TV debates can change election campaigns. Leaders should choose wisely

Good morning. The big picture story of this election is unless something changes, the Labour party is heading for a landslide victory. Something could change — British voters are more volatile now than in the past, and more willing to switch parties, but that works both ways.

Yes, a Labour campaign that falters could lead to a very different result to the one that all the polls, by-elections and local elections suggest. Yes, a Conservative campaign that hits all the right notes could reel in the Labour party.

But the reverse is also true, and frankly, in these early days of the campaign, looks rather more likely. A Labour campaign that hits the right notes could do better than the polls currently suggest. A Tory one that sputters and struggles could do worse.

Either way, one major variable in this campaign are the televised debates, and whether and how they happen. Some thoughts on what Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer should want out of them.

Networks affect

What should Keir Starmer be looking for from the televised debates? In an ideal world, that they do not happen. Although he is running on a simple one-word slogan of “Change”, change is actually undesirable if you enjoy a 20 point lead over your closest rival in the polls and an electoral coalition that appears to be incredibly well-distributed geographically and can therefore win big even with a smaller lead.

The televised debates are a moment in this campaign when things could change, and therefore if Starmer could find a way to avoid doing them, he should take it. That said, he will also know that one thing that voters really did not like in the 2017 election was that Theresa May skipped the leaders’ debates. It went over poorly in the focus groups and was part of why her election campaign went badly.

What is Starmer’s next best alternative? The same format favoured by Boris Johnson in 2019, really: two head-to-head debates with Rishi Sunak, and a third appearance in front of a Question Time-style audience. That allows him to avoid a proper debate with the Greens and the SNP attacking him from his left over his policy programme and the Israel-Hamas war in particular.

One risk to Labour’s lead in this election is that the stories about a Labour-Green fight in Bristol Central, the SNP-Labour battles in Scotland, and Jeremy Corbyn’s newly launched independent candidacy in Islington North all contribute to a steady hum of observations about Starmer’s rows with his left. That adds to a narrative of Labour voters draining away to the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and to independents. This is another reason why keeping the Starmer-Sunak fight front and centre helps Labour, by keeping leftwing voters firmly focused on the choice between the big two parties.

And the third reason is best illustrated by this chart from Ipsos:

As Inside Politics regulars will be tired of reading, I like to use Ipsos where possible, because it is the UK’s oldest pollster and I like as long a data set as possible. But regardless of which pollster you use, the pattern does not change — Rishi Sunak is about as unliked as John Major at the depths of his unpopularity in 1994 or as Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

Starmer is not popular by any definition, but he is, nonetheless, the least unpopular leader of a major party. As Peter Kellner explains over on his blog, more people say they are positive, and fewer negative, about a government led by Starmer today than they did about a government led by Boris Johnson in 2019.

Yes, in 2017, Corbyn achieved a remarkable turnaround in his own standing and approval ratings. But to put it in perspective, if between now and the election, Rishi Sunak’s standing with the public improves by as much as Corbyn’s did during the 2017 election, he would still be more unpopular than John Major in 1997 or Gordon Brown in 2010. We also should remember that Sunak started the 2022 leadership election trailing Liz Truss among Conservative members, and his debates with her did not help. That, as our team reports, he has endured a series of stumbles right at the start of the campaign doesn’t suggest he will do any better this time around.

What type of debate would best suit Sunak? Well, not the six debates that he has challenged Starmer to, which he has heavily implied should be head to head. His best approach would be exactly what Starmer should avoid: a debate featuring the leaders of all the major parties. But that is unlikely to change the overarching dynamic of this election fight: Sunak is wildly unpopular.

Now try this

A troubling number of you felt I was being overly harsh on D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better”. I maintain that the only good song used by a Third Way politician in their election campaigns is Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop”, which Bill Clinton deployed in 1992.

Whatever you listen to, and however you spend it, have a wonderful weekend.

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Below is the Financial Times’s live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.