Sir Keir Starmer is trying to DUCK Sun’s election debate where YOU will grill party leaders
Telly bosses will have to fit debates around Euro football matches
RISHI Sunak threw down the gauntlet to Sir Keir Starmer last night demanding he take part in SIX live TV showdowns.
The Labour leader has been branded as the “Knight afraid to fight” by senior Tories demanding he commit to the multiple telly debates.
The Prime Minister is demanding a once-a-week campaign showdown with the Labour leader to test his mettle and highlight he has no plan for Britain.
The Sun have invited both aspiring PMs to a head to head on our Never Mind the Ballots show — with an audience of Sun readers.
However only the PM has said yes so far — with Sir Keir so far ducking the showdown.
The Tories want to use every tactic possible to close the 20-point poll lead and convince the public of the record after 14 years in office.
The Prime Minister’s inner circle are looking to lock in dates for viewers after Mr Sunak made the surprise election announcement yesterday.
A senior Tory campaign source said: “He is the Knight who is afraid to fight.”
Another source close to the PM added: “Rishi Sunak is up for debating Keir Starmer as many times as he likes.
“And if Starmer doesn’t want to do it, what is he hiding? If he has all these great plans, why doesn’t he come out and say what he wants to do?”
Signing up to six telly debates would be more than any leader has signed up to since they were introduced in 2010.
Mr Sunak kick-started the campaign with a rain-soaked address in Downing Street where he declared it was time for Britain to “choose its future”.
Sir Keir today told LBC Radio that he wasn’t dodging TV debates with the Prime Minister.
He said: “No, we’re not dodging… the TV debates are a big part of election campaigns and will be, it’ll be debates in these elections. You can bet on that”
The Labour chief was also asked if would “duck” debates back in January when the issues was raised.
He hit back: “Well, that report is just nonsense. Look, I’ve been saying ‘Bring it on’ for a very, very long time. I’m happy to debate any time.”
But the TV debates will have to be scheduled around football matches involving the home nations at the Euro football tournament.
The group stage has televised matches every evening in the group stage between June 14 to June 26
The 7 key issues that will decide the General Election
Economy
Both Tories and Labour will want to stake a claim as the party of economic stability and prosperity.
Previous elections show that voters tend to reward the incumbent government if they feel better off – and punish them if they do not.
Sunak – an unashamed numbers bod – is most comfortable when defending his economic record and has a flurry of recent victories to sell.
Inflation has been sharply reduced to within touching distance of the 2 per cent target, Britain has exited recession, and the IMF has projected strong growth.
Labour will aim to trash that record and point to Liz Truss’ chaotic mini-Budget.
JAMES JOHNSON: Sunak won day two of election campaign
By JAMES JOHNSON, co-founder of J.L. Partners pollsters
SIR Keir Starmer probably won day one, but – with Nigel Farage’s decision to stand back – Rishi Sunak won day two of the election campaign.
The atmosphere is ripe for a Farage-led party to do serious damage to the Tories.
A J.L. Partners poll for The Sun just last week showed his comeback would be an extinction-level event for the Conservatives.
People on right and left are fed up with the usual politicians, and do not feel immigration has been properly tackled.
In Farage they see a plain-speaking strongman who speaks truth to power.
That – and his recent stint in the Australian jungle – is what made him more popular than the prime minister with 2019 Conservative voters.
Him deciding not to lead Reform UK is a clear win for Sunak. Richard Tice just doesn’t have the same bite.
I asked a focus group of Reform supporters about their leader: all bar one did not know who he was.
Under his leadership the Reform vote will be easier for the Tories to squeeze.
They will say “vote Reform, get Starmer”, and it will work.
That does not mean the Tories have it plain sailing.
They are still facing an almighty electoral task: no other sitting PM has come back from such a bad position in the polls.
But Sunak can at least sigh a breath of relief today.
A serious threat on his right flank has been removed.
Expect Reform’s numbers to dive before polling day.
Stability or change?
Do voters want to stick with what they know, or is there an appetite for change?
That question cuts to the heart of the election, with both leaders sensing mileage in the other.
After being dealt a bad hand, Sunak has insisted he has turned things around and put the country on course for a “brighter future”.
He says Starmer would “take us back to square one.”
For his part, Starmer insists that “stability is change” and a switching of the guard is desperately needed.
Immigration
Summer is the high season for Channel crossings and the sight of small boat arrivals will likely raise the salience of illegal migration as an electoral issue.
Mr Sunak believes voters back his Rwanda plan and will draw a clear dividing line with Labour for vowing to axe it altogether.
Questions now hang over whether the PM can fast-track the first plane to take off before Polling Day as the civil service grinds to a halt.
The numbers are currently not in Sunak’s favour, with illegal migration running at a higher rate than any year on record.
And legal migration is still stubbornly high and miles off Boris Johnson’s 2019 pledge of 250,000.
Crime
In recent months both Sunak and Starmer have made big pitches as being tough on law and order.
Realising voters are fed up with crime going unanswered and unsolved, expect them to talk in the strongest terms about cracking down on theft, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour.
Crime has traditionally been comfortable Tory territory and Sunak will likely make pledges about giving police more powers to blitz yobs.
But Starmer has spied an opportunity to park Labour tanks on his lawn and has been hamming up his previous career as a top prosecutor.
NHS
Cutting NHS waiting lists is the single pledge Sunak has openly admitted he is failing to hit.
He has blamed the lack of progress on endless strikes, but now rarely talks about it as an issue compared to the economy and immigration.
Labour on the other hand see it as home turf and will be hammering the government’s handling of the health service.
Polls consistently put the NHS as one of the public’s top priorities and Starmer will look to weaponise the groaning backlog.
But he will be forced to defend the Welsh Labour administration’s record which is arguably worse than the Tories’.
TREVOR KAVANAGH: Brits who must now choose who to vote for might finally begin to scrutinise Starmer and his promises
By TREVOR KAVANAGH
BARELY a week ago, Rishi Sunak assured Sun columnist Jane Moore and her fellow Loose Women we were safe to book our summer holidays.
Hapless Tory MP Matt Warman was yesterday cleared by Downing Street to dismiss rumours of an early election.
Hours later, a rain-sodden PM startled the nation — including his own Cabinet and Tory MPs — by asking the King for a snap general election on July 4.
The only upside about going so early is that the downside of hanging on is so bleak.
How will that go down with millions of footie-mad punters as wall-to-wall Euros coverage is interrupted by political hustlers ringing their doorbells?
Sure, inflation — 11.1 per cent in October 2022 — plunged this week to 2.3 per cent, the lowest for three years, with more falls to come.
Interest rates and mortgage costs will follow suit.
UK growth is outpacing our European rivals.
But we will not see planeloads of illegal migrants flying to Rwanda.
Indeed boatloads are setting new records.
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is an average 21 points ahead in the polls.
Reform has grabbed Tory votes.
The Greens and SNP will refuse to do business with Rishi, even if he scores a hung parliament.
There is one slender hope.
Voters who must now choose where to place their X on the ballot paper in challenging times might finally begin to scrutinise Starmer and his promises.
If so, some who have vowed never to vote Tory again might feel queasy about putting Labour in power.
Labour stalwarts admit there is no love for Starmer or his party, no manifesto and no plan for the economy.
Labour will be soft on immigration, ditching the Rwanda plan just as it takes off and dishing out visas to tens of thousands of illegals already here.
These are the battlefields for wavering votes over the next six weeks.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice last night hailed Rishi’s snap poll as “either very brave or very foolhardy”.
“We will discover in the early hours of July 5 which is correct,” he said.
War
The world is becoming more dangerous and the public is looking at Sunak and Starmer to keep them safe.
Sunak will point to his recent pledge to ramp up defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 – and seize on Starmer’s refusal to match that.
Labour has outlined an “ambition” to hit that target but is yet to spell out a pathway to fund it, accusing ministers of cooking the books.
And expect Tory MPs to dredge up Starmer’s years-long support for Jeremy Corbyn.
A knock-on effect of global unrest is the domestic reaction to the war in Gaza, which has the possibility to seriously hurt Labour.
Many of the party’s once-solid Muslim support base are furious with Starmer’s support for Israel.
Net Zero
Sunak has promised voters will not pay in the pocket for the drive towards Net Zero, delaying green targets to ease the financial burden on families.
Whereas Labour are promising an eco revolution backed by billions of pounds of spending and Ed Miliband leading the charge.
Expect the Tories to warn of tax rises to pay for this as well as further climate clampdowns like Sadiq Khan’s hated Ulez expansion in London.
With Reform wanting to ditch Net Zero altogether, Sunak will likely try to blunt their attacks by vowing Brits will never suffer as a result.
How the previous elections have unfolded
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
2019 – the Brexit election
Boris Johnson called the 2019 general election to break the Commons deadlock over Brexit.
A coalition of Opposition parties and Tory Remainers were blocking his deal from passing and effectively putting the country in limbo.
After purging the Conservatives rebels – and battling Jeremy Corbyn to actually let him trigger the election – the date was set for December 12.
The winter campaign saw Johnson adopt an effective Get Brexit Done slogan while Labour struggled to explain their policy of holding a second referendum.
The result saw the collapse of Labour’s Red Wall fortress of northern seats who switched to back the Tories and helped them win an 80-seat landslide majority.
2017 – May fluffs it
Theresa May was riding high in the polls in the spring of 2017 when she decided on a walking weekend in Wales to call a snap election.
While commanding a slim majority, she wanted her own mandate having inherited No10 from David Cameron after a Tory coronation contest.
But the wheels quickly fell off her presidential-style campaign, resulting in a disastrous press conference where she infamously insisted “nothing has changed!” as her social care policy was ripped to shreds.
It cost her the Tory majority as Jeremy Corbyn performed better than expected, and May was forced to do a confidence and supply deal with the DUP.
2015 – Cameron wins majority
David Cameron let his Tory-Lib Dem coalition reach its full five years, resulting in a long 2015 campaign.
He successfully turned on his own deputy PM Nick Clegg – blaming them for all the faults of the government and asking voters to help him cut them loose.
It was an effective strategy that saw him clinch a small Tory majority, the first since 1992.
2010 – Cameron falls short
After 13 years of New Labour, Gordon Brown was ousted as Prime Minister – but the Tories fell short of an outright majority.
Brown had bottled calling an election in 2007 upon succeeding Blair after letting speculation run.
After five days of coalition talks, Cameron forged a deal with Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems.