General election 2024: Last TV leaders’ debate left Sky News Voters Panel largely uninspired | Politics News
Throughout the election campaign the Sky News YouGov Voters Panel have been reacting to every major moment.
We asked them to watch the last leaders’ debate and share their snap reaction. Once again, they didn’t hold back.
Several thought Rishi Sunak came out fighting. One voter said: “I think for the first time we saw a little bit of a new Rishi Sunak.”
Others were won over by Keir Starmer, one person observing: “He was more calm and collected and took time to answer questions directly.”
But the debate left several uninspired.
Another voter told us: “They’re like carbon copies of each other. No one seems to really give a monkey about the public.”
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Our panel were asked which words they associate with the two leaders.
For Sunak positive words like “passionate” and “punchy” were mentioned.
But they were overshadowed by terms like, “rude” “desperate” and “angry”.
As for Starmer it wasn’t much better.
A few said “clear” and “confident”, but “boring” “repetitive” and “evasive” also cropped up.
A lot of our panel responded positively to Sunak’s performance.
One voter said: “It was interesting how he’s introduced an element of doubt regarding Keir Starmer’s position.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s word cloud
Rishi Sunak’s word cloud
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Another added: “If you didn’t know what the polls were saying, you would have actually thought that Sunak was in the position to win the election, which he clearly isn’t.”
Although some thought Starmer took time to answer questions put to him more directly, several others thought he did the exact opposite: “I still feel that Keir Starmer is not answering the questions asked of him.”
All our panel were previously undecided, and while some have now picked a party, many left the debate with the same thought as this voter: “I agree with the person in the audience who asked, are these the two best candidates that we really have to wanting to run the country?”
