With just a week to go until polling day, Rishi Sunak badly needed some kind of game-changer, some event in last night’s televised debate with Keir Starmer to shift the balance of public opinion drastically in his favour.
He didn’t get one. YouGov, which asked debate viewers to say which leader had performed best without reference to their politics, found that half of respondents chose Starmer, and half of respondents picked Sunak. More in Common, which simply ask respondents “who won?” found that Starmer came top by 56 per cent to 44 per cent.
The Labour leader went into last night with a large opinion poll lead that we have every reason to believe is real. That was evident as recently as the local elections in May. Sunak was not campaigning in Suffolk Coastal (a seat the Conservatives won by 35.2 percentage points in 2019) because he loves the beach. At this point, each day that goes by without any significant changes in the election campaign is a major victory for Starmer — and a shattering defeat for Sunak.
The reality is that debates are rarely won or lost in the room — they are lost in the weeks, months and years before they start. That’s really where Sunak missed his chance to change the shape of this election campaign.
This is an extract from Stephen Bush’s daily Inside Politics newsletter. To read the full piece, click here. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.