Next Thursday, the British will elect a new parliament. According to polls, Prime Minister Sunak’s Tories are facing a debacle. In the final TV duel with Labour challenger Starmer, the incumbent is resorting to his last means.
One could say that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has his back against the wall. Or: the water is up to his neck. Or: the air is getting thin for him. But all of that would be an understatement. In fact, he is in danger of being crushed against the wall – and the air has long since gone out of him. Sunak and the British Conservatives, the Tories, are staring into an abyss. When the British elect a new parliament next Thursday, they face a historic defeat.
Starmer is profiting from the immense frustration with the Tories.
(Photo: REUTERS)
Sunak has been trying to mitigate this somehow since he announced new elections on May 22nd. Even the weather was against him: the Prime Minister was standing in the rain in Downing Street No. 10 when he announced July 4th as the election date. Sunak had his last chance to usher in something like a turnaround on Wednesday evening. The BBC hosted the second and final TV duel with his challenger Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, at the University of Nottingham.
He can barely walk because of his strength. In polls, his party is currently at a good 40 percent, while the Tories are only at 20. This is his own fault and only indirectly related to Brexit. Although none of the blessings once promised by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson have materialized, Starmer is not calling for a return to the EU either.
One scandal after another
The Tories are being punished less for leaving the EU than for a breathtaking series of scandals and bad decisions. There was “Partygate,” when Johnson threw parties with staff during the coronavirus pandemic. For which he was fined. Then there was the wannabe Thatcher reincarnation Liz Truss. As Prime Minister, she lasted less than two months in office. She pushed through billions in tax cuts without any counter-financing. As a result, the pound sterling and British government bonds came under immense pressure. The state finances suffered severe damage.
And there is already a new scandal. Five Tories and one Labour MP are being investigated for placing bets on the election date. All avoidable mistakes. And the result is the mother of all shambles.
Sunak now has to sweep it all up. And he is putting everything on two cards: taxes and migration. If you had counted how often Sunak ended his sentences with “… and that’s why I want to lower your taxes,” you would have ended up in the three-digit range. At least that’s how it felt. It was a bit comical at times: even when Sunak got personal once and said how grateful he was for his life in Great Britain and how much he wanted to give something back – at the end he again said: “And that’s why I want to lower your taxes.” It was similar with immigration.
Sunak hammered these messages into the audience. With Labour, there is more immigration and higher taxes. With him, the opposite. This often seemed trite and rote, but it followed a strategy: he consistently tried to stoke fears of a Labour government. The government wanted £2,000 more tax per head per year, taxed pensions and had no plan to limit migration, he claimed. The second aspect of his strategy: talking consistently about the future. That is always a good idea before elections. But especially when you have such chaotic years behind you.
Labour leader: “Time to turn the page”
Starmer did it the other way round: He repeatedly referred to the 14 years that the Tories had been in power. First with David Cameron, then Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and finally Sunak for the past year and a half. The 62-year-old Londoner scores points with his down-to-earth nature, empathy and serious demeanor. In other words, he is exactly the mix that has not been particularly popular in London recently. “My father was a toolmaker” was also a phrase that was repeated this evening. Sunak, a multimillionaire, has no idea about people’s lives, he said.
The questions were always asked by people from the audience. Right at the beginning, a woman wanted to know how the candidates were going to restore trust in politics. Sunak only related this to the current betting scandal and announced tough consequences. Starmer showed more class here: politics had become too concerned with personal demands. But politics must become a service to the public again, he demanded. Now it is time to “turn the page” and rebuild the country.
Starmer always stresses that the goals in the election manifesto are financed. In some cases he wants to increase taxes to achieve this. For example, by closing loopholes for rich foreigners and taxing private schools. He quickly turned to one of the most pressing issues in the debate: the desolate state of the NHS. Eight million people are currently on waiting lists for treatments such as operations. But there are doubts as to whether a Labour government could really raise the money for its ambitious programs. The state is already short of funds in every way.
Tiresomely one-dimensional
Sunak managed to corner Starmer here and there – especially on the subject of migration. “I want to fly people to Rwanda, what are you going to do?” he asked the challenger. The African country is to take in asylum seekers for Great Britain – an idea that the CDU and CSU are now warming to. Starmer replied that only a few hundred people could be flown out to Rwanda, at horrendous cost to the taxpayer. Sunak said that would have a deterrent effect. If 99 percent could stay, he did not see that happening, Starmer replied. But the Labour leader did not have much more to say about his own plans than “fighting gangs of people smugglers”.
One thing Sunak cannot be accused of is that he does not fight. In the TV debate he was extremely aggressive, present and well prepared. However, his constant barrage on the subject of taxes also made him seem tiring and one-dimensional. Starmer, on the other hand, had clearly resolved not to constantly give simple answers to complex issues. Perhaps that is why he often remained vague when it came to how he intends to achieve his goals. He is profiting from the immense frustration with the Tories. If it were only about answers to current problems, the race would be much more open.
It was towards the end of the TV debate when an older gentleman stood up and asked his question: were these two, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, really the best that the country had to offer? This was followed by laughter and applause from the audience.