Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer went head-to-head on Tuesday evening in the first debate of the 2024 general election.
Mr Sunak went into the ITV debate as the clear underdog, after a YouGov poll pointed to a Labour landslide bigger than Tony Blair’s in 1997 on July 4.
His challenge was to erode Sir Keir’s dominance, while the Labour leader needed to consolidate his lead, project reassurance and advertise his message of “change” after 14 years of Tory “chaos”.
Given the polling gulf between the parties, Mr Sunak sought to cut through with pointed attacks on Sir Keir’s record as a barrister including his defence of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and his work on European human rights cases.
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