Keir Starmer lost the debate — but he’ll still win the UK election

LONDON — He’d done his homework. He’s Keir Starmer — of course he had.

The Labour leader knew he needed to blunt Rishi Sunak’s attacks on him over taxes and immigration, stop the prime minister interrupting, and do his very best not to look like the “political robot” he was accused of being by an audience member in a similar forum a few weeks ago.

And he tried — he really did — but in the last debate of the British general election campaign, Starmer pretty much failed on all fronts.

It is an oddity of this election that there seems little warmth among the public for the man that, if the polls are correct, is on course to win with a landslide on July 4.

On those kind of numbers you’d expect Churchill, JFK and Taylor Swift  rolled into one, not a 60-something bespectacled lawyer blinking in the spotlight. 

It’s not that he’s terrible at debate — Starmer is reasonably coherent, obviously bright, and quick enough on his feet. He’s just not terribly good.

Labour knows it, which is why the party refused the Conservatives’ attempt to drag Starmer into the gladiatorial combat of a head-to-head clash with Sunak every week of the campaign. 

Starmer knows it, too. He has spoken often of how little he relishes his weekly tussle with Sunak at prime minister’s questions in parliament.

Changing the weather

The Tories also know it, and this time their candidate came out fighting. Scrappy, pugnacious and with nothing to lose, Sunak went into the debate clearly determined to unsettle Starmer and in the process maybe, just maybe, do enough to change the political weather.

The prime minister went for it. He was punchy, the hangdog look he’d carried since his bizarre decision to leave Normandy early during the D-Day commemorations was gone and, despite the ongoing betting scandal, he seemed energized.

The Labour leader knew he needed to blunt Rishi Sunak’s attacks on him over taxes and immigration.| Pool Photo by Phil Noble via Getty Images

Sunak hammered home his message, crystalizing in one sentence exactly what he wants voters to see on the ballot on July 4: “There’s a choice for everyone, right. Keir Starmer talks about change, you don’t get change unless you’ve got a plan to deliver change,” he said.

Then, Starmer returned to what became his catchphrase for the night: “Do not surrender.” He urged voters repeatedly not to “surrender” to Starmer on immigration, on welfare costs, and on taxes.

In the early stages of their bout, Starmer hit back. Labour’s leader knew he couldn’t let Sunak dominate and delivered an early jab at the PM for breaking lockdown rules. Starmer also won applause when he told Sunak (after yet another prime ministerial interruption): “If you listened to people in the audience and across the country you may not be so out of touch.”

That felt like a rare and spontaneous point scored by Starmer. But it didn’t last long.

Perhaps it was the fear of making a mistake that could erode his 20-point poll lead, but Starmer seemed so shackled by the imperative not to make news, that he said little of consequence in the 75 minutes that the two men were on stage.

By the end, Sunak had probably “won” the encounter, though a snap poll afterwards suggested viewers felt it was 50-50.

Either way, the debate isn’t likely to change much when voters go to the polls. The truth is that this election is over, and the Conservatives have lost.

There’s a wider point, though. It may have been strategically canny, but Starmer’s ploy to make himself as small a target as possible for hostile newspapers to attack made for thin gruel for those watching.

And while failing to beat Sunak in a TV debate doesn’t matter, failing to win over the country really might. Starmer the man offering himself up to lead the U.K. appeared a decent enough human, but somewhat grey and remote. He gives away so little. 

Again with the toolmaker

It’s become a standing joke that the Labour leader constantly references his father’s work as a toolmaker in an attempt to show his human side. During one TV grilling, the audience even laughed at him for it. It was reported afterwards that those sniggers had upset him, but he recited the same chapter of his backstory again this time.

Why? Was he not nimble enough to think of another personal anecdote? Or was he just obstinate in his determination not to be put off his stride by those jeers? It’s unclear — and that’s fascinating in itself. British voters know very little about the man they’re set to make prime minister next week.

When it comes to running the country, as Sunak rightly points out, voters are similarly in the dark about what Starmer would do with the power he hopes to wield.

A snap poll afterwards suggested viewers felt it was 50-50. | Pool Photo by Phil Noble via Getty Images

What would he do about care for the elderly, funding creaking public services, achieving net zero without saddling the country with higher taxes, insufficient housing, university tuition fees, the gender question, let alone the vast challenges of an increasingly febrile world beyond the U.K. It’s not just that viewers are no wiser after this debate, the election campaign itself has failed to shed much light on these questions.

Back in the debate hall at Nottingham Trent University, the two leaders were at times drowned out by protesters gathered outside. Their cries were initially a distraction, but as time went on they became something of a metaphor: Two small men on a stage, drowned out by noises off.