During the leadership debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer last evening at ITV’s Salford Quays studios, the majority of Westminster’s journalists gravitated towards Coronation Street. Their focus was on the “spin room”, a media staging area filled with supporters of the Tory and Labour leaders, situated in the ITV’s Coronation Street Experience visitor centre. The moment the debate ended, the spin room was ablaze with party propaganda.
The soap opera escalated as senior members of the Tory cabinet like Michael Gove and Claire Coutinho grappled with Labour’s leading members, including Pat McFadden and Wes Streeting. The discussion centred around the performance of their respective party leaders.
Sunak repeatedly claimed that Labour under Starmer would “increase everyone’s taxes by £2,000”, which seemed to be the central narrative in the spin room post-debate. Starmer was slow to refute the claim during the debate and when he did, it was rather weakly. It seemed as though Sunak’s tactic had the desired impact, dominating the post-debate discussions among party representatives and media.
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s deputy treasurer and local MP in Salford, seemed to lose patience when reminded that it took Starmer 26 minutes into the one-hour debate to rebut the £2,000 tax increase allegation. He attempted to portray Sunak’s move as a desperate attempt by a party that was lagging more than 20 points behind in polls. When a reporter asked if his annoyance was due to Sunak winning the debate, Ashworth’s criticism of the Tory leader seemed to lose some steam.
Even amidst scepticism surrounding the origins of the £2,000 figure, the Tories’ tax ploy appeared successful.
The Conservatives had estimated a figure by tasking the UK’s treasury to total up the cost of what they claimed were all of the spending commitments of the Labour party. The total of the revenue-generating methods that the Conservatives indicated Starmer’s party had announced were then subtracted, resulting in a purported “tax gap” of £38 billion over four years, according to the Conservatives.
Subsequently, this figure was divided by the number of working households in the UK, yielding a headline of £2,000 per family, which the Conservatives disputed would need to be covered via tax increases.
Labour contested that the treasury’s calculations were based on a series of false or overblown presumptions given by Conservative political consultants.
Despite this, the damage was done. The tax element did not deliver the decisive blow Sunak needed to boost his party’s chances of evading an almost guaranteed loss in the July 4th election, but it was sufficient for him to marginally prevail in the televised debate with Starmer, which also addressed topics such as the cost of living, defence and security, and climate change.
In contrast, Gove revelling in his role as Sunak’s chief hype man in the spin room, proclaimed a “six-nil victory” for his colleague, dismissively asserting Starmer was “flat out on the canvas”.
Gove, who isn’t defending his seat in the upcoming election and essentially ending his political career, hinted at a future career as a sharp political pundit. His natural eloquence in front of the microphones underscored the loss his exit represents for a Conservative party lacking clear direction.
Meanwhile, Labour’s proponents claimed the party had “no intention to increase taxes on the people”. McFadden, Labour’s campaign co-ordinator, criticised the Conservative party for “throwing fuel on the dying flames of its economic credibility”.
On the 4th of July, the electorate will voice their opinion. If the survey predictions are accurate, Sunak’s tax strategy might well turn out to be his final play.