The pollsters, Survation, found that the audience was split between Labour supporters, Conservative supporters and undecideds, meaning there were a lot of “undecided” voters in the survey, compared with about 18-20 percent for the country as a whole.
Still, the back-and-forth at this spirited and rigorous event amounted to the most compelling 90 minutes of television so far in this election, demonstrating the audience’s determination to overturn the scripted dialogue, and at times, their willingness to heckle in order to do so.
“Doctors want a 35 per cent pay increase,” Starmer explained, before a junior doctor interjected: “No they don’t. What we want is a path to restore pay. It’s not about 35 per cent.”
UK Parliamentary Election Poll
For more information on polling data from around Europe, POLITICO Poll.
After making debt reduction a priority for 2023, Chancellor Sunak drew laughter by insisting he “never said we would reduce debt overnight”.
After giving Mr Sunak a cold response in an ITV debate last week, Mr Starmer took to the stage more energetically than Mr Sunak – with one audience member saying he “looked like a loser” – which prompted Mr Starmer to become aggressive towards the audience too, punching him back when they laughed at his “toolmaker” comment.
Trump made no apologies for “changing” some of his 2020 pledges to “country first, party second,” promised there would be “no surprises” in his manifesto, said he would not lift the two-child limit on welfare benefits, said he was “not going to sit here tonight and write a budget for the next five years” on tax increases, and talked about “what we’re going to do as the people in power.”
