Keir Starmer remains mute on key tax issues as Rishi Sunak receives a bruising during Sky News’ Battle For No 10
Whether it was the audience reaction, the overwhelming verdict in a snap poll or simply the crestfallen look of the PM as he battled to defend his record, it was clear which of the two leaders had the more challenging time on Wednesday night.
The Battle for Number 10 rigorously ran the rule over Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, with questions from a 100-strong Grimsby audience and a meticulous interview with political editor Beth Rigby.
It is the mid-point of the general election campaign, so the Sky News special programme came at a pivotal moment.
We saw a Labour leader trained to give as little away as possible – sticking to a script on tax which will allow for unadvertised post-election tax rises that the safety-first campaign will not take the risk of spelling out now.
Sir Keir Starmer performed best overall in Sky News leaders’ event, poll suggests
How do Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer’s numbers and pledges measure up?
Whether it was fuel duty, council tax and capital gains tax, each the Labour leader said he has no plans to raise.
We also saw a Labour leader being forced to concede he has abandoned pledges and change position when he believes the moment demands, meaning real questions remain about exactly what will happen if – as seems likely – Keir Starmer enters Number 10 with a bombproof majority.
Starmer was questioned by the audience over likeability and whether he was too much of a robot – only to deliver a robotic answer.
If he makes it to power, there are signs from today’s encounter his honeymoon may be brief.
Sir Keir Starmer on stage being questioned by Sky News’ Beth Rigby and a 100-strong Grimsby audience
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak battled to turn around his campaign at the event in Grimsby
But the night mattered much more for Rishi Sunak, after a rocky campaign which caught his party and the country by surprise, he needed a transformative win.
It didn’t appear to come.
The area that Sunak came unstuck on was his own record. His struggles to explain his own record when challenged by the facts was picked up by the audience.
He appeared to redefine his pledge to bring down debt, saying it was always intended to come down in five years.
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His attempt to put the blame on rising waiting lists on the junior doctors was booed, while the claim they were going down, when overall in his premiership they are rising, was challenged robustly.
The audience was aghast at the scale of immigration rises, while clapped at the idea Sunak had called the election before allowing the Rwanda policy to be tested.
Sunak looked in turn wounded and bristled at the lines of questioning. But the audience knew what they were looking for – disinterested in a PM sidestepping the questions they wanted answered.
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Inside Sky’s special leaders’ event
The polling verdict was brutal – 64 to 36 thought Starmer won over Sunak, while one in three 2019 Tory voters, who backed Boris Johnson, thought the Labour leader was better.
This was a big moment for Sunak, but he didn’t seize it. Are there many more opportunities?
The chief secretary to the Treasury has called the Sky News-Chat GPT spending review projection “pretty good” and scored it 70%.
Darren Jones compared the real spending review, delivered by Rachel Reeves on Wednesday, and the Sky News AI (artificial intelligence) projection last week.
Sky News took the Treasury’s spring statement, past spending reviews, the ‘main estimates’ from the Treasury website, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ projections, and put them into ChatGPT, asking it to calculate the winners and losers in the spending review.
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This was done 10 days ahead of the review – before several departments had agreed their budgets with the Treasury – on the basis of projections based on those public documents. It also comes amid a big debate kicked off by Sky News about the level of error of AI.
The Sky News-AI projection correctly put defence and health as the biggest winners, the Foreign Office as the biggest loser, and identified many departments would lose out in real terms overall.
It suggested the education budget would be smaller than it turned out, but correctly highlighted the challenges for departments like the Home Office and environment.
Watch what happened with Sky’s AI-generated spending review
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AI writes the spending review
Reviewing the exercise, the author of the real spending review told Sky News that this pioneering use of AI was “pretty, pretty good”.
He added: “I could be out of a job next time in 2027, which to be honest, it’s not a bad idea given the process I’ve just had to go through.”
The Treasury made a number of accounting changes to so-called “mega projects” which AI could not have anticipated, and changed some of the numbers.
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Sky’s economics editor Ed Conway takes a look at the key takeaways from chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spending review.
Asked to give it a score, Mr Jones replied: “I’m going to give it 70%.”
The spending review includes AI as a tool to save money in various government processes.
Asked if 70% accuracy is good enough for government, he replied: “Well we’re not using your AI. We’ve got our own AI, which is called HMT GPT, and it helps us pull together all the information across government to be able to make better, evidence-informed decisions.”
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