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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Sunak and Starmer clash over tax, borders and Brexit deal in final head-to-head before polling day – as it happened

​​Rishi Sunak Sir Keir Starmer Sun

Evening summary

  • Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have clashed over their responses to the Westminster gambling scandal, as it emerged the Metropolitan police is to widen its role in the investigation into bets placed on the general election. As Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar report, in the last head-to-head debate before voters go to the polls, the Labour leader launched a fierce attack on the culture at the top of the Conservative party, saying it showed the “wrong instinct” to place bets on the future of the country – likening it to the cavalier attitude to Covid rules. In the angry exchanges, Sunak repeatedly urged the country not to “surrender” to Labour’s plans on tax and migration and said the general election should not be decided purely based on frustration with the Conservatives. Here is Jessica and Pippa’s full story.

Here is Eleni Courea’s article on five things we’ve learned from the debate.

And here is John Crace’s sketch.

Debate verdict from commentariat on X

And this is what some journalists and commenators are saying about the debate.

From Lucy Fisher from the Financial Times

Well, that was Sunak unleashed tonight

Which prompts the obvious question... where was that sense of fight before now?!

I suspect his team will be thrilled with his performance, but one week out from polling day feels far too late to shift the narrative in any significant way

From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents podcast

Similar feel to the first debate. Starmer often quite slow off the mark to make his points. Sunak more spirited to the point of aggression. If he and the Conservatives hadn’t made so many unforced errors in the campaign it might have mattered. As it is it probably won’t.

From Robert Shrimsley from the FT

If Sunak had been able to be this guy all through the campaign the Tories might not be in quite so much trouble. They’d still lose but not in the way we are now discussing.

From George Eaton from the New Statesman

Sunak has channelled the ghost of Ian Paisley tonight: “No surrender”.

Starmer truly resembled someone carrying a Ming vase tonight; Sunak was simply intent on throwing it at him. https://t.co/1xZ0AzOeZk

From Lizzy Buchan from the Mirror

Not sure about the “do not surrender” to Labour line that Rishi Sunak is so keen on tonight. Bit patronising to voters?

From Christopher Hope from GB News

Rishi Sunak’s use of the word “surrender” is interesting on “tax rises”, cutting welfare and the border. “Don’t surrender,” Sunak keeps saying. An appeal to Reform UK supporters not to give up on the Tories?

From Paul Brand from ITV

This “do not surrender” line that Sunak has used at least a dozen lines is interesting. They’ve obviously tried to work out a line that sounds like a positive, active, even defiant action for voters, in an election where nobody feels massively motivated.

Sunak has clearly decided to leave everything on the debating floor tonight. As I said recently on @GMB you have to give him credit for fighting hard and never giving up. A lot of people would be feeling pretty wounded after the few weeks he’s had.

From James Ball from the New European

As with the first debate, Sunak needed a big cut through moment and didn’t get it. Starmer just needed to have no horror show moments, and did. 50/50 as an on-the-night verdict is frankly a bonus for Labour.

From Stephen Bush from the FT

The central problem with this format is that it allows two politicians who are not being straight with us about tax-and-spend to keep doing it, because no-one can intervene and go ‘but the IFS says you’re both full of it, doesn’t it?’ in an effective way:

From Harry Cole from the Sun

YouGov debate snap poll: 50% say Starmer won, 50% say Sunak won

Given Sunak is 20 points behind nationally.. that’s quite a feat.

And don’t forget YouGov also have 52 disapproval rating for Starmer....

Astonishing stat for someone heading for large majority.

From Michael Savage from the Observer

The extent to which Sunak is dominating this so far is quite striking. It all hangs on what people watching actually make of that approach.

From Kate McCann from Times Radio

This debate format isn’t currently working for Keir Starmer. He’s better when given time to make a logical coherent argument, not so good when confronted with constant barbs from Rishi Sunak (who has very little to lose, so doesn’t much care if he comes across as snippy)

From Peter Walker from the Guardian

That rather unsavoury small boats exchange on the BBC election debate illustrated what is essentially the entire point of the Rwanda deportation scheme: to give the government a way to say, ‘We have a plan!’ even when they know it’s not actually a plan, more of a slogan.

From Sam Freedman for Prospect

Sunak is the most unpopular party leader in history with a week to go before an election. It doesn’t make the blindest bit of difference how he does in a debate.

It’s genuinely astonishing that we’re getting “that was a good debate for Sunak” takes given the polls today. It’s likely complimenting someone on their shirt while they’re having a heart attack.

YouGov has posted more details from its snap poll on its website.

And here are some of the charts.

Sunak/Starmer debate - snap verdict

At the start of the election, the Tories said Rishi Sunak wanted to debate Keir Starmer every week for all six weeks. It was a daft proposal that was never going to be accepted, and at time it felt like a clumsy ploy to make Starmer looked scared when he said no. After tonight, you start to wonder whether there were people in CCHQ who genuinely felt that, with a campaign entirely focused on debates, Sunak might actually have turned things around a bit.

That is because, when the history of Labour’s election-winning campaign gets written up, the two head-to-head debates will stand out as Sunak’s best moments. Almost nothing else has gone right for him. But in the first debate he used a (fairly spurious) tax claim to keep Starmer on the defensive for the whole encounter, and tonight he was just as persistent and unrelenting. In some of the policy areas, like small boats and welfare, he was clearly winning the argument on points. And in terms of landing his message, he was probably more successful than Starmer too – even though, with the constant references to “surrender”, his message has become more alarmist and hysterical than when the election started.

And while technically the YouGov snap poll is a draw, the YouGov sample is weighted (not like the studio audience, which being 50/50 Labour/Tory, was in reality disproportionately Tory) and so if Sunak is drawing neck-and-neck with Starmer, in relative terms he is doing well. Debate snap polls often just reflect how the public feel about leaders generally, and on all those normal measures Sunak and his party are miles behind. (See 7.25pm.)

There are two caveats. While Sunak may have done well in terms of scoring debating points, he sounded increasingly like the sort of oddball that you would least want to be standing next to at a party. When he seemed nervous, or was facing challenge, his speaking rate starting speeding out and he began to get shouty and a bit monomaniac. Even if he had a point, it was not endearing.

And the other caveat, of course, is that it is too late for any of this to make any difference – which may be why there was a thread of desperation running through the Sunak performance.

If Sunak won on policy, Starmer won, very easily, on demeanour. He was more effective than he was in the first debate at pushing back at Sunak’s propagandist claims, and he delivered what was probably the best put-down of the night (the one about listening to people – see 8.34pm.) He was not afraid to accuse Sunak of lying, but he managed to come over as less petty than his opponent, and more authoritative and likable.

Sunak may have won in that he outperformed expectations. But Starmer presented as the next prime minister, and all he needed was a draw anyway; in that sense it was a win for him too.

Updated

Snap YouGov poll suggests BBC debate was draw, with viewers saying it was 50/50 who performed best

YouGov has released the results of its snap poll on the debate. And it’s a draw.

They are now on final statements.

Sunak says he understands why people are frustrated. But this is not a byelection. It is a choice, with profound consequences. Can you afford to pay £2,000 more in tax? And if you are not certain about Labour, “don’t surrender to them”.

Starmer says Sunak is a “liar” who has been told not to use that figure.

He ends:

My message to you is simple … If you want a growing economy, you have to vote for it. If you want more police on our streets or teachers in our schools, you have to vote for it. If you want to end 14 years of chaos, rebuild our country and that power is in your hands. On July 4, vote change, vote Labour.

And that’s it. The debate is over.

Updated

The final question comes from a young woman who asks what Sunak and Starmer would do to persuade young people like her to stay in the UK, rather than travel to countries like Australia as some of her counterparts are doing.

Starmer says he would build more homes. The Tories have got rid of housebuilding targets, he says.

Sunak says people who own a home remember what it felt like getting keys for the first time. He says he has two practical things that would help: Help to Buy, helping people who cannot afford a full deposit; and abolishing stamp duty for first-time buyers. He says Labour does not back these ideas.

Sunak says, under Labour, stamp duty is going up.

Starmer says the chancellor has said the money has been spent.

“That is not what he said at all,” Sunak says.

Starmer says the Tories have spent the money. Sunak says Birmingham council’s bankrupcy shows what would happen under Labour.

Starmer rules out accepting higher immigration as part of getting better Brexit deal with EU

The next question comes from Julie, who says she has lost 90% of her business with Europe since Brexit. How will they improve that?

Sunak mentions plans that will help small businesses, and largely avoids talking about Brexit.

Starmer initially talks about general business policy. But, when pressed, he says the Brexit deal was botched, and he would get a better one.

Sunak says Starmer “might be able” to get a better deal with the EU. But it would require free movement, he says.

Starmer says he will not accept free movement, or rejoin the single market or the customs union. But he says he will get a better deal.

Sunak says he has struck deals with the EU, on the Windsor framework and on the Horizon scheme. But he knows there is a cost.

Asked if he accepts that, Starmer says that is why he has set out his red lines.

Sunak asks if Starmer would accept higher migration as part of a deal.

Starmer says he would not. But he says net migration is at a record level under Sunak.

Starmer accuses Sunak of using trans issue 'as political football to divide people'

Q: Will you protect women’s rights to female-only spaces, regardless of whether people have a gender recognition certificate?

Sunak says he will amend the Equality Act to clarify that sex means biological sex.

Starmer says he will protect women’s spaces. He says he saw the importance of those when he was DPP.

But he says there are a small number of people born into a gender they do not accept. And he will treat those people “with dignity and respect”. And why? Because if you don’t, you end up with the PM making an anti-trans joke in the Commons with Brianna Ghey’s mother there.

Sunak says that is not what he was doing.

And he says Starmer won’t change the law to protect women-only spaces.

Starmer says Sunak has not been in as many of these women-only spaces as he has, because of his role as DPP.

Q: But how would you guarantee those spaces [are female-only]?

Starmer says the Equality Act actually specifies women’s refuges, and says they should be protected.

Sunak says, when it comes to these matters, sex means biological sex. That is the only way to deliver the protections the questioner wants, he says.

And he says, when a Labour MP said this, Starmer said she was wrong. She was hounded.

Starmer says Sunak should read the legislation. The protections are there. “Don’t just use this as a political football to divide people.”

Updated

The next question comes from a woman who asks how she can be sure they will put women first.

Starmer says he has strong women in his team. Rachel Reeves would be the first woman chancellor. Angela Rayner, his deputy, comes from an incredible background. He mentions Yvette Cooper and Bridget Phillipson too, and says he leads a very strong team.

Sunak says he has two young daughters. As a dad, he wants them to grow up in a country where they are safe. He wants to ensure they have good healthcare. And he wants to be sure that, when they grow up, they are supported too. That is why the government is rolling up free childcare.

The next question is about leadership.

Q: Mr Sunak, you have been a mediocre PM? And Mr Starmer, it looks like your strings are being pulled by senior people in the Labour party? Are you the best we’ve got?

Sunak answers by setting out his spiel about the risk of taxes going up under Labour.

Starmer talks about his time as an adviser to the police service of Northern Ireland, where he helped it change. As head of the CPS, he institued change. And he says when he became Labour leader, he changed that too.

Now he wants the chance to change the country, he says.

Paul Lewis, the financial broadcaster, says Sunak’s claim about Labour taxing pensions is misleading.

Debate: Sunak on state pension is very misleading. The state pension will not be taxed for the first time in history because it is already taxed and 1.6million people had a state pension last year that is more than the personal tax allowance of £242 a week. This year it’s more.

Sunak claims councils are going bankrupt because of mismanagement under Labour.

The economy is recovering, he says. He goes on:

If we put all that progress at risk, then your family finances are going to get hammered. Your taxes are going to get whacked up. And that is a choice view of this election – do not surrender to their tax rises.

Updated

Starmer accuses Sunak of peddling 'falsehoods' about Labour's plans

Sunak says Labour won’t rule out a council tax revaluation.

And, under Labour, every state pension will be subject to tax.

Starmer says: “Don’t insult me by putting up falsehoods.”

As Sunak keeps putting questions to Starmer, Starmer jokes that Sunak has put a bet on how many times he will interrupt him.

Sunak asks Starmer to confirm Labour won’t match the Tories’ pension triple-lock plus.

Starmer does not confirm that.

Sunak claims that means pensioners will have to pay tax on their pension under Labour.

Asked to explain why that is wrong, Starmer replies:

Pensioners are not going to be better off with the prime minister. He’s making promises that he can’t keep because they’re not funded.

Updated

Sunak says taxes will go up under Labour. Starmer is not being straight about that, he claims.

Starmer does not accept that. He says Labour’s plans are all costed. And he says the Hunt welfare comment shows the Tories plans are unfunded, like Liz Truss’s were.

Sunak says he was right about Truss’s policies. Tax increases are in Labour’s DNA, he says.

Do not surrender your family finances to Labour’s tax rises.

Starmer says, having attacked Truss’s policies, Sunak says his party had to unite behind her.

Husain says Starmer knows what it is to unite behind a leader you disagree with.

That gets a strong round of applause.

Sunak claims Labour's 'nonsensical' small boats policy implies negotiating returns deal with Taliban

Sunak and Starmer are now talking about small boats.

Sunak says he has a plan, and he claims Labour does not.

Asked what he would do, Starmer says arrivals are not being processed, which means they cannot be returned. They are here for life.

Sunak keeps asking Starmer “what will you do with them?” He says he will put them on planes to Rwanda.

Starmer says that will take 300 years at the rate he is proposing.

Sunak says these people come from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan. The idea of getting a returns agreement with the Taliban is “nonsensical”.

This gets a big round of applause.

Sunak says the situation will get worse under Labour.

Q: So you are promising to send hundreds of thousands of people to Rwanda?

Sunak says he will start flights in July.

And he says Starmer said, when he was running for Labour leader, that he approved of free movement.

Starmer says he wants to smash the gangs.

Sunak says the government passed a law to enable this. But Labour voted against this.

“Do not surrender our borders,” Sunak says.

This is from Poltico’s Dan Bloom.

At the last election CCHQ was criticised for renaming its Twitter account factcheckUK during an election debate. This was misleading because a political party account was made to look like an impartial factchecking account.

Tonight they doing something similar. They have renamed their press account Tax Check UK.

Starmer says he wants welfare spending to come down

Sunak says he wants to change the eligibility system for benefits.

But Starmer opposed those measures when he announced them, he says.

He says that is why welfare will be higher under Labour, and it won’t be able to afford tax cuts.

Starmer says the Tories have been in charge for 14 years. Why are they only doing this now?

Sunak says the election is about the future.

Q: Will the welfare bill be higher under you?

No, says Starmer. “It needs to come down.”

Sunak says the growth in the welfare bill is unsustainable. The choice is simple. “Higher taxes, higher welfare” under Labour, or the opposite under the Tories, he says.

Updated

Starmer tells Sunak, if he listened more, he would not be so out of touch

Sunak says if people are offered work, and don’t take it, that is not acceptable. After 12 months, people will lose support, he says. That is why the Tories can save money from the welfare bill, he says.

Husain asks Starmer what is wrong with that.

Starmer says he accepts that principle.

Sunak says Labour opposed those plans.

Starmer tells Sunak (who has been interrupting a lot) that if he listened to people around the country, he would not be so out of touch.

(That was the first moment of the debate that felt like a direct hit.)

He says it can be hard for people to get back to work without support.

PA Media says the noise is coming from pro-Palestinian protesters.

Husain apologises for the fact that viewers can hear noise in the background. She says there is a protest going on outside the debate venue. Protests are a part of our elections, she says.

Starmer dismisses Sunak's claim new leaked audio shows Labour's net zero plans will cost 'hundreds of billions'

Husain asks Starmer if he knows no other Labour candidiate has made a similar bet.

Starmer does not answer directly. He says he has made it clear what standards he expects.

He says Sunak is not in a position to talk to people about integrity in politiics given he broke the Covid rules.

He says Labour is not being straight about its tax plans.

Starmer says he has set out his plans. He says the Tory plans are unfunded, because Jeremy Hunt has admitted that the money set aside in the manifesto has already been spent.

(That is a reference to Hunt saying welfare savings were behind the tax cuts announced in the autumn statement. The Tories are also saying welfare savings will pay for the manifesto plans.)

Sunak tells people to go to the Telegraph website, where there is a story about Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, saying decarbonising the economy will cost hundreds of billions of pounds.

Starmer says this is a reference to Labour wanting to get investors to invest in the UK economy.

This is how the Telegraph story (which, unusually, does not have a byline on it) starts:

Reaching Labour’s target for decarbonising the economy will cost “hundreds of billions” of pounds, a shadow minister has disclosed in a recording obtained by The Telegraph.

Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the £28 billion per year originally allocated to Labour’s green investment plan was a “tiny” amount.

He said the fact that Sir Keir Starmer had downgraded his investment plans from £28 billion to £4.7 billion “made it sound as if we basically junked the whole thing but we definitely haven’t”.

Mr Jones told a public meeting in Bristol that private capital would have to be used to upgrade infrastructure, but “public subsidy” would still be needed alongside that.

Sunak says Starmer has 'changed his mind on every major position he's taken'

Sunak defends himself.

He says he set up an internal inquiry. When he got the results, he took action.

He says trust is also about doing what you say. But Starmer has “changed his mind on every major position he has taken”, and he is not being straight with people about his proposed tax rises.

Updated

Starmer says he suspended candidate over betting probe 'within minutes', unlike Sunak

Husain says Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer do not know what the questions will be. They will come mostly from the audience, she says.

And she starts with a question from Sue Barclay.

Q: People are dismayed by the lack of integrity in politics. How would you restore trust in politics?

Sunak tells Sue he shares her anger. He was frustrated and furious when he heard these allegations. He set up his own inquiry, and two candidates have been suspended.

Starmer says you have to lead from the front. Politics has become too focused on people thinking of themselves, not public service.

He says the instinct of the candidates was wrong. But it is also a failure of leadership. He mentions Partygate and the Covid inquiry. He suspended a candidate “within minutes” when he realised a candidate was being investigated by the Gambling Commission.

Mishal Husain opens the debate.

YouGov will have a snap poll on who won the debate, with the results available minutes after it finishes.

This is what Labour is putting out ahead of the debate, in a stateement from Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator.

Tonight, the British people will witness the choice at this election: five more years of chaos with Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives or change with Keir Starmer and Labour.

On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with Keir Starmer and a changed Labour party.

And this is from a Conservative party spokesperson.

Tonight, Keir Starmer has the opportunity to announce loud and clear to the British public what his intentions are.

Throughout this campaign we have challenged the Labour party, time and time again, to come clean on their plans for taxes. Time and time again they have declined to do so.

When the money of working families and pensioners across the UK is on the line, certainty and transparency is what the public deserves. Anything less than that from Starmer tonight is nothing but an admission that they will tax your home, your pension, your car, your education – your everything.

I don’t think we have heard of the “your everything” tax before.

The election betting scandal is likely to come up in the BBC debate, but Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer may not be asked about a new development. The Sun is claiming that the Tory Philip Davies has placed a £8,000 bet on his losing his Shipley constituency. When Davies spoke to the paper, he did not dispute the story, but he told the reporter: “What’s it go to do with you whether I did or didn’t?” He also said he would be “busting a gut” to win his seat.

The Sun points out that there is nothing illegal in a candidate betting against himself. But yesterday Keir Starmer disowned a Labour candidate who bet that he would lose.

Tonight’s debate is not expected to affect the outcome of the general election. On LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, Philip Hammond, the former Tory chancellor, said the result was decided almost two years ago. He said:

In my own mind, the outcome of this election, maybe not the magnitude of it, but the outcome of the election was determined in the autumn of 2022. I think the public had started to make up its mind during the Partygate shenanigans, and then the Liz Truss government was the final straw for many people.

If you want to watch the BBC debate with British sign language (BSL), that is available on the BBC News channel.

Rishi Sunak has arrived at the debate venue.

This is from my colleague Jessica Elgot in the spin room at the debate venue, where she she says the election campaign really is hotting up.

We’re now in the spin room for the BBC debate and it is BOILING. 🥵

Just heard Wes Streeting saying he’s “broadcasting live from an incinerator.”

Candidates feeling the heat etc etc

Keir Starmer has arrived for the BBC debate.

Mishal Husain, the Today programme presenter, is hosting tonight’s debate. In an article for the BBC, she says she wants it to be a proper debate.

I’ve done two seven-way leaders’ debates before, in 2017 and earlier this month. Each time there are different complexities, and while you prepare by honing your knowledge of each party’s key policies - and their points of difference - you also want spontaneity and energy. A proper debate, really, rather than speech-making.

According to the BBC, the audience members have been chosen by the polling company Savanta and they include equal numbers of Conservative and Labour voters, as well as undecided voters.

Given the unpopularity of the Conservative party at the moment, this means the audience won’t be representative of the nation as a whole, but actually much more pro-Tory. Today’s Ipsos political monitor provided a good reminder of how unpopular the government has become.

Good evening. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are debating each other on the BBC at 8.15pm, and I’m here to cover the buildup and the debate itself, and to bring reaction and analysis afterwards. It is only the second prime ministerial debate of the election campaign, but Sunak and Starmer have been debating each other regularly at PMQs since Sunak became PM 20 months ago. Unless the opinion polls have managed to pull off the biggest collective failure of intelligence gathering since people started researching public opinion, it will also be the last time they debate with Sunak as PM.

Overall, Sunak has had a poor campaign which (so far, at least) has confounded the conventional wisdom that “polls always narrow” in the weeks before people actually cast their vote. But the first debate, the ITV one chaired by Julia Etchingham, was a relative highlight for him. A snap poll said he won narrowly, and Starmer has subsequently admitted that he was not happy with how he performed. The other big TV moments for the two leaders have been the Sky News leaders’ special, the BBC Question Time leaders’ special and the Sun TV Q&A

If you are looking for some of the topics that might come up, here is our live blog from earlier summing up all the day’s political developments.

I’m afraid we are not able to open comments tonight. I’m sorry about that. But if you want to flag something up to me, it is best to use X; I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly.

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