No clear winner in final TV head-to-head, poll finds

Labour has pledged to “turbocharge” careers advice and work experience in schools to combat skills shortages in the workplace.

Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the plans would facilitate “a revolution in work readiness”.

As part of the party’s plans to partner with businesses across the country, Labour has committed to delivering two weeks’ worth of quality work experience for every young person and recruit more than 1,000 new careers advisers.

The party says this would build partnerships between schools, colleges and local employers to equip young people with work-ready skills.

Labour analysis estimates one million children are at risk of receiving inadequate information about the jobs and opportunities available to them over the next five years if the Conservatives remain in power.

According to a report from the Children’s Commissioner, more than one-in-three children at secondary school report they do not know enough about good jobs available to them as they get older and leave school.

Labour has claimed if this figure persists over the next five years, nearly 1.2 million children will receive inadequate information, further compounding skills shortages in key sectors and leaving hundreds of thousands of young people classed as not in employment, education or training (Neet).

Since 2018, the annual number of 16 to 18-year-olds classed as Neet has increased by 50,000, with 167,000 not in work, education or training, and it is Labour’s belief that professional advice and guidance for young people is essential to tackling this.

Labour’s commitment to careers advice and work experience is part of the party’s wider plan to establish a “youth guarantee” of access to training, an apprenticeship or support to find work for all 18 to 21-year-olds.

Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said access to high-quality careers advice and work experience placements can “make a real difference” to the lives of young people.

She said: “It’s good to see Labour aiming to ensure more pupils can benefit from this support. What we now need to hear is how exactly this ambition will be achieved.”

With just eight days to go before E-Day, Rishi Sunak finally found his mojo.

During the last BBC leaders’ head-to-head debate Sunak was energised and determined to show up Keir Starmer’s weak spots. As a man with very little to lose, a combative Sunak threw all his energy into destroying the Labour leader’s voting record on welfare spending and migration, urging voters not to “surrender” to his tax plans.

“You just don’t know which Keir Starmer you’re going to get,” Sunak said, attacking Starmer’s electoral Achilles’ heel: voters are still not clear what Labour stands for. “He is simply not being straight with you about what is coming. Mark my words, your taxes are going up if he is in charge.”

This was Sunak as General Custer after six bags of Haribo. This was his last chance to tell voters: don’t vote Tory because you like me and my party; instead worry about the alternative coming over the plain.

At a custom-built set at Nottingham Trent University, BBC host Mishal Husain put the two leaders through their paces in the final televised bout. Postal votes may have already been mostly returned but there are still minds to be made up.

Read more from i‘s chief political commentator Kitty Donaldson here.

That was Rishi Sunak’s last shot. His last roll of the dice. And he did what he always did: he allowed his cynicism to undermine his own position.

After five weeks of campaigning, tonight’s BBC debate was the Prime Minister’s last chance to avoid defeat. The final opportunity to upset the dynamics of the election to avoid certain doom.

This morning, a poll for the Mirror suggested Labour would win 450 seats to just 60 for the Conservatives, with Sunak himself set to lose in his constituency. Surveys like this come so often now you barely notice them. And each day, analysts desperately search for anything that might potentially avoid that outcome – some unforeseen event which could potentially give Sunak some hope of survival. But each day, we find fewer avenues for salvation.

We presumed that the polls would narrow as we neared the election. They didn’t. Then we presumed that they would narrow over the course of the campaign. They didn’t. Then we wondered whether the first TV debate would change things. It didn’t. Then finally we imagined the manifestos might alter events. That didn’t either.

This last TV debate was Sunak’s final opportunity – the final set-piece event that might upset events and turn the tide. No luck there either.

Read more here.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer have faced off in the final televised head-to-head clash of the general election campaign.

The BBC debate, hosted by Mishal Husain, saw the Tory and Labour leaders grilled about their positions on a variety of issues, including migration, welfare and the gambling scandal which has emerged in the middle of the election campaign.

Below, the PA news agency lists the key moments from Wednesday night’s event.

• Sunak ‘bullied’ in Gamblegate response

Sir Keir accused his opponent of being bullied into responding to the unfolding scandal about Tory candidates allegedly betting on the timing of the general election.

He contrasted his swift response when Labour candidate Kevin Craig was revealed to have bet against his own victory, with that of the Prime Minister.

“What I did when one of my team was alleged to have been involved and investigated by the Gambling Commission, they were suspended within minutes, because I knew it made it really important to be swift, the Prime Minister delayed and delayed and delayed until eventually he was bullied into taking action,” the Labour leader said.

In response, Mr Sunak said: “It was important to me that given the seriousness and the sensitivity of the matters at hand that they were dealt with properly, and that’s what I’ve done.”

• Out of touch?

Mr Sunak also faced accusations of being out of touch with the public, after one testy exchange with Sir Keir.

The Prime Minister interrupted the Labour leader several times as he answered a question from a member of the audience.

But Sir Keir hit back, saying: “If you listen to the people in the audience, across the country, a bit more often you might not be so out of touch.” His response was met with a round of applause.

• Starmer ‘taking people for fools’ on migration

The Labour leader was however unable to provide a simple answer on how he would deal with the migrant crisis. “What will you do with them?” Mr Sunak repeatedly asked as Sir Keir criticised the Rwanda plan.

The Labour leader claimed that currently 100 per cent of illegal migrants “effectively” received asylum because they were all placed in hotels while on the migration system backlog, and emphasised the need for processing. The migrants are coming from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan, Mr Sunak responded.

“Will you sit down with the Ayatollahs? Are you going to try to do a deal with the Taliban? It’s completely nonsensical – you are taking people for fools,” he added.

• Shadows of Truss and Corbyn

Sir Keir sought to damage Mr Sunak’s credibility by suggesting he had rowed in behind short-lived premier Liz Truss’s economic agenda.

The Prime Minister claimed he had warned about the damage of Ms Truss’s plans, but Sir Keir said he then accepted them “in the next breath”.

Husain then stepped in, saying: “Hang on, you know what it is like to fall in behind a leader of your party,” in a reference to Sir Keir’s time serving under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

• The noise outside

A protest outside the Nottingham Trent University building where the debate was held could be heard within the hall and was picked up on the audio of the broadcast.

BBC journalist Husain addressed it at one point early in the debate, to alert the audience to what was happening, and described the protest as another part of the UK’s democracy.

Pro-Palestine protesters were among those demonstrating outside the venue, including a group called Nottingham Solidarity Group, who confirmed their attendance on X, formerly Twitter.

• Tax Check UK

The Conservative Party rebranded its X account to “Tax Check UK” ahead of the debate, and pumped out a steady stream of claims about how Labour’s plans would impact the taxes voters would pay.

This included claims of a “retirement tax”, as well as sharing an image of the often referred to letter that Labour former Treasury minister Liam Byrne left when the party last exited government joking there was “no money left”.

As the programme ended, Tory leader Mr Sunak also returned to the disputed claim that Labour’s policies will cost families an extra £2,000 in tax.

Sir Keir hit back: “That is a lie. He’s been told not to repeat that lie and he has just done it.”

• The best to run the country?

One audience member asked both party leaders: “Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?” Sir Keir said he “wasn’t surprised” by the question as the country is in “such a state”.

The man later told the BBC he was “disappointed” with the leaders’ responses to his question.

Dr Tom Caygill, senior lecturer in Politics at Nottingham Trent University, specialising in British and parliamentary politics, said: “The Prime Minister used the word surrender a number of times during the debate.

“This might be an indication of the direction of travel for the final week of the campaign. The return of project fear? He also tapped into a concern which the public have about the vagueness of Labour’s plans, especially as polls currently show they are on track for a substantial majority.

“The question about whether the two main party leaders are the best option for Britain gives us an insight into how fed up the public are with politics after the past few years. There is an anti-politics mood and a lack of trust – the lack of enthusiasm for this election reflects this too. That is going to be hard to turn around and a challenge for whoever wins.

“A major attack line from Sunak was tax, which is a chink in Labour’s armour. Keir Starmer’s failure to push back on the initial line of attack in the first TV debate has given the Conservatives an opportunity. However, Keir Starmer was much punchier with his rebuttals in this debate, which shows that he and his team have learned from their mistakes in the first.

“Kicking off with a question on gambling and political integrity shows just how much it has dominated the campaign over the past week or so. It has the potential to become a plague on all their houses and it has cut through with the public. It also fits into a wider narrative of sleaze and scandal over the last couple of years.”

Dr Colin Alexander, an expert in political communication at Nottingham Trent University, said: “Taken from US politics, the live leadership debates are meant to bring the public closer to those who seek to govern them.

“However, given the level of scrutiny that those on the stage face, both they and their communications advisors tend to suggest being more guarded than they are in other interviews. This is what happened tonight. Both leaders knew the stakes were very high as the polls indicate that a significant percentage of traditional Conservative voters in traditional Conservative areas are undecided.

“Starmer, for his part, was clearly not getting ahead of himself. The polls indicate that – barring catastrophe – he will be asked to form the next government.

“In terms of content, despite Starmer talking about change, there isn’t much to choose between the parties’ policies. A little bit more or a little bit less here and there. There are no pivots on any issues apart from possibly Rwanda. Therefore, to talk of ‘change’ appears to be more of a glittering generality.

“Starmer’s comment that he wants to ‘reset politics towards public service’ was clearly a critique of the Conservative party and the perception of their disinterest in public service. However, such an utterance has shades of populism and, dare I say it, Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” comment. 

“Sunak came out fighting tonight, although it is likely that some of his claims will be scrutinised for accuracy. He used a lot of military language – particularly the word “surrender”. Surrender the economy, the welfare state, tax rises, migration/borders, local councils. However, worryingly both candidates consider refugees (poor and often traumatised people) as the biggest “threat” to borders. This populist argument is worrying because they are encouraging an association with military threat.

“There was a somewhat bizarre moment when Starmer referred to his work in ‘taking down’ criminal gangs. He even got into a story of hijacking planes and bombs. It was as though he thought he was Jason Statham saving the day single-handedly.”

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader could be seen in the post-debate spin room.

Asked why she was there following a head-to-head debate between the Labour and Tory leaders, Ms Cooper told reporters: “Ideally we would have had Ed Davey on the stage this evening and unfortunately he didn’t have that opportunity.

“So I am here to make sure your viewers and listeners are very aware of the fact that the Lib Dems have a really strong platform to save our NHS and social care, to take real action on the cost of living and to protect our local environment.”

Ms Cooper said she thought the “audience were the winners”.

She singled out one man who asked whether Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak were really the best choices for the next prime minister, saying he “absolutely hit the right question”.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch will claim a future Labour government would create “a managed economy, heavily regulated, heavily taxed and weighed down by trade union demands”.

The Conservative Cabinet minister will use her speech at the British Chambers of Commerce’s annual conference in Westminster on Thursday to promote her party’s “plan for business”.

The pledge features potential free trade agreements with India, the Gulf Cooperation Council and US states, an uplift in research and development spending by £2 billion, and abolishing the main rate of self-employed national insurance.

Ms Badenoch clashed with her Labour “shadow” in a debate which Bloomberg hosted on Monday, where Jonathan Reynolds accused the Conservatives of leading “a chaotic and unstable Government”.

It comes as unions prepare a series of strikes either side of the general election. A British Medical Association junior doctors’ strike will take place beginning at 7am on Thursday 27 June until 2 July, as the organisation claims junior doctors’ pay has been cut by more than a quarter since 2008 and has called for it to be restored.

Unite the Union members who work for London Trams in the Croydon and Wimbledon areas will stage industrial action between Sunday 30 June and Monday 8 July, during the Wimbledon Championships.

Ms Badenoch will say in her Thursday speech: “The Conservatives have a plan for a future where hard work and doing the right thing are rewarded, not punished with higher taxes, or discouraged with unconstrained welfare.

“We celebrate aspiration and opportunity. We recognise that innovation and competition are the powerful forces that bring us prosperity and lift living standards.

“For Labour, on the other hand, private business is just a vehicle to pursue their political objectives – a managed economy, heavily regulated, heavily taxed and weighed down by trade union demands.”

Labour’s shadow secretary of business and trade Jonathan Reynolds said: “This is desperate nonsense from a Conservative Party that has failed to publish a business endorsement letter this election, because they haven’t got enough support, and failed to secure trade deals with the US and India, because they’re distracted by their own chaos.

“The Conservatives have not changed. Their chancellor admitted their manifesto is unfunded and praised Liz Truss’s economy-crashing policies.”

A majority of viewers thought that Rishi Sunak performed better than Sir Keir Starmer when talking about immigration during the debate, whereas they tend to believe that Mr Starmer was better on the economy, welfare and the UK’s relationship with the EU, a YouGov poll suggests.

Here in the blazingly hot “spin room” at Nottingham Trent University, both parties have sent out senior politicians to explain why their man won.

Pat McFadden, the Labour campaign chief who radiates iron self-confidence and a chilly calm, told us: “There was only one Prime Minister in the room tonight, and that was Keir Starmer.”

He claimed re-election for the Conservatives would be “a threat to the country’s economy” and accused Rishi Sunak of being “out of touch” with economic realities.

And Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, who claimed he has been forced to attend the spin room of every single TV election event, insisted Labour is unbothered by questions about Sir Keir’s past support for Jeremy Corbyn – saying the Tories’ Liz Truss problem is much more damaging.

He said of Mr Sunak: “He is urging people to vote for Liz Truss in this election, we are urging people to vote for a Labour candidate against Jeremy Corbyn!”

James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, was predictably punchy in turn as he accused the Labour leader of being “petulant and rowdy and interrupty”.

He sought to hammer home the Tory message that fed-up voters should think carefully before letting Labour take power, saying: “The decision people make in this general election, they will have to live with probably for five years.”

The minister also dismissed the suggestion that the Government had failed to make an economic success of Brexit, pointing to recent improvements in the GDP and trade stats. He summed up the Tory line on the debate: “This was a very, very clear win for the Prime Minister.”

Asked by Christian Roberts via the i blog

Response: One of the most striking moments of the debate this evening came when a man in the audience asked Sunak and Starmer were they “really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country”.

This may sum up the feeling of quite a few voters who are still undecided who to support next Thursday. I know this sounds like I am sitting on the fence, but I thought both leaders had their statesmanlike moments.

However, at times both men spoke over each other as they tried to make their points, and traded some quite personal blows on integrity and leadership.

Starmer was probably more poised and restrained than his opponent, while Sunak preferred to land punchier attack lines, which tells you a lot about where they are in the polls.

Deputy Lib Dem leader Daisy Cooper has said that leader Sir Ed Davey’s election campaign stunts – which have seen him falling off a paddleboard and taking part in a wheelbarrow race, among other things – have worked to attract voter attention.

She told the BBC’s Clive Myrie that “many people have really made a human connection to Ed Davey, because he’s demonstrated that we can make people laugh, we can make them cry, and he has a real experience as a family carer.”

Asked if people are listening to Lib Dem policies, she said: “I think they really are, because every time we have one of these stunts, it comes with a very serious message.

“When Ed was on the paddleboard […] he was talking about the Lib Dem plan to put an end to the scandal of sewage dumping,” she said as an example.

Asked how the party can get its voice heard over the next week, she said: “You’re going to see more of the same,” with emphasis on Lib Dem pledges on the NHS, social care and the environment.

“Right round the country, in many places it’s only the Liberal Democrats who can beat the Conservatives and make sure we deliver the change the country is really crying out for.”

SNP deputy leader Keith Brown has said that Scotland is “completely irrelevant” to Labour, the Tories and the BBC, “being squeezed out of this debate tonight”.

“It was like a third-rate vaudeville act. The things that should have been mentioned weren’t mentioned. Scotland wasn’t mentioned once, Brexit wasn’t mentioned once, even in the response about the trading relationship with Europe, and austerity wasn’t mentioned once.

“I think this election […] represents the biggest fraud of the people of the UK and of Scotland I’ve ever seen.”

He referenced the Institute for Fiscal Studies warning that the Tories and Labour would be baking in £18bn of public sector cuts under current plans, and said that people will have “lower living standards at the end of the next parliament”.

YouGov’s snap poll on who performed best in tonight’s TV debate has delivered a dead heat between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.

Voters are split down the middle on who won the head-to-head, with 50 per cent saying Starmer delivered and 50 per cent supporting Sunak.

But among 2019 Conservative voters, the winner was clear. 82 per cent of Tory 2019-ers backed the Prime Minister – compared to 18 per cent in favour of the Labour leader.

Home Secretary James Cleverly has said that Sir Keir Starmer seemed “very fragile” when “pushed” on his statements during the debate.

“He talked over Mishal [Husain, the debate moderator], he talked over Rishi, he talked over the audience, which is why Rishi really had to assert himself.

“But what we saw over and over again was Starmer failing to answer the questions, failing to answer what it means to be a woman, failing to answer what he would do with asylum seekers.”

Challenged that Mr Sunak was also interrupting the Labour leader a lot, and asked if he is comfortable with the Prime Minister’s use of the word “surrender” when talking about what Labour might do, Mr Cleverly said: “This election is about choice.”

He says that Labour has a “secret plan” and that there is a “massive black hole which will inevitably mean that taxes will go up”.

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said that Rishi Sunak was “very shouty, interrupt-y and not very prime-ministerial” during the debate, but Sir Keir Starmer “got across the fundamental argument”, which is that “people only get change if they vote for it”.

“It’s very clear from Rishi Sunak’s performance, if we have five more years of the Conservatives, nothing will change. If there is change, it will certainly be change for the worse.

“Whenever he was pressed on how he funds his policies he wasn’t able to answer.”

With just one week to go until polling day, and Labour’s 20-point polling lead refusing to narrow since the start of the campaign, Rishi Sunak may have been forgiven for running out of energy and hope in his final TV debate with Sir Keir Starmer.

But the Prime Minister made clear he is fighting with everything he has got to win a fifth Tory term – even if the polls suggest that is now the remotest of possibilities.

Sunak went on the attack against the Labour leader on what he said was Starmer’s “retirement tax” against pensioners, his claim that his opponent is not being “straight” with the electorate, and what he said were Labour’s plans to “surrender” Britain’s borders to uncontrolled immigration.

Starmer appeared at times a bit too tentative and polite as he tried to keep his cool in what must have been a sweltering hall of Nottingham Trent University.

Sunak, who has remained the underdog from day one of the campaign, landed more blows on the Labour leader. Whether it will make a difference to the election outcome remains to be seen.

The Met Police will lead on investigating a “small number of cases” related to the Westminster gambling row to “assess whether the alleged offending goes beyond Gambling Act offences to include others, such as misconduct in public office”.

A Met Police spokesperson said: “The Met is not taking over the investigation into bets on the timing of the general election.

“The Gambling Commission will continue to lead the investigation into cases where the alleged offending is limited to breaches of the Gambling Act only.

“Met detectives will lead on investigating a small number of cases to assess whether the alleged offending goes beyond Gambling Act offences to include others, such as misconduct in public office.

“We will provide further information tomorrow.”

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins has said that she thinks Rishi Sunak “showed his plan for the future”.

“We must not surrender our country,” she added.

The Labour gives his closing statement, saying: “My message to you is simple: if you want your NHS back, you have to vote for it. If you want a growing economy, you have to vote for it. If you want more police on our streets, more teachers in our schools, you have to vote for it.

“If you want to end 14 years of chaos and rebuild our country, that power is in your hands.

“Vote change, vote Labour.”