UK election debate: Sunak goes for it in final joust with Starmer but his true target probably wasn’t in the room

With the opinion polls seemingly cemented throughout this UK election campaign, and his Conservative party stuck miles behind Labour, prime minister Rishi Sunak went for it in the final televised debate on Wednesday night against his likely successor, Keir Starmer.

An aggressive, hectoring and energetic approach probably led to Sunak’s best outing of the campaign so far. But it was likely a case of too little, too late for him in terms of being able to change the outcome of next Thursday’s vote.

Yet, trying to derail Labour may not even have been his plan. The Tories’ strategy over the past week – warning of the dangers of Labour emerging with too big a majority – suggests Sunak has already resigned himself to defeat.

What he may instead have been hoping to achieve was to convince as many disaffected supporters of his party as possible to swallow hard and stick with them rather than backing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK and costing the Conservatives an even bigger cache of marginal seats.

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There was a noisy Gaza protest outside as the party leaders faced off in BBC debate at Nottingham Trent University. The shouting and roaring could be heard clearly inside and seemed to set a cantankerous tone for what became a heated debate.

It was actually Starmer who went on the attack first, jibing Sunak over the prime minister’s hesitant handling of the MP betting farrago that has overshadowed the second half of the campaign. The first three rounds of applause from the audience all went to the Labour leader.

But Sunak’s constant jabbing soon began to tell. He consistently hammered simple and effective attack lines warning about the danger of Labour raising taxes and, according to the Tory leader, not having a plan to reduce immigration.

“He’s not being straight with you,” Sunak told the audience. “You don’t know what Keir Starmer you’re going to get.”

Sunak’s constant aggression put Starmer on the back foot at times, although at others the contrast between their styles – the Labour leader’s being more measured – made the man seeking the job seem more prime ministerial than the one who has held it for the last 20 months.

Starmer recovered later in the debate as the protest noise subsided. For example, he came across more humane and thoughtful than Sunak during an exchange over the conflict between trans rights and the need to protect women’s spaces.

Sunak’s aggressive approach probably did not appeal to too many floating voters, but it may have played slightly better among a cohort of Tory voters tempted by the edginess of Farage’s campaign. Starmer, meanwhile, will have been glad to emerge without any irreparable damage.

Both party leaders walked away with something to cling on to, although for one of them it won’t provide comfort for much longer.

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