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More than 50 minutes of Tuesday’s hour-long debate had passed before Sir Keir Starmer finally quashed a repeated claim by Rishi Sunak that Labour planned to raise taxes by £2,000 per household.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t just say ‘this is nonsense’ straight away, he was like a stunned rabbit in the headlights,” said one Tory figure immediately after the ITV televised debate.
“Which part of him didn’t understand that he needed to just come out and deny it?”
By the time Starmer called the claim “absolute nonsense” and “absolute garbage”, the figure — which Sunak said was based on impartial Treasury costings — had become cemented as the debate’s most memorable line.
Starmer’s sometimes-haltering performance in the debate may be surprising for an experienced barrister, yet allies said his approach came from a desire to “stick to the rules” of the debate and not talk over Sunak — or host Julie Etchingham.
One aide described Starmer as a “polite, respectful man” who did not want to interrupt Etchingham to make political points. Sunak polled badly after repeatedly talking over Liz Truss during a 2022 leadership debate.
With Labour so far ahead in the polls ahead of the July 4 ballot, Starmer was also more cautious about his onstage demeanour than Sunak, who had less to lose from a feisty performance.
“He’s been told don’t interrupt, don’t lose your temper, and he did all those things,” said Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe, a think-tank. However, it was “glaringly obvious” with hindsight that Starmer should have reacted more firmly to the claim, he added.
Yet as Starmer wavered on stage, Labour was already in possession of a trump card. Hours after the debate, a letter emerged from the Treasury’s most senior civil servant, James Bowler, distancing the department from the £2,000 figure.
The letter was sent to Labour’s Darren Jones on Monday, enough time for it to be included in Starmer’s extensive debate preparations.
Had Starmer produced the letter — or at least quoted from it — that could have demolished Sunak’s chief attack line, causing the prime minister significant on-air embarrassment and becoming the defining moment of the debate.
“I think there’ll be a mini-inquest about why Keir didn’t have that to hand,” admitted one Labour MP.
Despite his slowness to shut down the line, snap polls on the two leaders’ debate performances put them almost level. An initial poll by YouGov gave the Tory leader a 51:49 lead over his Labour rival, although a subsequent poll by Savanta put Starmer ahead by 44 to 39. A third poll by JLP gave Starmer a lead of 53:33 against Sunak.
Lord Peter Mandelson, a former Labour cabinet minister, said Starmer’s principal objective during the debate was to “look prime ministerial” and avoid getting drawn into a verbal fist-fight with Sunak.
One Starmer aide said: “What he was doing was respecting the terms of the debate. Unlike the prime minister, he didn’t want to be hopping up and down, shouting and interrupting the host, he just wanted to calmly set out that we have total confidence in our plans.”
The bigger question for Starmer is whether Tuesday’s onstage reticence belies a lack of killer instinct — something that could be an issue if he becomes prime minister.
Menon, from UK in a Changing Europe, said Starmer was not as “fleet-footed” or “articulate” as former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron, who were accomplished public orators.
“Does that mean he’s indecisive? We don’t know until he’s facing his first crisis in government.”