Election Debate ITV 4 June 2024

The ‘45 seconds to respond’ format was a mistake. Fewer topics with longer responses might actually have been interesting, but this stifled all opportunity for any thought to be expressed in anything more than trivial detail.

It's the Twitter effect. Kids these days can't hold their attention for longer than 45 seconds.

shakes fist at clouds
Strong agree
The format excluded any proper discussion and left space only for the pre-rehearsed soundbites we all expect anyway. Combined with the ineffective moderation and the whole thing was a tedious watch, shambles over substance.

ITV took 70 minutes of my life and I want them back.

Sunak actually getting a clap from the audience after saying he won't bow to Junior Doctor Union demands of a 35% pay increase.

I'm actually surprised at that!

Docs have made a strategic mistake for striking in the middle of election when negotiations are impossible.
- or they've made a great decision to embarrass this government just before an election and help to oust them
Doctors do become very well paid later in their careers as consultants so there is probably limited amount of sympathy for the rough years as junior doctors where they are significantly underpaid.
- That's true, however people can be junior doctors for a surprisingly long time so you can see why they are pissed off! I assumed it was the first 3 years after graduation or something until one of my friends who is a doctor explained it to me.
  
  Junior doctors are qualified doctors in clinical training.
  
  They have completed a medical degree and can have up to nine years' of working experience as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to five years working and gaining experience to become a general practitioner (GP).
Most people understand that 35% is completely unreasonable, so I'm not surprised that the audience approve.

Only one winner tonight

Orange man: bad
Orange Britain: 👌

Question two: Be honest about the NHS and what it's going to take to fix it.

Both candidates:

Starmer hits a clanger on Sunak.

Starmer: Explain how the waiting figures are coming down, they were 7.2 million and now they're 7.5 million and he's supposed to be good at maths!

Sunak: B..B...But they came down from a higher figure before?

I’d guess the discrepancy is waiting times being different from the total number of people waiting. Both of those stats could feasibly be true if demand is growing all of the time.

There’s hardly enough time for questions here, terrible debate

Agreed. TV debates are more a test to the public of whether you sweat too much under studio lights these days.

That's it! Thanks for playing. My summary:

Yes, but your commentary was more entertaining than the event itself!

I thought Starmer started off well but he's getting some push back from Rishi that he needs to tackle otherwise he's going to get swamped by Rishi's combative style. Round One pretty indecisive. 😕

Moderator sounding like a stressed out supply teacher

Second audience clap of the night is for Starmer's private school tax policy. 👏

Something like the third time Starmer has told us his dad was a tool maker.

🎶 My old man's a tool maker he wears a tool man's hat...

GB Energy seems like a genuinely interesting idea from Labour. Say more on this old man! 😜

In a post-Trump, post-Brexit, post-Johnson world, I thought journalists had gotten better at calling out direct lies. Yet the moderator allowed Sunak repeatedly to lie about Labour's tax plans and to lie that the Treasury backed those figures. Just outrageous.

To be fair, so did Starmer.

I agree the moderator had a hard time getting anything of basic value from either candidate. But I wouldn't go so far as to say she encouraged Sunak's lies. She just wanted to get it over with.

Here we go

Thank you everyone for your comments. I wasn't going to watch and you've summarised nicely.

Rishi says you can vote for anyone apart from the Conservatives and it will count for Labour. Awesome, everyone vote with your conscious then.

Rishi coming off better in this question of retirement tax than Starmer. All he has to say is "under Liz Truss, under Liz Truss". Poor from Starmer on that one.

It's ridiculous, Sunak is the person who froze the tax boundaries in the first place. Why isn't Starmer pointing that out?

Woeful so far. Both of them talking over each other in an abrasive way like this is a US presidential debate.

I didn't have high hopes for responses or even the questions for that matter. I'm in it for the gaffs. Hoping Starmer let's slip "you twat" in a hot mic moment.

Ooo apparently we can follow and comment on the debate wherever we are by using the hashtag #ITVDebate. Assuming that also means Lemmy..... 😉

Changing planning laws! Why is this a throw away right at the end? FFS.

A quick fire round about education next with £140 up for grabs.....??

And he already looks like a dweeb! Put him out of his misery and vote him out now!

Question five: The climate.

More aspirations from Starmer here, which I suspect is going to be an overall winner on this topic. Sunak's go to answer is "no we can't afford it so I'm not going to do it" seems a bit wet in comparison.

Although surprised (again) at the clapping for Sunak's rebuttal.

On the immigration question I think they both came out pretty well. Appealing to their core voters I must admit. But strong responses from the both of them. Hard to judge between them on this issue. Basically if you want to believe Rishi then Starmer isn't swaying you on this question, and if you want to believe Starmer then Rishi isn't persuading you.

Rishi held his own pretty well on that

”£2000 worse off in taxes"

That's all he said wasn't it?

Unelected, jug-eared, toffy-nosed midget

Edit: From the BBC-

The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the Conservatives’ assessment of their tax plans "should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service".

The letter from James Bowler, the Treasury permanent secretary, risks undermining Rishi Sunak’s claim in last night’s debate that Labour’s plans include £38bn of uncosted spending, which he says would mean £2,000 of tax rises per working household.

In a letter to Darren Jones, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Bowler writes: "As you will expect, civil servants were not involved in the production or presentation of the Conservative Party’s document 'Labour’s Tax Rises' or in the calculation of the total figure used ... the £38bn figure used in the Conservative Party’s publication includes costs beyond those provided by the Civil Service".

"I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service," he adds.

He wanted to make it the slogan of the campaign and I think it probably will be, despite this revelation from the Treasury. Starmer really should have challenged this more robustly... or at all.
- Well he did call him a liar to his face, that was challenge enough to me.
  
  He even explained why it was a lie.

Question four: Why U so relaxed with genocide, innit?

Starmer says "we have to find a path to peace, we have to bring a permanent ceasefire"

Sunak says "I've made the decision to lead".

Tell us what you're going to actually do you fuckwits! Just question dodging as usual.
- Difficult for them though isn't it? In reality, they can't do anything but line up behind any plausible peace proposal that is brokered by another country. We're not in a position to be the mediators this time.
  
  They can't come out and say they will do something specific (unless it's just words, strongly condemn etc) because it will be hung around their necks when it doesn't happen.

On the subject of heat pumps, I was hearing the other day that if you buy air conditioning units but set them to reverse mode then they function exactly like heat pumps at a fraction of the price + you can keep your boiler for when it gets really cold for like 2 weeks a year. Apparently they don't want to give any finance for them because the wonks are worried people might use them when it is hot in summer.

Final quick fire of the night. The Euros (no not that one, ⚽). Double or nothing.

This is a TV debate for the UK general election not fucking England football. Jesus no wonder the rest of the UK hates England.

After the break we'll be discussing the immigration climate.... Oh wait that's Immigration and then the Climate 😊

Another quick fire round on The Donald. Fingers on your buzzers!