Blow by blow, how the PM kept Corbyn on the ropes
ON BREXIT...
WHAT JOHNSON SAID Labour is dither and delay, and we don’t know on which side Corbyn would campaign for – Leave or remain. WHAT CORBYN SAID
We will get Brexit sorted by giving you the final say. ANALYSIS honing in on his opponent’s weak spot, Boris Johnson hammered Jeremy Corbyn again and again to say whether he would support Leave or remain in a second referendum. he called it a ‘glaring lacuna’, a ‘void’, an ‘enigma’ and a ‘conundrum’. The Labour leader twisted and turned but didn’t have an answer – and by the end was being laughed at by the audience for refusing to address the question. In an attempt to return the debate to his script, Corbyn claimed the PM would spend seven years negotiating a trade deal with the US, and forced Johnson to say the NHS will ‘never be for sale’. VERDICT
Clear Johnson win
THE UNION
WHAT JOHNSON SAID
Corbyn would do a deal with Nicola Sturgeon on a second referendum, and sell out the Union. WHAT CORBYN SAID
I won’t do a deal! ANALYSIS Corbyn was again on the ropes when he refused to rule out another independence referendum, saying only that there wouldn’t be one ‘in the early years’. The Prime Minister picked him up on this evasion and pointed it out to the audience, before warning there would be a ‘chaotic coalition’ involving Labour and the SNP. Corbyn immediately hit back that there had been ‘nine years of chaotic coalition’ – which isn’t true, but the blow landed. VERDICT
Points win for Johnson
TRUST IN POLITICS
WHAT JOHNSON SAID
The failure to deliver Brexit has undermined trust in politics WHAT CORBYN SAID
I haven’t failed on anti-Semitism. ANALYSIS A question about trust in politics and politicians which went nowhere until Julie etchingham brought up anti-Semitism and put Corbyn on the defensive and forced him to defend his record on rooting out anti-Jewish racism. Johnson accused him of a ‘complete failure of leadership’. But the issue of integrity was also the PM’s most difficult to handle. Accused by etchingham of having betrayed people he worked for, his protestation that he believed the ‘truth mattered’ in politics had the audience laughing. In the end the men shook hands and agreed to take the nastiness out of politics. VERDICT
Boris’s toughest section
NHS
WHAT JOHNSON SAID
I won’t sell off the NHS, and the four-day week would be a disaster. WHAT CORBYN SAID
The Tories will sell the NHS to Donald Trump. ANALYSIS On what should be comfortable territory for the Labour leader, he lost ground. The two men attempted to outdo each other with paeans of praise for the health service, with the Prime Minister calling it ‘one of the single most brilliant and beautiful things about our country’ and repeating his insistence the NHS would never be up for sale. Cleverly, Johnson managed to turn the debate on to the cost to the NHS of the four-day week – with Corbyn facing audience laughter when he said it would be good for productivity. The PM even got the chance to say his social care policy would mean nobody ‘having to sell their home’ – distancing himself from Theresa May’s disastrous dementia tax. VERDICT
No win for the Labour leader, on what he thinks should be his strongest hand
ECONOMY
WHAT JOHNSON SAID you need a strong economy to pay for public services. WHAT CORBYN SAID
Britain is only working for the billionaires. ANALYSIS Twisting a question about how to pay for public services, Corbyn went in hard on austerity and inequality and captured his Marxist view of Britain in a soundbite when he said: ‘We are a society of billionaires and the very poor and neither is right.’ In response, Johnson pointed out he had ditched a £6billion corporation tax cut to pay for public services and warned that Corbyn would ‘destroy the basis of wealth creation in this country.’ host etchingham said the PM would need a ‘magic money tree’ and Corbyn several to pay for his spending plans – allowing Johnson to win a laugh with a line about a ‘magic money forest’. VERDICT
Johnson win as Corbyn’s spending plans were reduced to a laughing stock