For a seven-way debate which didn’t even feature the two main party leaders, tonight’s BBC election programme was remarkably good. It felt as though it started with a jolt, with all the senior politicians present looking dazed as they struggled to find the words to respond to this afternoon’s terror attack at London Bridge. It is too early to debate the consequences, the policies which may change, the mistakes made and so on, and the awkwardness was palpable. There was visible relief when they were able to move on to the second question, and a different topic.
Because Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn had both sent along substitutes, the debate felt rather more balanced, rather than the leaders of the smaller parties trying to gang up on the big two. That doesn’t mean that Rebecca Long-Bailey and Rishi Sunak didn’t have to fend off attacks from the other parties: Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price was particularly keen to attack Labour’s record running the NHS in Wales, and Sunak naturally took a great deal of flak from the pro-Remain members of the panel for his – slightly robotic – focus on the need to ‘get Brexit done’.
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