The woefulness of our own leaders’ debate pales into insignificance compared with the calamity enacted overnight in the US. Nevertheless, here are some impressions.
Judged as a debate I felt Sunak was the overwhelming victor. He was confident, assured, nimble and relentless as he hammered way with or without relevance on his two themes of Labours’ tax plans and Starmer’s deviousness.
His great advantage is that he is not constrained but any adherence to the truth (In this area a humble imitation of Trump in the US and Farage at home). To be fair, his repeated accusations that Starmer is “not straight” have some veracity. I haven’t kept a complete record of Starmer’s policies when he campaigned for the Labour leadership, but I understand that quite a lot of them have been ditched – he is, sadly, not quite the Corbyn look-alike that he appeared at the time.
Starmer throughout looked on the back foot – worried and hesitant in making his responses. He is hampered by a desire to keep as near as possible to the truth (or so I like to believe – he does seem a decent man rather than an opportunist, especially when compared to the like of Johnson and,Truss, though admittedly these are low bars) and a reluctance to give too much away about Labour’s policies.
As a non-sports person I hesitate to use a football analogy, but he gives every impression of being like a team that is three goals ahead so spends the rest of the match concentrating on defence rather than further scoring glories.
The depths of the debate were, for me, the responses to a question from a young person as to what they could offer to persuade her to remain in the country rather than emigrate. Both leaders answered that they’d try to make it easier for her to buy a house.
No mention of creating a fair and confident society playing its full part in elimination world poverty, working hard to avoid globe heating, safeguarding minorities, providing a safe haven for asylum seekers, upholding justice and fairness at home and abroad, rehabilitating prisoners, caring for the disadvantage, providing fulfilling work and leisure opportunities, with a spanking education system promoting art, literature, music and joy.
Just ”shopping and . . .er. . . house ownership.” No “vision thing” at all
Sunak and Starmer must have made that young person wish that the £10 Assisted Passage to Australia was still around.
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