Party leaders shape up for a week of talking Trump and terror

Tonight’s ITV election debate had a slightly different cast to the seven-way BBC programme on Friday night, but its spokespeople offered pretty much the same soundbites throughout the show.

It started with the parties arguing about the lessons from the London Bridge attack, with Conservative Rishi Sunak and Labour’s Richard Burgon repeating the lines their leaders have used over the weekend: Sunak had a slightly softer way of putting the Prime Minister’s argument that only a Conservative government can provide the necessary security for voters. But he did say it was important that the leader of a country responded to attacks like this, and emphasised what he claimed was Boris Johnson’s longstanding support for tougher sentencing. Burgon told the studio audience that ‘we can’t do security on the cheap’ and pointed to cuts to the police, prisons and probation service. They were goaded by Nicola Sturgeon, who accused them of politicising the attack, and Nigel Farage, who tried to widen the issue out from just the 74 terrorists released early to returning jihadis as well.