The two men clash over taxes, healthcare and the cost of living in a contentious debate that failed to land any decisive blow.
The leaders of the UK's two main political parties clashed in their first live television debate of the election campaign, attacking each other over issues ranging from taxes to immigration and the National Health Service (NHS).
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, spoke on Tuesday night in the northwestern city of Salford, with a month to go before the July 4 election.
Sunak, whose party trails by about 20 percentage points in opinion polls, took a combative approach, attacking Labor over taxes, pointing out that inflation had fallen to 2 percent and that he had a plan to boost the slow economy.
Starmer highlighted the austerity of the Conservatives' early years in government and the chaos of the more recent past, which saw the dismissal of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson amid economic and ethical scandals, and the brief but devastating tenure of 49 days of Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans sent mortgages soaring.
Sunak became party leader and Prime Minister in October 2022.
The Labor leader said the election was a choice between more “chaos and division” with the Conservatives and “turning the page and rebuilding with Labour”.
Both men were repeatedly told not to talk to each other and asked to lower their voices as they clashed over issues ranging from immigration and education to health care, but neither outlined any new plans.
Sunak, a former banker and one of the UK's richest people, sparked complaints when he blamed NHS waiting lists on doctors' strikes, and was met with laughter when he said the numbers were going down “because they were higher before.” ”.
But he appeared to regain some ground with the hearing when he discussed how he planned to address immigration, claiming that his controversial plan to send certain asylum seekers to Rwanda was a deterrent.
Starmer said he also had a plan to address immigration and would consider processing asylum claims in a third country as long as it did not violate international law.
After the debate ended, a quick YouGov poll gave Sunak a slight lead, with 51 per cent saying he performed better overall, compared to 49 per cent for Starmer.
However, broken down by issue, respondents said Starmer fared much better on the cost of living, the NHS, education and climate change. Sunak was seen as doing well only on taxes and, by a narrow margin, on immigration.
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said the evening would probably be seen as a good one for Sunak as his party is so far behind in the polls.
“Will it matter in the end? Probably not. But it's good news for the cons.[ervatives] After some pretty hard days. It will help with morale, at the very least,” he wrote in X.
The run-up to the standoff was overshadowed by populist politician Nigel Farage, who announced this week that he would campaign for a seat in parliament as leader of the right-wing, anti-immigration Reform party.
Farage, who once held a seat in the European Parliament, has failed to become a UK MP seven times. This time he is running in the eastern coastal town of Clacton, which backed his favored Brexit policy and where the incumbent Conservative won a majority of almost 26,000 votes in 2019.
Opinion polls suggest Labour's lead has held firm against the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010, in the almost two weeks since the campaign began.
Several more debates are scheduled before Election Day, some of which will feature several party leaders as well as the two favorites.
