Starmer being hammered by Rigby AND Sky News audience? Ooft.

  • Post last modified:June 13, 2024
  • Reading time:12 mins read


At the Sky News Battle for Number 10 leaders special, Labour’s Keir Starmer and Tory Rishi Sunak pitched their best Torier-than-thou general election personas.

In the post-debate YouGov polls, Starmer overwhelmingly came out on top. The Labour Party leader hoovered up 64% to Sunak’s 36% – pitching him as the clear winner.

However, even Sky’s News client journo Beth Rigby wasn’t buying all the bluster – from either of them. Instead, she showed that both party leaders are taking the public for mugs.

Sky News leaders special

On 12 June, Sky News hosted Labour leader Starmer and Conservative prime minister Sunak for a 90-minute general election special. The one-on-one interviews were a one-stop-shop for the two would-be next PMs to pitch their reasons why the public should lend them their vote. Spoiler alert: you shouldn’t.

So forget your polling cards, and crack out your general election 2024 campaign bingo sheet, because the Sky News special had it all, including:

  • Labour will RAISE your taxes
  • “I introduced furlough”
  • “My dad was a toolmaker” (Yes, we know Keir, the biggest one he made will be the next prime minister)
  • “I grew up in an NHS family…”
  • Whatever latest wacky “man of the people” act Sunak fancies today
  • Because: pandemic
  • Because: workers selfishly striking for livable pay
  • Tax, tax and MORE TAX (but not the rich, obviously)

However, if there was one reoccurring theme of the evening, it was broken promises:

Starmer flip-flops and flounders on air

First, there was Starmer’s infamous ten pledges. These were a series of umbrella promises he made as part of his leadership bid. They included commitments like abolishing tuition fees and renationalising energy.

As the Canary’s James Wright recently highlighted:

In fact, Starmer initially pledged a number of policies from the 2017 and 2019 Corbyn manifestos. These include public ownership of essential services such as electricity and water, abolishing tuition fees and a Green New Deal.

The thing is, Starmer then U-turned on every pledge he made to win the Labour leadership. In other words, he lied to the grassroots membership to secure their vote.

So Rigby wasn’t letting him weasel out of this:

In the most politician-like roundabout way, Starmer was being honest about one thing – his habitual flip-floppery:

One poster understandably asked where the hell Sky News has been the last few years. After all, the slimy politician has been up to this on a routine basis:

Sunak stumbles over the stats

Then, it was Sunak’s turn, and Rigby rinsed the washed up politicians over his unfulfilled promises too:

Again, as with Starmer, the corporate media pundit punched out a list of the Tory leader’s failed pledges. Specifically, these were promises that Sunak made in 2023, which were to:

  1. Halve inflation
  2. Grow the economy
  3. Get debt falling
  4. Cut NHS waiting lists
  5. Stop the boats

As Rigby highlighted, he’s so far fallen short on a majority of these. Naturally though, simpering snake Sunak couldn’t possibly admit to his failures:

In one spectacularly shameful slip, Sunak pointed the finger of blame at striking workers for soaring NHS waiting lists. The audience audibly groaned:

Rigby then retorted that:

PM, the point is, that when you made the pledge, there were several NHS industrial disputes happening at the time. Ambulance workers were on strike, nurses were having strikes, junior doctors were balloting, and you still made the pledge and the numbers are up.

Moreover, some posters on X weren’t having any of Sunak’s ‘pride for the NHS’ garble either:

Pointless pledges, pointless politicians

Both leader’s antipathy to young people perhaps summed up best the state of trust in the two main political parties this election.

In one corner, you had Sir Kid Starver peddling the establishment myth there’s no money to lift the callous two child benefit cap. Meanwhile, not content to left out of the hall of ‘milk-snatcher Thatcher’ fame, Sunak has dug deep for his own clusterfuck of an election gimmick. Now, I present to you: child-catcher Sunak in flashy new election fashion, pimped out with Haribo and Twix, ready to round up kids for national service.

The Labour Party can have this jingle for free:

Kids and grownups hate them so, the broken Britain of Tory shitshow.

Of course, the red-tie Tory is no better. Rigby grilled Starmer on the cap in a rare moment of Sky News doing some actual fucking journalism. She raised with him that with a wealth tax, Labour could, say, lift the two child benefit cap, that the disingenuous establishment grifter proclaims the country can’t afford.

Won’t scrap this disgusting poverty policy, but will ditch a tax on the rich, quelle surprise from this class traitor. Because ultimately, as people on X underscored, this cruelty is a political choice:

But again, don’t forget folks, Starmer’s dad was a toolkmaker – because that totally proves he’s on the side of the working class. Starmer was shocked when people belly-laughed this. In the tone of your out-of-touch granddad chastising with the good ol’ “in my day” gotcha, Starmer snapped:

We couldn’t make ends meet. Which actually isn’t a laughing matter.

You’re right Starmer, it isn’t, but tell that to the 1.1 million children living in poverty, partly as a result of the cap.

Given this shamble, it’s a mystery how Starmer garnered 64% of the public’s vote. But then, I guess, it’s a bit less cringey than Sunak’s Sky News sob story:

If people have trust ‘issues’ with politicians, I can’t possibly think why. Ultimately, one of these lying charlatans will win the election on 4 July.

However, whoever is the victor of this political circus act, the UK public will undoubtedly lose.

Of course, with the Tory and Labour election manifestos dropping this week, there couldn’t be a better time to remind everyone: they mean fuck all in practice.

Feature image via Sky News/ the Canary





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