UK Leaders’ Debate: never mind the performances, did we get a “moment”?

It’s those seemingly small moments – unplanned quips or slip-ups – that can change the narrative during election time. Think of Neil Kinnock’s hubristic “we’re alright” or Theresa May’s tone-deaf “magic money tree”. These moments gave us a glimpse of the fragile human beings behind the carefully curated public personas – something the public could just sense and feel – and helped to shift the campaign narrative.

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Such moments rarely happen during live TV debates anymore. Nick Clegg’s 2010 performance was the rare exception and is credited with depriving David Cameron of a majority, but generally the painstaking preparation and training that leaders now undergo, teamed with the fact that far fewer people tune in today than a decade ago, mean that they’re seldom the game-changing events they once were.

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Last night’s ITV leaders' debate saw Rishi Sunak putting in a commendable performance, but for the Conservatives to claw their way back into contention and shift a change in narrative that has been entrenched for months now, Keir Starmer needed to falter. There needed to be a “moment” but, despite a rather lacklustre showing, Starmer didn’t deliver the critical misstep Sunak and his team were hoping for.

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There were, however, some hints of what’s to come in a campaign that still has four weeks left to run. The Conservative message so far has focused on Keir Starmer’s lack of a plan, which has had little resonance with the public. Last night, Sunak brought the focus onto Labour’s tax plans – the heavily disputed ￡2,000 tax that the Conservatives claim will be imposed on working families by Labour, as well as what Sunak branded the “retirement tax” on pensioners.

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Starmer’s strategy focused on highlighting the Conservative record in power, especially reminding voters of the chaos of Liz Truss’ short reign and the legacy of the mini-budget. He posed a critical question to voters: if the Conservatives haven’t managed to fix things in 14 years, why should anyone believe they can do so in the next five?

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Starmer was strangely slow in responding to Sunak’s tax claims, his rebuttals lacked conviction and his answers on a range of issues lacked detail. Perhaps this will come when the manifestos are published next week. But overall Starmer had a different job to Sunak. For him, yesterday was about avoiding pitfalls rather than delivering knockout blows, and his team will be broadly happy with his performance – in particular the readily clippable moment when Starmer took Sunak to task over his claim that NHS waiting lists were coming down.

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It seems that viewers were broadly split on the winner. The snap YouGov poll handed Sunak a narrow win, but a Savanta poll since has handed victory to Starmer, while a JL Partners poll (which didn’t ask people to park their own politics at the door) gave Starmer an even stronger lead.

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The “result” is really an academic question. With a 20-point poll deficit, it’s not enough for Rishi Sunak to perform well. It’s not even enough for Starmer to perform poorly. If anything is going to change in an election that most people have long seen as a foregone conclusion, the Conservatives need a “moment”.