Coffee House Shots
Sunak vs Starmer round two - who won?
If you don't subscribe to The Spectator, now is the perfect time to give us a try. We're having an election time offer, three pounds for three months. That's a pretty good deal, magazine, digital access. And to top it off, you get a free mug with Morton-Mortland's election artwork. So to get the software, go to spectator.co.uk/mug. Hello and welcome to Coffee Outshots. The spectator's daily and sometimes more than daily, politics, podcast. I'm Patrick Gibbons and I'm joined by Isabel Harman and Katie Pauls. Well, we've just watched the second and final head-to-head debate between Kiyosama and Rishi Sunak, Isabelle. It certainly felt like a livelier debate tonight than we've been used to during the campaign, not least of all, because you could hear those protesters outside of it for the first 15 minutes. What was your reaction to the debate? Yeah, I mean, the venue choice was not applauded by anyone. Apart from the protesters, obviously, it was not a... It didn't have great acoustics, which meant that not only were the people who were supposed to be speaking, which I was saying, and the leaders, both echoing quite a lot. But also, you could pick up the rules and the sort of weird banshee screams of the protesters. And it did sound a bit like being trapped in a soft play. So I guess it was appropriate they started off talking about behaviour and bad behaviour specifically. And the first question was on trust in politics. And I don't think, for those audience members who were trapped in this soft play, by the end of it, they would have felt any more disposed towards trusting politicians, because so much of it was the two men accusing the other of not being straight, and then of each leader manifestly not answering key questions, particularly on tax and spend. So it wasn't... I know it's very easy to say. It wasn't a very edifying debate. And I've certainly seen worse debates. They were largely civil to each other, although towards the end, Kistama did call Vishisunakalaya, which is still, you know, it's a word that's often used about politicians, but it's a taboo word within politics. And I was quite struck by that. It wasn't an enlightening debate. In Katie, what did you think? How would you rate each of the leader's performances? I think my main thought was aggressive, just very aggressive from Vishisunak. And I think Isabelle and I both had shared the written slightly differently, of course, on the live blog, which reminded me somewhat when it came to Vishisunak's performance of the Tory leadership, when he was debating Ms. Truss. And there was one episode where he got accused of mansplaining. I think of Kistama where a woman, and we would probably be at this point in the night, having people accuse Vishisunakal of mansplaining again by interrupting so much. But this happened under Liz Truss in that debate. And that's because he's too aggressive. He's not letting her speak. And it didn't... It meant that I think it did hurt his performance back in the Tory leadership contest. But since then, Vishisunakal's team line is, well, I should have interrupted her more effectively given what happened after. And I think you could see that attitude in tonight's performance, which was just going health-a-leather interrupting Kistama as much as he possibly could, aggressively shouting points on. And that's partly, I think, because obviously you can see from the closing statement from Vishisunak, he wants to land the idea that, you know, if you have even, you know, an ounce of doubt about labor, don't vote for them. So by, you know, trying to plant these kind of concerns in every answer to the part of it, but also, I think perhaps, Vishisunakal's thinking a little bit about legacy, and you have a situation just as with Liz Truss when things didn't go very smoothly. That's probably a bit of an understatement. I don't know if we'll see that level in the first 100 days for Kistama government. But if somebody's warnings in terms of net zero costs tax the welfare bill and so forth come to light, you can say, "Well, I did warn you all." So I think that, for me, it was Vishisunak's performance that stood out more, but also you would expect that because Kistama just needs to get through these debates, and this was the final head-to-head his team only ever agreed to, too, without having any major disasters. And, look, I think Kistama looked quite uncomfortable for the first half. I think he did better in the second half, and he seemed to get a really big round of applause for this final statement, but it was, I think, uncomfortable for Kistama in places. You know, is it enough to swing the election? I doubt it. But I think that aggressive student strategy is what the Tories wanted to go for, and I think they will be happy with how it landed tonight. I suppose my final initial thought is just probably where I think Kistama's maybe the most uncomfortable was on Rwanda and boats. I think that was quite a tough segment for Kistama, which, again, slightly surprised me because I would imagine it's quite easy to make an audience laugh at Vishisunak on Rwanda, given he has, you know, failed to get a flight to Rwanda, and that's, apart from the one where someone volunteered. He has made bets on it. He has, ultimately, you know, it's this long-going Tory scheme that's caused so much money and reform attacks it and labor attacks it, and therefore I don't think, you know, it was stacked against Kistama on the issue because you could point at the record, and, yeah, it really felt like it was Kistama on the ropes, even though he had no tricky record to defend, and, again, I think that's when that aggressive tact from Vishisunak kept pressing it. It meant that Vishisunak, I think, got two quite big rounds of applause for saying labor cannot be trusted, and surrender was a key word tonight, right, from Vishisunak, when he told surrender to labor. But I think to get rounds of applause, given where the Tory party is on the issue, is bad news for Kistama. In a way, talking about bad news for Kistama, it's back to when a super-majority sounds a bit silly, but that was definitely one of the most uncomfortable points in my view for him. Just picking up on that is about, Starmer, you know, got an early round of applause when accusing Rishi of being out of touch, but Suno got the same when, you know, he called Starmer out for not having a plan, and it felt like, as Katie said, that he was most uncomfortable around, kind of immigration or when pressed on tax plans, who will be happier with their performance there, because it did feel like Starmer was a bit squirmy at times with some of his answers. Yeah, and I still think that he looks, as Katie says, he looks uncomfortable. He looks often a little bit bewildered that he's in the studio, and I think he was, you know, if you look back over the debates of the campaign, the interviews and question times and so on, I think that was probably his best performance, but I'm not saying that in a kind of, you know, "Wow, everyone's going to be running out saying, "Yeah, Labour," after that." And I think so much of this campaign is predicated on the Tories messing things up, and, you know, "Hey, it's worked better than Starmer could have imagined," who would have thought that you'd be having the Tory betting scandal, for instance, and, you know, just the D-Day round, for instance. These things have just not been planned by Labour. So, so much of it is not about exciting people about Labour. It's just about exploiting the Conservatives' mistakes. Now, one of the mistakes that Starmer has made, or one of his flaws in previous debates and programs, has been that, because he clearly doesn't enjoy them very much, and it's strange because, you know, as we know, he used to be a barrister, it's striking that he doesn't have the sort of courtroom theatrics, even that he has at Prime Minister's questions, actually. He looks quite uncomfortable a lot of the time. He often ends up blurting something out, particularly towards the end of the debate, that I don't think he would say if he were in a more controlled setting. So, in the question time debate, it was him saying that Jeremy Corbyn would have made a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson. In a previous debate, I was quite struck by him giving advice to Gareth Southgate about you've got to have a plan for winning, which I thought just showed that, you know, this election isn't really about telling voters what Labour's going to do. It's just about getting to polling day. So, I think he'll probably be happy on the basis that he hasn't said anything I don't think that's going to, you know, splash all over the mail front page. But I think soon I actually did have a much better debate than previously. I think a lot of his attacks were pretty incisive in terms of, you know, can you trust Labour on taxes? I've warned about Liz Truss and I was right now, I'm warning you about Labour. There is a sort of, you know, don't say I didn't warn you there, that he is hoping that we'll cause voters to sort of hover their pencil for a little bit longer when they're actually in the polling booth. Yeah, I think, again, it's a profound point for me, not, but I think both parties will be fairly OK with that performance. Just in the sense that Richard, you know, did lance on the lines. I think there are some Tory MPs tonight messaging me saying we could have done with that a bit earlier rather than one week to go. He looked as though I think there'd been many times in this campaign where Richard, you know, because he looked a bit defeated, probably because he has felt quite defeated. Tonight he looked like he was much more of a fighter and I think there is sense, you know, could we have had some more of that spirit. Keir Starmer just needs to hold the line and I don't think this performance is going to move the dial. The best case scenario for the Tories is it just plants some seeds of doubt and perhaps makes some voters either stay at home or, you know, not switch all the way to Labour when it comes to Keir Starmer and what he might do. And it was strange. I mean, I just think Keir Starmer and I grew up as well. His performance was strong in places, but I found myself almost like shouting what he should be saying because he was just missing it at places. I was just watching the BBC after show. Well, they had two of the voters on who were undecided and they're still undecided. And one was a girl who'd asked the question about what were you often younger people. And she said, "Well, Richard's doing that." She didn't like either of them to be very clear. But she said, "Well, Richard's, you know, had a clear policy in terms of helping me get a 5% deposit, whereas Keir Starmer didn't have anything to offer me on getting me on the housing ladder." And I'm thinking, "Labor's big policy is relaxing planning rules so as to boost housing." And yeah, Keir Starmer hasn't managed to land that in his answer in a way that she has acknowledged it. So I think it was a stranger in the sense. I actually think Keir Starmer had more to say. He just, I don't, I think you often just see in his face or in his eyes, perhaps, just a slight feeling of panic. Like, he's going to say the wrong thing and it's holding him back. And maybe that will come in time. But it does mean, I think, yeah, again, because he's so far ahead, maybe that is the right strategy. Well, I'm, you know, going a bit further and saying something which will then caught up who goes wrong. But it is limiting himself. And, you know, for all the cool shit, he did walk into one trap, which was not even a trap. He just had an own goal where he was attacking. Rishi Sinha Khan, Liz Truss, and saying, yeah, you know, you say you stood up to Liz Truss, but then you got behind her in unity. And then, of course, it was quickly pointed out that couldn't the same be said for Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn. Only, Keir Starmer literally served in the shadow cabinet. You know, Rishi Sinha, I don't think it was being, you know, he was quiet, but it wasn't being particularly helpful. It was probably meeting up his potential leadership takeover team most of the time Liz Truss's premiership was going on. And that led to, you know, big audience, you know, applause, not in favour of Keir Starmer. So I think if anything, what I learned more tonight was not what Keir Starmer is going to do or the problems of Keir Starmer's policies, just that he's not very nimble when it comes to these events. And I wonder whether that is to a certain extent because the striking policies that Labour does have are not Keir Starmer's. So they've come from his front bench team and there's, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. That was very much the sort of Clement Attlee we have operating. But actually, you know, health, very striking policies always treating and before him John Ashworth. You know, the house building stuff, I suspect, not originally dreamt up by Keir Starmer. And so perhaps it's not on the tip of his tongue because he doesn't have his, you know, his personal vision. He's very happy. And this, you know, could be a strength to buy into the developed thoughts of the people he's trusted to be his front benches. But it does mean that when somebody asks the question, he's not actually thinking about it in the way that you would if you were the author. And finally, we had quite a lot of audience questions, quite a broad range of audience questions tonight, not just on immigration tax as we've touched on, but on integrity, benefits, gender Europe. But I think the most cutting question came when an audience member asked this. Mr Sunak, I think you made a fair job of being Chancellor, but you're a pretty mediocre Prime Minister. Secure, I think that your strings are being pulled by very senior members of the Labour Party. Are you two really the best we've got to be the next Prime Minister of our great country? With just over a week to go to the polls, do either of you think tonight's performances change much? I think it's really telling that the year you go of Snap poll that came out was 50/50, which is just not. I mean, there is another way of looking at it, which is given how far behind Mr Sunak is in the polls, and how his approval ratings relate to Starmers, you would expect probably Salman to be doing better. But 50/50 isn't a mood the dial performance. And I think from this debate that probably does reflect where things are. Yeah, I agree. I do think, you know, questions about trust and faith in politicians are as old as the Romans. But I think in this election, particularly, people are quite fed up. And even though, you know, it has been five years since we had an election, or nearly five years since we had an election last, I think people feel as though politics is intruding on their everyday lives too much at the moment. And they almost feel as though this is another election sort of out of the ordinary. And, you know, it was out on the doorstep today with two different candidates in Central Belt, Scotland. There's a lot of people who are just fed up, and I think that's reflected in, you know, in that question, in the poll results, that I think they, you know, they are manifestly fed up with the Conservative government, and this is, you know, partly a Starmer strategy. They're not that excited about anyone else either. Thank you, Isabel. Thank you, Katie, and thank you for listening. [MUSIC]