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Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak debate, as ITV hosts the first head-to-head debate of the General Election, in Manchester, Britain, June 4, 2024 in this handout image.
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, squared off Tuesday night before Britain’s general election on July 4.
Who are they? Starmer is a human rights lawyer turned politician who has taken the Labour Party from very left-wing to more centrist over the last four years.
Sunak, meanwhile, is the fifth PM in the last 14 years of Conservative rule. He called last month for the upcoming election, knowing he had to call it before the end of the year – and hoping to ride a positive wave of news about falling inflation.
On the debate stage, both candidates shouted over each other about taxation, immigration, the National Health Service, the war in Gaza, and climate change.
Sunak, whose campaign has been trailing Labour by double digits for the last six months, was on the attack. He hammered home the potential costs of Labour’s plans to improve the NHS and schools which he claimed would "put everyone's taxes up by 2,000 pounds." Starmer didn’t deny that he would raise taxes, but he called the 2,000 pounds figure ridiculous and clarified that he would not raise income tax or National Insurance social security contributions.
Starmer was calm throughout, likely because his chances of winning increased the night before when Nigel Farage — a far-right Brexiteer — threw his hat in the ring as the head of the Reform Party, which will inevitably pull votes away from the Tories.
Who won? 51% of viewers polled said they thought the prime minister performed better, while 49% preferred Starmer.