British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby during the Sky News election debate
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Rishi Sunak admitted he had failed to deliver on some of his key promises to the nation as both he and Labor leader Keir Starmer faced tough questioning in the Sky News leadership debate.
Sunak and Starmer were interviewed in Grimsby on Wednesday evening by Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby, before taking questions from a live audience. It was the second televised event involving the pair and took place with three weeks to go until the July 4 general election.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister at the end of 2022, Sunak made five promises for his government to keep. They had to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting lists and end small boat crossings.
Sunak acknowledged in his interview with Rigby that NHS waiting lists had increased since he took office about 18 months ago.
He was challenged and heckled by some in the audience when he said industrial action in the health service, including strikes by trainee doctors, had put further pressure on waiting lists.
The Prime Minister, who according to opinion polls is very likely to lose next month’s election, was also pressed about the government’s inability to ‘stop’ the arrival of small boats in Britain, and acknowledged that the number of crossings this year is greater than in the same period in 2023.
Sunak tried to counter this point by claiming that the number of small boat arrivals had fallen during his time in charge.
“You have chosen one specific period. If you look at the total time I have been Prime Minister, the numbers have gone down,” he said in response to Rigby. “These things are cyclical because what you have seen is one new country, Vietnam, that is responsible for most of the new arrivals.”
Sunak was also pressured by a voter who said his daughter had found it harder to get into the housing market after Liz Truss’s mini-budget caused mortgage rates to rise. Sunak said buying a house should become easier in coming years as interest rates are expected to fall, adding that his party would cut stamp duty if re-elected.
Perhaps the most difficult moment of the evening for Sunak came when a former chairman of a local Tory association said that the actions of successive Conservative governments, citing Partygate and his decision to abandon the D-Day commemorations early last week, had ‘made her feel ashamed’. and we’re not sure whether to vote Conservative on July 4.
Speaking to journalists after the debate, Tory Secretary Mark Spencer gave Sunak an eight out of ten rating for his performance during the leaders’ debate, admitting there was “always room for improvement”.
However, it has not been smooth sailing for Starmer, who has faced tough questions about trust, his plans for power and his past support for Labour’s former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer confirmed that scrapping the two-child limit would not be in Labour’s manifesto, which is due to be published on Thursday. The news will disappoint elements of Labor who want the leader to go further in the fight against poverty.
In an attempt to justify his position, Starmer said former Labor leaders had “reached the tax lever too easily” and that economic conditions meant there were limits to what he could promise voters.
“It has been a very difficult decision for all the reasons you have outlined, because the last Labor government had a laser focus on tackling child poverty and did a huge amount of good work,” he said.
“We will have a child support strategy. I think people are fed up with politicians who say before the elections that they will do anything… It is a difficult choice, we will have a strategy against child poverty.”
He was also questioned by Rigby about his previous campaign to get Corbyn into Downing Street, and whether he was being honest when he said his predecessor would have been a “great” prime minister.
The Labor leader did not immediately answer whether he had been honest. Instead, he said he was confident Labor would lose the 2019 general election and wanted to help get as many Labor candidates he liked elected as possible. Corbyn has been expelled from the Labor Party and is running to retain his seat in London, Islington North.
Starmer faced questions from the interviewer and the audience about tax increases, government spending and the impact on education that Labour’s pledge to impose VAT on private schools would have.
In an awkward moment for the Labor leader, an audience member accused him of being a “political robot” who does not answer questions directly.
However, a cinch YouGov poll published immediately after the debate suggested Starmer was seen as the clear winner. Sixty-four percent of the 1,865 respondents said the Labor leader was the winner, while 36 percent chose Sunak.
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