On 20 June 2024, Nouse attended the BBC Question Time Leaders’ Special at the University of York. The media room was filled with high-profile journalists and spin doctors keenly awaiting for the event to take place; Ed Davey represented the Liberal Democrats, John Swinney spoke for the SNP, Rishi Sunak faced questions for the Conservatives and Keir Starmer was in the hot seat for Labour.
Outside the media room, a large group of pro-Palestine protesters jeered at both Sunak and Starmer, holding signs in protest of both leaders. The protesters were composed of a number of groups based across the region, campaigning against the ostensible lack of action regarding the Middle East from the main parties.
Before the debate took place, Nouse spoke to Dr Anna Sanders, a lecturer in the department of Politics at the University who specialises in voting behaviour. We asked Dr Sanders about why almost all pension age individuals were registered to vote but only 60% of 18-24 year olds, she said this is “firstly to do with habitual voting, which is where if you’ve voted in elections you become more and more likely to vote, so older voters are more in the habit of doing so, the other reason is because of younger voter’s living situation - younger voters tend to move around but older voters tend to be more settled in their constituencies”.
We also spoke to Dr Sanders about Labour’s pledge to allow 16-17 year olds to vote, and if she believed that political education in the UK was sufficient enough to support this.
She responded, “I think a lot of young voters are very engaged in politics and are well informed, so they may be as likely as any other voter to turn out, but I think we should be careful in the way we analyse this, and how we see it affecting overall electoral outcomes in the UK’.
We finally asked Dr Sanders what she thought about the role of social media in elections and if she thinks this could be a conduit to misinformation in elections and diminishing real political issues into mere social media snaps. She answered, “I think there’s no difference between the way that parties campaign in terms if social media for misinformation and how they may campaign on leaflets, the risk isn’t necessarily any higher on social media, one of the things we saw in the EU referendum was the discussion about the Leave campaign pledging 350 million going into the NHS so misinformation can exist in many forms.”
She went on to say, “In recent years there’s been a real shift from substance to style in politics with portrayal of politicians and policies and social media definitely has an interesting role in that.”
Overview of the leader’s performance:
The debate commenced at 8PM, with each leader fervently attempting to compound their core messages and respond to questions from the audience. Ed Davey was probed on whether or not his party would bankrupt the country. The leader was struck by retrospective questions facing the party's past; their betrayal over raising tuition fees, their central role as architects of austerity during the coalition years, and perhaps most pertinently, Davey’s role in the Post Office scandal and perceived failures.
SNP leader John Swinney highlighted the impacts of Brexit on Scottish manufacturing, an area which appears to be something of an omertá amongst the other parties. Swinney prevaricated when asked who he’d rather have as PM, but later signalled it would be Starmer, whilst also highlighting the fundamental importance of having SNP voices in Westminster.
Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was scrutinised on his previous support for Jeremy Corbyn, appearing to equivocate on the issue, stating ‘he did not think we [Labour] would win’. Starmer went on to ardently defend the parties policy on removing the charity tax status of private schools, which proved popular with the audience. However, when asked about his previous support for the abolition of tuition fees, he stated that this was no longer a viable option, but did not lay out a blueprint for future change.
Sunak was grilled on the seemingly decaying ethics and morals of the party in light of the gambling scandal currently facing Conservative candidates, with Sunak refusing to suspend the candidates but confirming he was glad they were being investigated and was ‘incredibly angry’. Sunak also faced questioning over his National Service policy, stating that a sanction for not participating would be ‘restricting access to finance’ but did not expand further. Members of the audience appeared aggravated regarding Sunak’s potential removal of Britain’s membership of the ECHR in order to pursue Rwanda plans. There were shouts of ‘shame’ and one member refuted Sunak’s claims that many countries were not members of the ECHR- highlighting that it was ‘only right-wing Belarus and Russia’.
With the end of the debate at 10PM, the room was flooded with campaign leaders and advisers, addressing journalists and stating why their leader performed strongest.
Nouse spoke to Bim Afolami, former conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, and candidate for newly-formed constituency, Hitchin. Afolami is the parliamentary champion for Next Gen Tories, a group that aims to cultivate and curate young conservative talent, seeking to deliver for those under 45. When Nouse questioned Afolami on the National Service policy he explained that ‘yes, I do think it is positive; the vast majority of countries in Europe such as The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden all have national service. The military option will be just that - an option. I think it’s good, when people turn 18, they uncover many rights, but also responsibilities; national service will promote social cohesion, uniting people from different backgrounds and races.’ He further acknowledged that people were right to have concerns, but the party planned to “set up a royal commission that will work out all the details around this”. We questioned Afolami further on this, asking how this would affect low income young people who need to work to support themselves and their families, Afolami confirmed with certitude that this would be examined in the commission.
We also asked Afolami what he thought of the waning youth support for the conservative party, and if he thought there was impetus for young people to vote for the party: ‘yes, there is, but its tricky, a lot of young people have suffered the brunt of learning, and their young adult life has been impact, I really do not minimise that, but when I see them in my constituency and around the country, I tell them, if you want a good future, you need to keep more of the money you earn, and the conservative party is committed to cutting taxes, cutting stamp duty for all first time buyers on properties under £425,000.’ He further stated ‘a key thing I want every young person to know; do not just do what you’re expected to do and vote for a left-wing party because that's what’s fashionable, examine things for yourself, make your own judgements.’
Wes Streeting, Labour candidate for Ilford North and previous Shadow secretary for Health and Social Care. He lauded Starmer’s performance, not only in the debate but in ‘changing the party… the confidence we have in ourselves, in our team and our ideas’ he continued to criticise the ‘clown show of the Conservatives’ and Sunak’s inability to state whether or not he was backing certain candidates (referring to the candidates embroiled in the gambling scandal)’. He stated that this was at the core of the choice for voters on 4 July, ‘do people want more chaos or do they want to turn the page with a changed labour party’. Streeting stated that he did not believe that Sunak would be leader of the Conservatives following the election, hence a vote for them would merely be ‘a vote for any old clown coming in to take over the circus’.
Nouse asked Streeting, previous president of the National Union of Students and ex-chair of Labour Students, why there has been no clear plan set out for reforming the student loan system, and if there would be one in the future. Streeting responded “I’m glad that Keir took the issue head on and was honest about the choices that lie ahead, as I would much rather that we were honest with people this side of the election than do what we’ve seen other parties do in the past, which is say one thing in an election then let people down, I think we do have a strong offer for young people in this country; building 1.5 million more homes, our offer on young people's mental health would make a big difference to the Covid generation and high quality apprenticeships. We want to be a party that appeals to every age group and ensures that young people can look forward to their future.”
Approaching the previous MP for Leicester South and spearhead of the Labour campaign, Jonathan Ashworth, with the same question regarding student loans, he stated that ‘the party has had to make the difficult decision to prioritise the NHS, but we want to create good, well-paid jobs in the green energy sector which is good for the economy and environment, the very youngest of young people, children, will have access to free breakfast clubs, and also employ more teachers in schools”.
Ashworth was lambasted by journalists for Starmer’s answer on his support for Corbyn, and defended Starmer’s stance by saying. The tragedy for the country in 2019 was that there were two leaders, Johnson and the Labour leader at the time, who many people felt they simply could not vote for, hence why Starmer has been determined to change the party and Corbyn is not a candidate in this election”. Nouse responded to this by highlighting that Corbyn is a candidate in the election, albeit independent, and asked Ashworth if he thought Corbyn will win in Islington North.
Ashworth responded with, ‘That’s for the people of Islington North to decide that and I’m not going to second guess them, but the Labour candidate and campaigners there are working really hard, but ultimately it is up to the voters to decide”.
Nouse also spoke to Sir David Davis, former MP for Haltemprice and Howden and previous Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, We asked Davis whether or not he felt the Conservative's fixation on ‘cutting taxes’ rang true with the public, and would they rather their taxes be spent in a better way.
Davis responded, "It's a little bit of both, take the health service for example, the health service is not just about expenditure, we spend more on the health service today than ever has been spent in history, two of the biggest increases in health service was the two years before covid, we spent more money and the number of people treated went down, so there’s something we have to fix about the organisation.” He further said, ‘People do care about taxes, money is scarce, food bank use has gone up. Why is that? Because people haven’t got enough money, so if people can keep more of their money that is positive’.
Nouse further questioned this, citing the £310 million spent on the Rwanda scheme, ‘I was originally quite sceptical about the Rwanda scheme, I’m well known for being strong on civil liberties, and one of the things I wasn’t sure about was whether or not it would disincentive people coming across the border, well what happened was when the bill went through and got royal assent was that illegal migrants started disappearing to Ireland and it was quite embarrassing for the Irish, if you want demonstration right there and then of incentive working, it incentivised them to leave the country, whatever the difficulties of the Rwanda Scheme, you’ve got a whole series of other European countries copying it” .
If you're voting on 1 July, do remember photo ID, you can still register for a proxy vote if you are unable to vote on the day and have not applied for a postal vote, the deadline for this is 26 June. You can vote at your home address or university address- the choice is yours.
