Sunak and Starmer debate tax policy in a TV spat

In particular, the conservative government leader, who is trailing by around 20 points in the polls, repeatedly interrupted his Social Democratic rival on Tuesday evening. ITV presenter Julie Etchingham struggled with two Camcocks.

The mood seemed tense at the ITV studios in Salford, near Manchester. Chung in particular repeatedly talked about his rival, causing Starmer to repeatedly roll his eyes and throw up his hands in exasperation.

In fact, Sunak put his back against the wall and launched several attacks against the Labor leader. In a quick poll by the YouKov opinion poll, he won a razor-thin victory: 51 percent saw the prime minister as the winner, compared to 49 percent for the opposition leader.

This should be a little balm for the conservative soul, as lately everything has pointed to a historic defeat for the Tory party.

For Sunak, the TV duel – with at least one more to follow on the BBC – is a great opportunity to close the gap on Starmer. He is under increasing pressure from the right, particularly the populist Reform UK Party led by Brexit driver Nigel Farage.

The 44-year-old started aggressively. Sunak rarely answered questions from the audience. Indeed, Starmer’s Labor Party has said a dozen times that it wants to increase the tax burden on every working family by £2,000 a year.

The allegation did not stand up to fact-checks by the BBC and British news agency PA. Accordingly, the amount is based on several unproven assumptions.

But the Labor leader left the claim unchallenged for a long time, before finally dismissing it as “rubbish”, commentators said.

It almost seemed like the roles were reversed. The incumbent approached the Leader of the Opposition as if he were the Prime Minister.

Apart from raising taxes and robbing your pension, no one knows what Labor will actually do.

Starmer claims a blank cheque, and hides the true costs of his policies. “I have a clear plan for a safe future for you and your family,” Sunak asserted.

Sunak repeatedly asked Starmer about specific plans, but the Labor leader remained vague. The 61-year-old was very empathetic and received a lot of applause. Starmer said that from his youth he knew what it was like to have the phone switched off because he couldn’t pay the bills.

Sky News reporter Beth Rigby witnessed a “fierce debate with more heat than light”. In the end, the outcome of the fight was very even. That would be bad news for Sunak.

With Labour’s huge lead, the Prime Minister needed a landslide victory, wrote Rigby at X.