The BBC Question Time debate was unique in that the leading leaders were given an extended period of time (fully half an hour each) to answer questions.
This allowed the audience not just to ask, but to question. Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey was under pressure to fund big spending commitments.
SNP leader John Swinney has been scrutinized for his continued determination to deliver independence for Scotland.
Labor leader Keir Starmer was asked about the potential for tax rises, while Chancellor Rishi Sunak faced a series of tough questions from election betting to military service.
Each leader tried to stand his ground and convey his core message. Here our two columnists react to who they believe performed better and worse.
It’s never pleasant to watch someone struggle. While some take positive pleasure in watching a leader flounder in a horribly mismanaged campaign, I feel sorry for them. And so, with a distinct sense of relief, I turned off the England game and began preparing for the Question Time special.
First up was Ed Davey, who was on land for once. First question: Aren’t you going to bankrupt the country? It was a hostile start and an unconvincing answer. Ed’s main problem was that his political strategy was to be a decent guy who garnered protest votes, which makes politics a difficult topic to discuss. It’s much better to fall off your paddleboard instead.
But the audience wanted to know his record. Hadn’t he enabled austerity? Davey admitted he was “not proud” of some of the things the Liberal Democrats did the last time they were truly relevant and answered (or failed to answer) questions about potential coalitions about whether he could be prime minister. , tuition fees and the post office, its boundaries were becoming painfully clear.
Swinney wasn’t doing any better. After he finished his carefully worded response to the SNP’s scandals, the audience began to turn the screws. Second question: Will you continue to hold referendums until you get the answer you want?
His position seemed to be that if the SNP got a majority of Scottish seats at the election, that was the green light for a referendum. If they don’t, that’s the green light for a referendum. In fact, every problem was seen through this prism. How can Swinney help production? With Scotland rejoining the EU. After independence.
To be fair, the SNP’s domestic performance is nothing to write home about. Asked how he would strengthen Scotland’s NHS, Swinney said he was responsible for the crisis caused by austerity. But the Scottish health service now spends 10 per cent more on producing left than before the pandemic. At some point, responsibility is required.
But this has never been the SNP’s strong point. Whenever something goes wrong, the blame is on the UK, Brexit or the Conservative Party. That doesn’t mean the audience wasn’t impressed: the loudest applause of the night so far came when Swinney called the Conservative government a “disaster”. Okay then.
This edition of Question Time was the first edition where a celebrity on the panel could help: why not top it off with 30 minutes of Russell Brand?
Where would Nigel Farage be without a good laugh? – with the appearance of Keir Starmer at the halfway point, the home audience was likely turned off and the atmosphere in the studio was sleepwalking. We have heard the following words of the Labor Party before; The answers, none of them come.
Why did he say Jeremy Corbyn was “wonderful”? Keir repeated that he did not think he would win the election. Why are private schools penalized? He loves schools. When will waiting lists be removed? My mother was a nurse. The only enlightening part was a lesson in why socialism won’t work in the energy sector; this highlights his dubious conversion from Corbynism.
The reason the Corbyn question is important is that Starmer does not say whether he changed his policies because he saw that Corbyn was wrong or because he did not want to lose like his predecessor.
In short, would Sir Keir have gone full communism if he thought he could get away with it? We’ll just have to find out.
As for Rishi Sunak, his hands were alive but his face was dead. Why is he doing this? I’m surprised he hasn’t gone to California already. When questioned, he appeared to have turned it off; reopened to issue the standard corporate apology for a service that did not meet one’s expectations. Why does he want to recruit children voluntarily? Because he met a boy who worked at St John’s Ambulance and he liked it. Bravo. This is an argument in favor of promoting St John’s Ambulance, not his outlandish national service scheme.
What is interesting is why both men accepted these arguments. Starmer’s strategy is to say nothing; So why not spend the election on a yacht in the Mediterranean, issuing the occasional press release? Sunak believes he has the intellectual edge because the man in the bathroom mirror yells at him like that every morning; but the more we see of the Conservative Party, the more it reminds us why they stand to lose.