Quick verdict
Although it was a one-party televised debate, the turnaround will continue to be about people who supported a particular candidate saying that their particular candidate did better, but I’ll give you some feedback soon. in the debate.
My quick surprise is that Rishi Sunak did nothing to torpedo his position as a current favorite among parliamentarians, even if he might not have done a performance that surprised the audience. Tugendhat was clearly the most sympathetic candidate for the studio audience, but he’s not very likely to get into the last two, leaving Badenoch, Truss and Mordaunt.
I don’t think any of the three have had a particular stellar evening. I didn’t hear Mordaunt shine, Truss perhaps had his best moments when he was face to face with Sunak on taxes and loans (although you think he’s more credible fiscally), and Badenoch was pretty good at getting things back. on a personal level, but his platform of “telling the truth” is still quite light on real politics.
Here are some interesting snapshots of Opinium, which show good news for Tugendhat, in any case as far as the public is concerned.
🚨BREAKING – SNAP DEBATE SURVEY🚨
Tonight we asked over 1000 regular voters to watch the debate and we just asked them who they thought worked best.
Results: Tugendhat 36% Sunak 25% Mordaunt 12% Badenoch 12% Truss 6% pic.twitter.com/0q4IliqQNM
– Opinium (@OpiniumResearch) July 15, 2022
Opinium also has some polls on how people from different political convictions felt it was the contest, which is very similar.
Among the conservative voters of 2019 was a neck and neck between Tugendhat and Sunak.
However, among conservative swing voters (who will decide whether conservatives hold their majority in the next election) the results were: Tugendhat 33% Sunak 28% Mordaunt 14% Badenoch 12% Truss 6% pic.twitter.com/A3Xrq4nioD
– Opinium (@OpiniumResearch) July 15, 2022
Updated at 21.24 BST
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As for the climate crisis, of the five candidates tonight, Kemi Badenoch remained the only candidate who did not commit to the UK’s current zero net commitment. She said:
The promise was made in 2018 for 2050, none of us will be here as politicians in 2050, it is very easy to set a goal for which you will not be responsible or profitable when the time comes. The important thing is to make sure we do it in a sustainable way. Many of the things we are doing could be damaging our country financially.
My colleague Helena Horton wrote today that after the green conservatives ’initial alarm about the low presence of the environment in the leadership contest discussion, Sunak, Mordaunt, Truss and Tugendhat had committed to 2050 .
Michael Gove doubles his support for Kemi Badenoch after tonight’s debate. He says “she has the right things.”
Kemi is winning among the Newsnight jury: he has the right material
– Michael Gove (@michaelgove) July 15, 2022
This is what Sam Coates, the deputy political editor like Sky News, said in his live analysis earlier when the debate was over. He suggested it was a good performance by Rishi Sunak and a tough night for Liz Truss:
Tonight has been dominated by two things, the issue of trust and the economy. And what was really amazing was Rishi Sunak’s ability to drag this debate on economics into its own terms.
He asked both Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss about their tax plans. If the nation could afford them. Whether or not they can raise inflation.
It was he who framed the argument and put pressure on others, although no doubt his plan, which is now not as helpful as these two, is a more difficult sale in the country.
He went on to say about the current Secretary of State:
Tonight also mattered to Liz Truss. Parts of his release were clearly pretty tough. Basically, he maintains his decision not to resign from the Boris Johnson government and promises him allegiance even now, but he didn’t seem to be doing particularly well with the public.
Sometimes I subscribe to the opinion that if your candidate has done or said something silly, it’s best to rely on social media on the basis that “any advertising is good advertising” and “people will talk about us instead of someone else. ”
So while I confess that I may be on the verge of falling into this trap, there seems to be a lot of confusion on social media about what Penny Mordaunt meant by this statement: “The 180 major innovations we’ve had. How many are used? in the NHS. None, ”or why his social media team would turn it into a graphic.
As you can probably imagine, his tweets have been a spectacle to behold, especially a procession of NHS staff pointing out some pretty basic “innovations” they use like the wheel and electricity, or the good old recourse to a Monty. Python reference: “Apart from the Internet, penicillin, recombinant antibodies, MRI scanners, CT scans, lateral flow tests … what inventions has the NHS ever used?”
Updated at 22.53 BST
Harry Lambert offers this analysis tonight to the New Statesman:
Liz Truss has the support of 64 MPs, but no hesitant MP can be encouraged to join her camp after tonight’s presentation. It was no surprise: I suggested that Truss would perform poorly tonight, as probably anyone else who has seen the Secretary of State try to resolve questions on the air would have done, and I think the Conservative right would be prudent to drop it and turn behind Kemi. Badenoch (who is fourth among the deputies, with the support of 49). Badenoch was the quietest and safest performer tonight. But I don’t expect the Tory right to line up, and that will keep Mordaunt on the road to a second round with Sunak.
Read more here: New Statesman – Who Won the First Conservative Leadership Television Debate?
A couple of first pages of tomorrow have been posted and you can see exactly where some people have stuck their wagons. For the Post, it is news of a “Liz tax increase for families,” as they present a Truss camp plan for “a radical overhaul of the tax system.”
“She wants to ensure that parents are not penalized for time off work to care for family members,” the newspaper says, adding that “couples with young children or caring responsibilities.”
She is also referred to as Miss Truss on the cover.
Meanwhile, The Telegraph leads with Penny Mordaunt saying she is “up to par.”
You can also get a “free” sunscreen with the Daily Mail tomorrow, although it costs £ 3.95 P&P and doesn’t link the country’s extreme heat to the climate crisis.
Joan Crace
John Crace has presented his sketch of both tonight’s debate and the first online meetings:
It’s hard to believe, but just over a week ago the last conservative psychodrama began. It feels longer. Much more time. Time bends and stops when you find yourself in the parallel universe of a Liz Truss speech. He leaves the audience asking for a lethal injection. The other candidates for leadership are little better, registering mainly as absences in the continuous space-time. Negative energy.
But we are where we are and we have moved on to the first of the televised debates, a curious game show where the only audience that counts are the 360 Conservative MPs who may or may not be watching. The rest of us are just voyeurs, we have no say on which two clowns will be pending next Wednesday evening. So it seems that the UK likes to choose its prime minister these days. Lots of branding for a country that has become a joke.
First, however, there was a warm-up Zoom hustings on the Conservative Home website. Consider a weekly meeting of junior sales representatives. Only infinitely more boring. It’s almost as if no one really wants the job. What the rest of us would really like.
The only highlights were the flat truss that forgot to turn on the sound – it’s more articulate when you can’t hear it – and Ready4Rish! suggesting that his greatest flaw is his perfectionism. I would say a much bigger flaw was to be in charge of an economy that is expected to have the second lowest growth in the G20. If he were a true perfectionist he would have made sure we were the bottom line. The other three, Penny Mordaunt, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch, said nothing memorable. Which meant they easily came out on top.
Read more here: John Crace – The Conservative Leadership Debate: Desperate as a Sales Argument, Worse as Entertainment
Rishi Sunak has chosen not only to publish a video clip of his final statement …
… But also a backstage assembly.
Kemi Badenoch has posted slides of his closing speech. It is possible to interpret this as an indication of the difference between the campaign money they have behind them.
Interestingly, Liz Truss and her team have chosen to go with a video clip from the segment where he talked about transgender rights, rather than his final statement. Truss said:
When I started working for Women and Equality, there was a plan to move forward in self-identification. I believe in women’s rights. I also believe that transgender people should be treated with respect.
So what I did was change the result of that work, so that we could make the process simpler and friendlier, but not move forward with self-identification.
Which I think is the right position, because I think people understand the need to protect the face of women in shelters for domestic violence, but at the same time, everyone should be free to live their lives as they please and be treated with respect. So that’s the balance I wanted to achieve.
Truss was cut short for exceeding his 45 seconds in his final speech, which may have made it a less appealing clip to use.
On social media, it has not gone unnoticed that Liz Truss was doing a lot of cosplaying like Margaret Thatcher tonight, even in a specific dress that Thatcher wore in a 1979 election broadcast.
The …