Sunak’s scrappy style worked, but he fought on a false premise

‘Gentlemen, please’, said Julie Etchingham, over and over again, as she chaired this ITV debate. She had given Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer both 45 seconds for answers and both had far more to say. ITV didn’t silence one microphone when the other was speaking so both were able to heckle, further complicating the format. Sunak’s tactic was to turn everything into a question for Starmer: ‘What are you going to do about tax / small boats/ taxing pensioners?’ Starmer’s general lack of answers came across, which will have been Sunak’s objective. I’d give the debate to Sunak – but it was closer than I thought it would be. And to win, Sunak had to stretch the truth until the elastic snapped.

Starmer can be fairly wooden at delivering speeches, but his lawyer training came across. He was faster on his feet than I expected, even managing the odd joke. Sunak’s big tactic, quite audacious (not to say shameless) was say Starmer would charge £2,000 more in tax – whereas the Tories would cut taxes.