General election TV debate – live: Starmer beat Sunak on NHS and economy in first ITV clash, new snap poll says

Labour’s leader outperformed the Prime Minister in Tuesday’s ITV leaders’ debate, researchers at Savanta have found.

In an overnight snap poll, Savanta found Sir Keir Starmer beat Rishi Sunak by 44% to 39%.

YouGov pollsters found in a separate snap poll yesterday that Mr Sunak had outperformed Sir Keir 51% to 49%.

Savanta found Sir Keir outperformed Mr Sunak on NHS and public services 63% to 25%, on the economy 52% to 36%, and defence and security 43% to 41%.

Pollsters at the firm also found Sir Keir “came across as most honest” 54% to 29% for Mr Sunak, and that the Labour leader “remained the calmest” 51% to 36% for the Conservative Prime Minister.

Chris Hopkins, Savanta political research director, said in a statement: “Presentationally, it felt like the Prime Minister had the upper hand at times – in particular towards the end of the debate – and although our figures suggest he lost narrowly, he probably still outperformed expectations.”

Rishi Sunak has beaten Sir Keir Starmer in a snap poll asking viewers who performed better in tonight’s debate.

The YouGov poll delivered narrow results with Sunak gaining 51 per cent of favourable opinion while Starmer garnered 49 per cent of votes.

The prime minister will welcome the snap survey results as he was striving to turn his party’s fortunes around in opinion polls.

Michael Gove has rubbished a YouGov poll showing the public was split on who won the debate, claiming it was in fact a six nil win for Rishi Sunak, Archie Mitchell reports.

The retiring senior minister told journalists after the contest that even failed former Labour leader Ed Miliband would have done better than Sir Keir Starmer.

And he said Sir Keir’s performance has left the Labour Party “in confusion, disarray and despondency”.

“They wanted to walk this general election, but Keir Starmer has fallen flat on his face,” Mr Gove added.

Asked whether the Tories were in disarray because of Nigel Farage’s decision to run in the general election, Mr Gove said: “Reform are just an arm of the Labour Party.”

Shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth denied that Sir Keir Starmer had taken too long to push back on Rishi Sunak’s claims that Labour would raise tax by £2,000.

He told reporters: “He was very clear, he said it was absolute garbage.

“You’re right, Rishi Sunak, in a very tetchy way, continued to interrupt Keir so you can obviously see Rishi Sunak is under some pressure, so I’ll grant you that, he continued to interrupt time after time, but Keir said that figure from Sunak is absolute garbage, which it is.”

After an hour of back-and-forth between Sir Keir and Mr Sunak, we want to know what you made of the ITV debate. Have you changed your mind about either party?

Who was your winner on the night?

After that heated debate between both leaders, the Greens have accused the Tories and Labour of not being serious about cost of living.

Party Co-Leader, Adrian Ramsay:“If either Sunak or Starmer was serious about tackling the cost of living they would join The Greens in offering real hope and real change.

“This would be raising Universal Credit by £40 a week, introduce a carer income guarantee, end the two child benefit cap and pledge to tax the wealthiest who can afford to shoulder more. Instead they seem more interested in talking over each other in a show of one upmanship”

In his closing statement, the Prime Minister said: “Either Keir Starmer or I will be your prime minister and a vote for anyone else makes it more likely that it will be him.”

He also told voters “you don’t know what you’d get” if they chose Labour.

“We’ve heard a lot about change from him but change to what? Keir Starmer is asking you to hand him a blank check when he hasn’t said what he’ll buy with it, or how much it’s going to cost you.

“In uncertain times we simply cannot afford an uncertain prime minister.”