A voter asked Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer directly whether they are “really the best we’ve got” at last night’s election debate – eliciting an eruption of applause from the audience.
Sunak and Starmer traded furious blows on Wednesday night in a live BBC head-to-head election debate.
The Labour and Conservative leaders attacked each another over migration, tax, and Brexit as they took questions from a live audience in Nottingham.
However, it was a question on the rivals’ personal qualities that drew the loudest round of applause.
Robert Blackstock asked: “Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?”
The voter began by saying he thought Sunak had made “a fair job of being chancellor but you’re a pretty mediocre prime minister” and that Starmer was having his “strings are being pulled by very senior members of the Labour party”.
The crowd was animated as people were seen gasping and a huge round of applause began.
Starmer said he was not surprised by the question, after 14 years of Tory rule leaving the country “in such a state”.
“They’ve had loads of promises made in the last election about what will happen which haven’t been delivered on. That does beat the hope out of people,” he said.
“So, this is an opportunity to restore that hope. I don’t think we can do that by making sort of grand promises of things that can’t be delivered.”
Sunak responded by listing what he thinks are the Conservatives’ best achievements during his time in Downing Street.
He urged the audience: “Allow me to finish the job I started.”
However, when interviewed after the debate, Blackstock said the two candidates did not provide sufficient answers on why they are good enough for the job.
“I was disappointed with the response from both Rishi and Sir Keir. Neither of them wanted to say why they were good,” he said.
“They were going by what they’ve done in the past. They weren’t being positive. For a prime minister, from my perspective, we want a personality. We want somebody we can recognise. We want somebody on the world stage that is going to project our Great Britain.”
