Did you watch the election debate last night between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer? What did you make of it? Were you motivated to vote for either party or were you turne doff? I must admit I fell more into the latter camp and the result was that I literally turned off after a bit.
A big stumbling block to the debate was the need for the moderator to impose herself. She kept cutting off the politicians midway and not to ensure fairness but rather to impose her agenda. Whilst members of the audience were give the opportunity to ask questions, she spent a lot of time filling in with her own interpretations. A good debate moderator will allow the conversation to flow and only cut in to make sure all involved are getting equal time or when you have to move on to the next question. There were also the gimmicky moments such as “raise your hand if this is not true.” Then there were frequent points when she seemed to be attempting to chnnel an inner marriage guidance counsellor “tell Rishi what you would do” and “explain to Keir why …” No, we want them to talk to us.
As for the two men. I wonder if we learnt anything new. I ended up thinking about what advisors might be trying to tell them if they had earpieces in. The perception of Rishi Sunak before the debate would be that he is a kind of technocrat good at the numbers but not really showing much by way of empathy and emotional intelligence. This might be quite unfair in terms of his private persona but I don’t think the debate will have changed that perception. There was a crucial moment when he was asked how he could connect with people, how he could understand what they have been through. What he probably needed to do at that point was tell a story. Of course, he didn’t have the back story of a poor up-binging and no one would believe him if he had claimed to have struggled with the cost of living crisis but surely, although he was at one of those Downing Street parties, he experienced something first hand of the isolation of lockdowns and the worry of seeing loved ones suffer.
Similarly, there was an opportunity when the question came up about whether he and Keir Starmer would use private health insurance in order to help a loved one whose life was at risk and the waiting list was long. He said “yes”, Starmer said “no” with the reason that he was NHS through and through. Yet, whilst Sunak’s problem is that everyone assumes he said “yes” because he could afford to, it is entirely possible for someone to both wish private health care wasn’t necessary and still care enough about someone. Indeed, private insurance is available, sometimes through workplace schemes to a lot of people who would not consider themselves wealthy. I know of people who did benefit in this kind of way who would not have survived if they’d waited. A little bit more explanation could have humanised the answer. Instead of us having privileged Rishi who can afford private care so doesn’t care about the NHS, we would have had Rishi who worries about his grandma and his children.
Keir Starmer on the other hand was ready with anecdotes from his own childhood of hard times. He also seemed better able to demonstrate some empathy towards questioners though I’d still say it was a little more perfunctory than a Blair or a Cameron might have conveyed. But if Sunak didn’t really emote, Starmer wore his heart on his sleeve, or more accurately, on his face. If I were advising him through his ear piece, I’d be saying “Keir” you need to get a control of your facial expressions. His demeanour seemed to express incredulity combined with disdain and contempt, not just towards the Conservatives and their policies but towards Sunak personally.
I thought that he stuck to his theme well, hammering home the point that Sunak couldn’t disconnect himself from the Conservative’s track record over the past 14 years. The risk was that he was vulnerable to being painted as the one looking backwards. What would have helped would have been more painting in of the detail going forward. The way to neutralise the “you haven’t got a plan argument is to show the plan. Let me give two examples. If I were Keir my response to the charge that we would put up taxes by £2000 would go something like this.
“Well I don’t know where the Prime Minister gets his numbers from but he is right. There is a cost to doing the things we are going to do. But there is also a cost not to doing them. Remember what we are talking about here. We’re talking about recruiting classroom teachers so your child doesn’t have to be in a class of more than 30 and so they actually have a specialist teacher in their core subject. We’re talking about replacing the doctors and nurses we’ve lost, rebuilding our hollowed out armed forces, building railways, schools, hospitals, making sure we have enough renewable energy. There is a cost to doing all of that and it will take time to be able to do it all. Our first priority will be getting the economy growing again because that’s how you fund those things over the long term. But there is also a cost to not doing it and we’ve seen that and you all know that. Your questions have all been telling us that. Now, the crucial thing is that yes it means some of us need to pay a bit more tax but some of us need to pay less, so we’ll make sure that the burden falls on the wealthier.”
Then there was the whole issue about how to resolve the doctors’ strikes. Here’s my suggested response, that goes beyond “we’d get people into the room to negotiate.”
“First we’ve got to recognise that the Doctors’ demands are not unreasonable. I recognise that 35% sounds huge, especially for so many of us who have been struggling to make ends meet and received little by way of a pay rise ourselves. However, the figure is based on the extent to which their pay has fallen over the past 14 years. Remember we aren’t talking about wealthy consultants at the top here but junior doctors, the people you see when you end up in hospital, those dedicated but exhausted men and women who were there for you in COVID and are still with you now working 70 hour weeks, day and night. Now, the fact is that the money isn’t there to give them a 35% pay rise in one hit. However, our aim over time would be to recover the position. So, my aim would be to get them back to parity by 2030. That means not agreeing a one off pay rise this year but looking at how we get their pay back up year on year.”
As I said above, Keir Starmer did seem to wear his heart on his sleeve, or his face. He was clearly communicating his feelings of anger and exasperation. He wanted us to know that he felt our pain and shared our anger and frustration. We might not so readily talk about Sunak wearing his heart on his sleeve but actually he did. To be sure, he didn’t show the same emotions as Starmer but we did see and hear what he cared about, what his values were. He wanted us to know that he wants to look after us, to protect us and is able to.
We often hear people say “I” or “they wear their heart on their sleeve” to mean that this or that person is passionate and emotional. Sometimes it is meant to be a positive, we recognise their feelings and passions, sometimes it negatively suggests a lack of self-control. The presumption though is that others, for better or worse do not wear their hearts on their sleeves.
The truth though is that we all do wear our hearts on our sleeves. What I mean is this. We may choose to hide away some things about us and we may not be open and passionate about the same thihgs as others but every day, our words, actions, mannerisms, tone, expressions, time priorities etc all communicate to others where our hearts are, what matters to us.
So, when people glance at your sleeve, or to move from the metaphor, when they look you in the face, when they hear what and how you are talking about and when they see your actions, then what are you telling them about your heart?
A quick postscript on “Who won.” A You Gov poll snap poll suggested that Sunak won by 51 -49%. Further polls this morning suggest Starmer won. I suspect that the snap poll gives us the best reaction of people watching whilst the later polls are more about how people are seeing the post debate narrative. This is a reminder that these things are won and lost not so much in the room on the night but in the wider reaction, including from those who don’t see the whole thing, the following day.
If I remember correctly, there were some indicators in 2010 that Cameron narrowly edged it in terms of overall perfomance on the night. However, he had been expected to coast it and didn’t. Nickl Clegg exceeded expectations and supplied the big soundbite and visual moments. The next day it became clear that he was the real beneficiary as Cleggmania took off. Even that didn’t really win things for him as although the Liberal Democrats did end up in government, they actually lost ground in terms of votes and seats.
However, this isn’t a traditional debating competition debate with a proposition and so “Who won” isn’t perhaps a meaningful question. Perhaps future debates should have a proposition to vote on such as “We need a Labour Government” or “We have confidence in the Government.”
So, the real test about who won and who lost is quite simply whether or not voters minds were changed. It will be the voting polls coming in the next few days that will help to indicate who won.
Faithroots 