One of the two party leaders who featured in Tuesday’s televised election debate, the first of the campaign, will be prime minister on July 5. That is the choice before the electorate, however loud other noises are off-stage.
The aim of such debates, a relatively recent addition to British elections, is to give voters their first real chance to see and hear the main candidates set out their stalls for the next five years. Inevitably, both leaders had their carefully rehearsed lines and were intent on sticking to them. The format of the debate, with constant interruptions and the participants unable to make their points, did not help.
But it did mark a good evening for the Prime Minister, who has struggled to make inroads in the polls and has been frustrated at not getting his message across. He said he had a plan to cut taxes, protect pensions and reduce immigration, whereas Labour was an unknown quantity.
Sir Keir Starmer, well ahead in the opinion polls, was desperate not to make a mistake or say anything injudicious – or, indeed, anything much at all. He reprised his call for change and an end to the “chaos” of Tory rule, but we learnt little new.
Rishi Sunak needed a good performance in order to narrow the gap in the polls, and he was both confident and assured, while Sir Keir was uncertain and evasive.
The Prime Minister pointed out that inflation was back to normal, wages were growing and taxes had been cut in the last two Budgets. He was also anxious not to dwell too much on his party’s 14 years in office. “This election is about the future,” he said.
Sir Keir suggested that he knew better about the difficulties people faced because of his upbringing, a deliberate attempt to imply Mr Sunak is too wealthy to understand this. But while the Opposition leader criticised the Tory record, there was little that we learnt about what he would do to improve the NHS, build more homes, make the streets safer, or reform social care.
Sweeping promises are not a prospectus for governing. Mr Sunak is right to say Labour dwells too much on the past but has no big plans for the future.
One issue that does keep recurring is immigration, once a taboo subject at an election and now a central worry of voters. Net legal immigration was more than 750,000 last year, nearly 10 times greater than the level to which the Tories promised to reduce it at successive elections. They are again pledging to place caps on work visas and point to a fall in numbers recently as restrictions on students and their families take effect.
But the decline is from record levels that occurred on their watch. The credibility problem they face is: why should anyone believe they will do in future what they failed to do in the past? But Labour is equally hamstrung since net migration took off in 1997 when Tony Blair assumed office and has been on an upward trajectory ever since.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said his party wanted “zero net migration”, which is an example of the party promising what people want to hear rather than what is feasible. Mr Sunak has suggested that the Conservatives could make leaving the European Convention on Human Rights a manifesto commitment. Yet similar hints have been dropped for years to no avail.
The focus on immigration is a double-edged sword for the Conservatives given their poor record. An annual cap on visas and giving Parliament a vote on the limits is a good idea, though not a new one.
It exposes Labour’s weakness on the subject but also opens a line of attack from Reform who will always outflank the Tories with more extravagant promises, deliverable or not.
Even though he did not take part in the debate last night, Mr Farage has emerged as the third most important participant in this election. Mr Sunak hoped a snap election would catch Reform napping but his task has become infinitely harder with the re-emergence of Mr Farage to take the helm of the party.
Nevertheless, the polls are pointing to a huge Labour majority. Sir Keir’s one-dimensional performance last night demonstrated he does not deserve it and Mr Sunak’s combative approach shows this election is far from over.
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