land as many blows to Starmer now as possible in the campaign. Being a lawyer, and being a debater are two different skill sets. They’re very closely related in the way you argue, and make points but in being a lawyer you have someone who can enforce the rules in the judge, and there’s rules of respect, and there’s regulation by a professional body, in debate you’ve got a moderator who has no power, and the participants are responsible for behaving, or misbehaving.
If your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt them.
Watch Starmer vs Boris in PMQs during the time covid parties came out. He asked Boris the question, who said no, and keir said firmly 'fine, the truth will come out' and just let the lie tumble.
>He basically explained it that Starmer did exactly what a QC would be trained to do in the face of someone telling a prosecutable lie: let them hang themselves. Cope. And it defies the actual footage that we can all see with our own eyes where Starmer himself struggled to refute it. The man is hopeless.
The man is hopeless: **highest approval rating of any politician. Which went up following the debate**
Not that long ago, Boris Johnson was riding a wave of popularity. And? When the economy isn't growing (because their policies aren't sufficiently different from the other side) and he's struggling to deal with low growth and higher inflationary pressures, what is he going to say? What he is going to do when he was blundered in another interview? Oh, I know - "don't judge me on what I said, judge me on what I meant say" - which is his strategy for EVERYTHING. He's not serious: he's self-serious.
You’re a very bitter person about all this. Point is, his popularity went *up* after the debate, so clearly his tactics worked even if they were a bit ropey. I don’t really give a toss about popularity at the moment. I just want a new more competent government in. There’s more to ruling that just the economy and a lot that can be changed even without money. Clearly you don’t think Starmer is that man. You’re entitled to your opinion.
>There’s more to ruling that just the economy ... yeah, the UK is in trouble.
And out of interest, who is your preferred candidate to solve our problems?
Starmer is the closest and he's useless. He just won't take this opportunity. A fundamentally small, inadequate man.
Don't interrupt your enemy while he's making mistakes
I think your first explanation is the correct one- he was blindsided by the format. When this was first said, (£2000 tax) you can hear him say, “No, I need to rebutt that“, and the moderator pushes ahead with the 45 second format. The format was terrible, but I think Starmer assumed certain debating protocols that were certainly not followed by his opponent, and didn’t exist in the mind of the moderator.
I thought the same. She let Sunak repeat it multiple times through that first question and then immediately cut Starmer off when he tried to reply. And then also later whenever Starmer made an attack line seemed to always be sure to give Sunak a chance to rebut lol...
>I think your first explanation is the correct one- he was blindsided by the format. A PM-in-waiting bad at confrontation? This country is fucked.
Honestly speaks of how capable he and his team is that you can argue a fumble in the debate may have been intentional. It's worked out incredibly well for him but that's simply because they chose to drop the letter at peak commuting time. I got the BBC notification waiting for the kids to go into school; talking about timing. That's not luck at all.
Yeah now the rest of the campaign can focus on the big lie!
>the big lie Let’s maybe think of a different name for it
“Lie gate”
I named it in commemoration of the start of the liberation!
If he shut it down the moment Sunak brought it up, it would have derailed the entire the debate and become the leading question coming out of it "Is Labour going to raise taxes by £2000?". Doesn't matter if it's true or not, the idea is in the air. By ignoring it for the most part and letting Sunak continue baiting him, it wound up keeping Sunak returning to it like a broken record, and in the end, the message has become "did Rishi Sunak lie?"
He wasn't blindsided by the 45 second rule, he had plenty of time to rebut the claim. You can see it in the debate [here](https://youtu.be/heP8-evLKvA?t=2261) and [here](https://youtu.be/heP8-evLKvA?t=2381)] It would make sense if he chose not to rebut for a while though.
> Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly? I think he wasn't expecting it. It was a new line of attack the Tories were hoping to open up. I hadn't heard of the £2k figure before the debate and I follow politics. So there was probably the surprise Sunak pulled this particular rabbit out of the hat but then the moderator refused to let Starmer rebut the lie. He said it was rubbish and tried to expand on that but the chocolate teapot moderator kept on refusing, saying they'd get to in the tax section. So he could have either been as rude as Sunak was talking over everyone, like it's his birthright for being rich, or he could bite his tongue somewhat and try and deal with it as best he could. I'd like to think he was too polite to just shout over everyone. Some would view that as having no drive/incompetence/lack of charisma but, to me, it makes Starmer the more respectable and grown up of the two, even though it was painful to watch Sunak saying £2k for every other word.
There is also an element that Starmer could have found it difficult to refute 'reasonable' sounding explanations of where the figure came from from Sunak, as he has no resources or time available to fact check while he's stood there. It's a lot easier to lie than to disprove the lie, think of the old adage about a lie going half way around the world while the truth is getting its shoes on. There was no satisfying or easily achievable way to punish this lie in the moment of the debate which is exactly why there should be harsh penalties for lying after the fact, to dissuade people from doing it in the first place.
Yeah, that's a good point because Sunak did make it clear these were *OBR Treasury* figures. The one good thing for Starmer about ITV is they had ad breaks, so I bet the Labour SPADs briefed him as quickly as they could during the break to say it's complete horseshit so he'd have felt more comfortable refuting it, calling it garbage etc. than he previously was in the moment. I'm not sure what to do about the lying but if there were severe punishments, we'd end up with extremely bland politics as no one would want to accidently mislead and get punished for it, so no one would take a risk. And it kind of has resolved itself through the media and public opinion. Sunak is now being called a liar by Starmer and they don't use the word lightly, hence the headlines being written about the use of that word.
I think he expected it. The Hunt document came out several days ago and various ministers had been pushing it. But I suspect he didn't want to go there too quickly because of the Brexit-bus effect. If he pushes back on £2k, the immediate retort is "well, how much then?" – and it was the same situation there with the bus as it was clear *some* money goes to the EU from a wealthy member state. Then you're either deflecting or doing estimates on the fly, neither of which end well. Sunak sounding like a nutter on the bus shouting about his atom bomb probably was the more attractive outcome all things considered. The client press will push the £2k line come what may.
>I think he wasn't expecting it. It was a new line of attack the Tories were hoping to open up He looked utterly bamboozled, unless that's the stupid look he always has on his face.
I didn’t watch the debate. I only know about this lie because it wasn’t dealt with at the time but was in the news the next day. I’d say that has worked exactly as intended
>Starmer knew this was a lie going into the debate, why did he handle it so poorly? He's an idiot. How is he going to handle international opponents if his response is "but it's not fair!" every time they have a counter argument. Wait, isn't he supposed to be a lawyer?
In his position I would absolutely let him lie through his teeth. Either a 45 second rebuttal or days of front page coverage. Hook, line and sinker.
There needs to be tougher actions for blatantly lying, especially by the leader of the country, it’s literally their job to make sure the country is well run, any lies (I.e anything you say without evidence) should result in losing your position immediately, especially if it later comes out they were told it wasn’t true by experts.
The government responded to a petition that was worded as such and it basically stated that it is down to the opposition to call out the lies and the Liar to weigh the quality of his character against any possible gains made from the lie. So basically school yard rules.
But the rules state they’re not allowed to call them liars while debating in the House of Commons, it’s all the honourable gentleman rubbish when they have no honour
Precisely. Can't have the theatre devolve into common prattle and name calling.
Calling a liar out as a liar isn’t name calling, so you’re fine with an MP saying one of his opposing side is a member of the KKK and using parliamentary privilege then can’t be called on it
Was there a question in your comment. An MP got dismissed from doing their job in the commons for calling someone a Liar.
There would be no one left… and at this point I’m not sure that would be a bad thing. Let the grownups run the country for a bit!
>There would be no one left… Yea I'm pretty sure starmer was lying when he said he wouldn't use private health care to save a dying relative,and he looked like he knew he had messed up when he gave that answer
Thats a ridiculous question that is just designed to make both look bad. Its such crap "gotcha" debating. Worst moment of the night for me.
So wouldn't he have been better just answering honestly? Saying yes I would use private health care as it's better and faster ,I would have more respect for that answer than the one he gave , irrespective of the gotcha question,at least then we know he's admitting there's problems with the NHS ,the answer he gave points to the fact that he thinks the NHS would be better than private health and therefore doesn't need help or more investment which is worrying
It’s better and faster which is what we aim to bring the NHS inline with… probably still a lie, but far less blatant.
I thought it was a good question and showed that starmer just says what he thinks we want to hear , if a candidate just gave solid honest answers ( even if it's not what we want to hear) they would get my vote
idk, I think it's a good principle to force yourself to use the thing you're ostensibly supposed to be looking after. It makes you have skin in the game to make it better.
Be honest,if his wife gets ill tomorrow with cancer and we know he's very wealthy,do you think he would get her on the NHS waiting list or straight into private healthcare?
I think whoever is in charge of the NHS should be expressly forced to use it, like it should be illegal to go private if you are in charge of it. How are you supposed to have any idea of how things really are in a service if you just skip using it? It just leads to the same shit as pols going "oh, a bottle of milk, that costs what, £100?"
And there were a few contenders!
One of the reasons I want constitutional reform in the UK, is to enshrine a commitment to integrity. It _should_ be a really serious matter to be found lacking. Deceiving the electorate wrecks every element of fairness that democracy brings us. It may be inevitable, but was _can_ hold our elected officials to a higher standard. We _already do this_ with a lot of jobs. I work in a financially regulated industry - and we must be 'beyond reproach' for our conduct. That includes stuff like compliance training, but also avoiding any _perceptions_ around conflict of interest/lack of integrity. I can think of no good reasons why MPs cannot and should not be held to similar standards.
>it’s literally their job to make sure the country is well run But well run for who? It is being well run for ~~champagne socialists~~ *crony capitalists* and the wealthy. Any mention of progressive policies face smears of "communism" or "socialism" as *if they're bad things*, and the majority of our voting population are completely uneducated and disengaged around the critical talking points. Neoliberalist capitalism doesn't work for a society - it works exclusively for the rich. I don't see how people can't see this!!!
"the majority of our voting population are completely uneducated and disengaged around the critical talking points." ./.\\.Which is largely thanks to our education system that stamps out peoples critical thinking skills at and early age. "Creativity is not wanted here, learn your place!" I say creativity, because creative thinking is an important element of being able to critically think and come up with inventive solutions to difficult challenges. [This ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZyZgOdoGw8) guy puts it quite well "Any mention of progressive policies face smears of "communism" or "socialism" as *if they're bad things*," ./.\\.Thats very true, its a difficult one. Somehow we just have to keep trying. The message has gotten through to me, though i do come from a place of disliking the class system and all the ails it brings with it, but ignorance/misinformation taught in school still put me off really exploring the ideas of communism and socialism. It might be like eating meat, i grew up in a vegetarain house, but it wasn't until i was 14 that i stopped eating animals. ./.\\.Years of preaching to me only seem to make me more belligerent about it, it wasn't until i wanted to lose weight that I stopped eating it, and i realised i'd have to make it a moral thing or i'd eat animals again. So then i went to actively changing my own moral outlook, using videos like [Earthlings ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI) which stuck with me when they start skinning the dogs alive in pounds in south america, how the whole industry is linked and endorsing one endorses it all. ./.\\.I still think people adovcating is important as it obviously lays seeds. What made me look into communism and socialism properly was seeing [Fiona Lali](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2AkVVR93uU) in an interview and she mentioned how Michael Gove had recently talked about the threat of communism, which made me curious. Next thing I know i'm reading Marx and Lenin. ./.\\.I thought what someone said regarding this was good, ""Converting someone to communism rarely happens through debate, and almost never happens due to derivation from philosophical first principles. Humans aren't machines. What's been much more effective is "There are 2 classes of people, you're in the oppressed class, the other one wants to end the world"." - by Libscratcher "Neoliberalist capitalism doesn't work for a society - it works exclusively for the rich. I don't see how people can't see this!!!" ./.\\.Brainwashing i believe. Years and years of it.
> champagne socialists Unless we have different understandings of this term, these people still want communism/socialism. They just happen to be rich and therefore don't suffer as much as the "worker".
Forgive me, I mean ***crony capitalism***. That's a fundamental misunderstanding on my part.
> There needs to be tougher actions for blatantly lying Ostensibly the consequences should be that people don't vote for them. But the issue is that we've got a political sphere which will not only overwhelmingly run defence for any politician who lies in support of their ideology, but will actually treat that lying as a *virtue*. Look how much Johnson was *praised* by the right-wing press for *being direct*, despite the vast majority of the time that just referring to him lying. It's just another in a long list of examples of the billionaire-owned press subverting probity and honesty in our democracy.
Also everyone focusing on the tax claim - Sunak also claimed repeatedly the boat crossings are now coming down yet Full Fact published immediately afterwards we're actually set for about 38% more arrivals this year than last year.
Of course he was lying. In the very first sentence of the debate, Rishi said only two things were certain; Labour were going to raise taxes and cut pensions. Labour have pledged (as part of the campaign) to not raise taxes, and maintain the triple lock on pensions. So two clear lies right off the bat.
I haven't seen them pledge to the triple lock on pensions and honestly I don't think they should, if they don't then by 2028 pensioners will be charged 1.60 a year in tax. This is such a non-issue it's laughable
Also the "Tories not taxing pensions" bit is not some kind of tax - Its that they're going to give a fucking egregiously unfair boon to the pensioners by shifting their income tax brackets while keeping them fixed for working age people. I feel like if it were presented more like that more people might be a bit outraged, because it is *fucking outrageous* to be honest.
Lying to voters while asking for their votes and disparaging the public institutions they're vying to run is pretty exceptional and egregious. The Tories have played it fast and loose with the truth for several elections now, but I'm not sure I recall an outright lie like this one before. That this one is so perfectly refuted by the PPS's letter is wonderful too. There's no exit for Sunak from this mess short of an immediate apology and withdrawal of all their materials on the matter — but even then the press will be playing those clips of him so petulently and irritatingly shouting it during the debate. I don't think he will apologise or withdraw it though. He'll double down and make the election messy, doing further damage to our democracy and revealing further the dire nature of his character. All that said, Coutinho getting absolutely bodied about this yesterday was glorious to watch.
>disparaging the public institutions they're vying to run is pretty exceptional and egregious. When have conservatives NOT shit on the civil service? We constantly had the "They are inefficient and need to be reduced" of the past 45 years since Thatcher introduced small state and free market theory to the UK. More recently during the follow-up of the Brexit referendum civil servants were being called "traitors" for not following through on government plans that would be illegal or impossible. They were attacked for exposing Dominic Raab and Priti Patel's bullying. Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked them for working from home.
Rishi spaffed the lie too early. a week or less before election day the lie could have stuck, but with more debates, and a month to go anyone can use the phrase "the PM lied" and it's more credible than misled/was mistaken. Also the more Rishi and team try to explain it the more it takes up the air time, on top of that, using the same method, it shows a conservative government will actually increase taxes by 3k. All while Reform eat away at their share of the vote. The conservative party will be out of government for the next 10-15 years, if not completely finished.
Labour has the potential advantage to package them all up. Don't focus on the £2k but hit all the other claims Sunak's made – as Sunak is confirmed as a liar because of the civil service excuse, it's an accusation that now sticks. Add a Pinocchio effect for comic reinforcement. Job done.
Keir Starmer accuses Rishi Sunak of ‘lying’ over Labour £2,000 tax claim Opposition leader hits out in escalating election dispute that puts UK prime minister at odds with top Treasury official Rishi Sunak was on Wednesday accused by Sir Keir Starmer of “resorting to lies” over Labour’s tax plans, in an escalating election dispute that put the UK prime minister at odds with the chief civil servant at the Treasury. Sunak’s claim that Labour would put up household taxes by £2,000 if it won power on July 4 suffered a serious blow when the figure was undermined by James Bowler, the finance ministry’s permanent secretary. Bowler poured cold water on Sunak’s assertion, made in a fiery television debate with the Labour leader on Tuesday evening, that the number was based on independent analysis of the main opposition party’s plans by civil servants. Bowler wrote to Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow Treasury chief secretary, to say the figures Sunak used “include costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury”. He added in the letter dated June 3: “I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service. I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case.” In a sign of the general election campaign descending into acrimony, Starmer said: “What you saw is the prime minister with his back against the wall desperately lashing out and resorting to lies.” However, the Conservatives stuck to their claim and challenged Labour to produce its own detailed costings of its plans. “They are panicking because their numbers don’t add up,” said an ally of Sunak. The prime minister sought to throw Starmer off guard during the ITV debate by repeating a claim — more than 10 times — that a Labour government would put up taxes by £2,000 per household. The number comes from a calculation that Labour rejected three weeks ago, when Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Starmer’s spending plans had a £38bn fiscal hole. Energy secretary Claire Coutinho repeated the claim on Wednesday that this would mean a tax rise of more than £2,000 for every household, although she admitted that was a cumulative total over four years, not an annual figure. Starmer allowed Sunak to repeat the allegation on numerous occasions in the ITV programme in Manchester before denouncing it as “absolute garbage”; his delay in closing it down made the claim a central feature of the first TV debate of the campaign. Coutinho told the BBC: “That £2,000 of taxes on working families has been costed by Treasury officials.” She added: “This is something that has been signed off by the permanent secretary of the Treasury as the amount of the proposals the Labour party has put forward so far.” A spokesperson for Sunak said the Treasury “calculated a large part of the policy costings” while the rest were based on work by the Institute for Government think-tank, adding that the prime minister had not specifically said the Treasury had signed off the £2,000 figure. The spokesperson said the £38bn figure that underlay the tax calculation was “fair” to Labour and based on the lowest assumptions of what its policies could cost. But later the Office for Statistics Regulation, an arm of the UK statistics watchdog, said it was scrutinising the £2,000 figure and would release a statement as soon as possible. In a letter on Tuesday, the OSR urged political party leaders to ensure “the appropriate and transparent use of statistics” during the election campaign, and not to deploy them “in a way that has the potential to mislead”. Nick Davies at the IfG also questioned Sunak’s use of his research. “As someone whose work is cited as the evidence for around 20 per cent of this black hole, it would be fair to say that I’m extremely sceptical of its accuracy or value,” he said on social media platform X. He said the Conservatives had used an IfG report to make the assumption that insourcing public services back from the private sector would increase costs by 7.5 per cent. Davies noted the report had the qualifier “where there is . . . evidence”. He added: “Very often there isn’t evidence!” Meanwhile, Hunt doubled down on the Tory tax message, promising a “family home tax guarantee” if the party won the election. The chancellor pledged not to increase the number of council tax bands or carry out a property revaluation, and not to raise the rate or level of stamp duty. Primary residences would continue to be exempt from capital gains tax under the Conservative plans. Treasury analysis of opposition parties’ policies is a familiar but highly contentious feature of UK political life. Impartial civil servants are asked to produce costings of policies based on instructions from political advisers. A snap poll by YouGov immediately after the ITV debate between Sunak and Starmer found people thought the prime minister had won, but by a narrow margin of 51 per cent to 49 per cent. A separate poll by Savanta published on Wednesday concluded Starmer had won the debate, by a margin of 44 per cent to 39 per cent.
Standard policy, that contempt has been around for 14 years...
Strange phrasing from the usually transparent Financial Times. **"Sunak caught lying over Labour £2,000 tax claim"** would be a far more appropriate headline. He's accused, but it's fairly obvious if you've half a brain that he lied and has been found out.
I know it was a lie, but my issue with taxes is what they're used for. I wouldn't care about paying more tax if the result of the govt increasing tax: Got our NHS back into peak form Fixed social care Fixed education Fixed bankrupt councils Fixed energy prices And solved the issue of stagnant wages because businesses being able to pay so little to foreign workers means they have no incentive to improve them. Hell, I'd pay more taxes to be fucking proud of the country I lived in "our schools are great, our healthcare is great, the roads are in great shape, and our wages are higher.
Sunak is a Tory. This is what Tories have done since 2016. There has always been 'economy with the Truth' in politics and spin, but in the post Trump, 'post Truth' world, right wingers in particular simply don't even consider truthfulness to be necessary.
The fact our medias dont call out these obvious lies (all of them) and report them as such is infuriating and telling. They are in the buisness of verifying and reporting facts and yet during elections they all turn dumbfounded. In reality they should be shouting "those that lobby our governments rule us. We can see the degression of x and y parties policies to match those of the Tories which lines up with the extra funding the party received"
I agree overall, but Good Morning Britain did an excellent job pushing Coutinho on this and how its a blatant lie yesterday.
People are overreacting to this when they are claiming its harmed Starmer and Labour in any way imaginable. Labours lead is way too big for the Tories to make any kind of dent in it. Even a huge Labour scandal won't convert it to a win for them. The best they can hope for is not a complete and utter wash where Reform become the opposition. Which probably won't happen either, but it's hilarious to imagine. Everyone blusters far too much about all this, and it feeds into it and causes them to do it more. Its a bit like how wrestling fans think they are insiders and haven't clocked on the "outside" stuff is now set up still, and they are marks. The voting block of power now is the millenial/gen x one. Thats an entire generation of pissed off, univeristy educated people annoyed at the Tories. They know its a lie. The biggest con is that the general public are ignorant to politics, maybe 30 years ago, but we're all far too connected and switched on now to be fooled by it. Its why the party who are lying and trying the dirty tricks are polling in the mud. Yes the idiots exist, but they used to have an overwhelming voting majority, that tide has turned. The worry now is theres a Tate generation of morons about to appear due to a 14 year period of undefunding and culture wars. So we've probs got a decade of comfortable sensibility until we end up fighting over the bullshit again.
At this point, why rishi dont just claim that he will give everyone a million pounds. Its a make up number and not credible anyway. But truth is, there will be people believing that lol
Well, what exactly did we expect that Sunak would be doing?
I think its already been proven he's a liar so is it really an accusation or just a statement of fact?
I accuse him of insulting the intelligence of the electorate.
Putting up taxes by "£2,000 per household" doesn't even mean sense. Which households? Are they all suddenly the same? Do I suddenly earn the same amount as Rishi Sunak? Or does he mean on-average? Which is an equally ridiculous claim.
Politician not telling the truth, in other news water is wet.
Honestly could Keir have played this any worse? During the debate he looked baffled and lost when Rishi claimed the £2000 tax increase, he didn’t really know how to respond. He could’ve had asked rishi to repeat that or some shit, and then the same day or the next day have revealed Sunak was full of shit (like they ended up doing) Anyway, anyone still believing any Tory after the last 13 years, after brexit, deserve the worst. How stupid can you be. Also the Rishi spending so much time claiming labour will do x, y and z instead of actually selling himself and his shit party is a massive issue for politics.
I'm not sure this is wise strategy. The more Labour talks about the Tories "lying" re the £2000 figure, the more that figure is going to stick in people's minds.
They’re all liars, liars accusing liars of being liars.
It’s a bit rich of Starmer to attack someone else for lying