Sunak and Starmer clash in heated first debate of UK election
Al Jazeera
The two men clash over tax, health and the cost of living in fractious debate that failed to land any knockout blows.
The leaders of the United Kingdom’s two top political parties have faced off in their first live television debate of the election campaign, attacking each other over issues from tax to immigration and the National Health Service (NHS).
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, took the floor on Tuesday night in the northwestern town of Salford with a month to go before the July 4 election.
Sunak, whose party is behind by some 20 percentage points in the opinion polls, took a combative approach, lashing out at Labour over tax, noting that inflation had eased to 2 percent and that he had a plan to boost the sluggish economy.
Starmer pointed to the austerity of the Conservatives’ early years in government and the chaos of the more recent past, which saw the removal of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson amid money and ethics scandals, and the brief but devastating 49-day tenure of Liz Truss, whose tax-cutting plans sent mortgages soaring.
Sunak became party leader and prime minister in October 2022.
