Tory and Labour leaders clash in TV debate – and Corbyn walks it
Did anybody really think Boris Johnson would beat Jeremy Corbyn in a televised debate? Well, he didn’t!
Mr Corbyn’s calm, confident delivery trumped Mr Johnson’s bluff and bluster in a confrontation that was all over long before the end credits rolled.
This Writer was contributing to the Twitter debate, and you can tell how it was going from some of my comments:
Roast Johnson, anyone? #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Nice opening from @jeremycorbyn . As for @BorisJohnson – #Brexit fixation, much? His deal is dribble, too – Brexiteers say so. #ITVDebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
First question is about #Brexit – but also about broken promises. @BorisJohnson says his deal is "oven-ready" – which is just begging for a roasting. @jeremycorbyn manages to say something sensible about what is actually available to the people, at least. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson is already umming and ahhing, stuttering. This guy is a disaster. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
The question whether @jeremycorbyn will campaign for Leave or Remain is a red herring. He doesn't want to influence the electorate in any way – unlike @BorisJohnson who allegedly has to satisfy the people who funded his Tory leadership campaign (Russians?) #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Will @BorisJohnson mint a new coin for his new #Brexit day? That's a tremendous dig at him. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@jeremycorbyn quite right to point out that @BorisJohnson held secret negotiations with the USA for full market access to the NHS. What a sell-out! #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson is lying. We know he has put the #NHS up for sale to @realDonaldTrump and US business. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
#NorthernIreland is another part of #Brexit where @BorisJohnson has let the UK down. It's right to raise it here. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Why is @BorisJohnson banging on about @NicolaSturgeon putting a price on her support for @jeremycorbyn ? @UKLabour is campaigning to win the #GeneralElection2019 outright! #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson says the Union is the most important thing – but he's parroting what he thinks people want to hear. It's pathetic. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Watch @BorisJohnson tie himself in knots about the trading deal he has negotiated with the EU about #NorthernIreland. Would he be more comfortable with a glass of bubbly in his hand? #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson is trying to turn the #NorthernIreland issue onto @jeremycorbyn because he knows his own position is untenable. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Trust in politicians has indeed been corroded, @BorisJohnson – because you are a lying, cheating, sexist and racist, concealing your misdeeds by postponing the inquiries into them. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson coming out with another lie – about delivering 40 new hospitals. There's only money to upgrade 6, with "seed" funding for 34 other projects, that MAY come to fruition by the end of the 2020s. He's building castles in the air. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
I'm waiting for Julie to raise the question of Islamophobia in the Tory party…. #LeadersDebate
— Michael Siva (@michaelsiva63) November 19, 2019
#ITVdebate on #Brexit was soundly won by @jeremycorbyn, I think. @BorisJohnson was too desperate to ask what his opponent was going to do about the subjects in question – so he could nick the ideas, as Tories have many times before in the last nine years?
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
The fact is, the #NHS isn't getting money because @BorisJohnson and the @Conservatives have been selling it out to private business – and to the USA, it seems. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
HUGE round of applause for @jeremycorbyn calling to end the privatisation in the #NHS – @BorisJohnson once again lying that he's not selling it off. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson falling back on the old line that @UKLabour ruined the economy – yet another lie. #ITVdebate He knows that there was a world recession – and that his party supported Labour's policy at the time.
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
No undertaking from @BorisJohnson not to privatise the #NHS is worth hearing as he will be lying. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
I don't believe @BorisJohnson saying people won't have to sell their home to buy social care either. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@jeremycorbyn right on the button about the effects of #Austerity in the UK. He's right that wages must rise and productivity also, which has stagnated under the @Conservatives #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Austerity in the UK won't be over until all the cuts the @Conservatives – and the @LibDems, let's not forget – brought in are reversed. @BorisJohnson will NEVER accept that. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@BorisJohnson is misleading again. He doesn't have the fiscal headroom to borrow because of his own #Brexit deal. Tory economics doesn't add up. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@UKLabour borrowing plan DOES work because it stays within its own fiscal rules and Labour's preferred #Brexit plan would not harm the economy as much as that of the @Conservatives #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
.@jeremycorbyn rising above the mire of the #PrinceAndrew controversy by showing sympathy for the victims. @BorisJohnson taking his cue from that. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
(Here’s another good comment on that.)
Boris Johnson literally said the monarchy is "beyond reproach" when literally all this week everyone is talking about Prince Andrew going on a jolly with a convicted paedophile and allegedly having sex with an exploited 17 year old.
Read. The. Room.
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) November 19, 2019
Good answer to the seasonal question from @jeremycorbyn – he'd give @BorisJohnson a copy of Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' so he'd sympathise with Scrooge. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Excellent from @jeremycorbyn – asking people who haven't registered to vote to do so, because this election is extremely important. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Groans for @BorisJohnson using his closing statement by harping back to #Brexit again. YAWN! #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
Here’s my snap verdict:
#ITVdebate was a total walkover for @jeremycorbyn – @BorisJohnson was all over the shop. #ITVdebate
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) November 19, 2019
And I wasn’t alone:
A Tory acquaintance tells me, “your man smashed it tonight”.
I thought I would be gracious in victory and said, “I know”. #WinForCorbyn
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) November 19, 2019
I know I would say this – but this isn't the spin room. Who won that? Corbyn, by a substantial distance. #ITVLeadersDebate
— Shaun Lawson (@shaunjlawson) November 19, 2019
https://twitter.com/barryoleary77/status/1196895496520028166
What a great debate Jeremy had 💥
Statesman like, Calm and Considered.
Contrast that to Johnson’s, at times incoherent babbling and it’s a #WinForCorbyn 👍🏾
— Labour's Black PLP (@LaboursBlackPLP) November 19, 2019
Point of note about the debates is how Boris was saved more than once by Corbyn answering first, allowing him to piggyback on the sort of empathetic response he would never naturally come up with. Especially the Epstein question.
— Ewan (@jelly_pack) November 19, 2019
Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" slogan is fast becoming the new "Strong and Stable".
He tried using it in virtually every single answer, and the audience just ended up jeering him.
If the Tories don't come up with some actual policies, they're in trouble.#LeadersDebate
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) November 19, 2019
.@jeremycorbyn summed up the #LeadersDebate with a message of hope, for change and for an end to the inequality that blights this country. Johnson showed his complete unsuitability to be PM by simply repeating nonsensical slogans and the lies he has been peddling during #GE2019
— Liz McInnes 🌹🇺🇦💙 (@LizMcInnes60) November 19, 2019
The template for Johnson's behaviour was seen in his party election debates earlier in the year. Talk over the chair, talk long, and use very narrow messaging. It can be opposed, but it needs deliberate counter-tactics from both the chair and his political opponent.#LeadersDebate
— Stephen McGann (@StephenMcGann) November 19, 2019
Johnson speaking time: 1073 seconds
Corbyn speaking time: 942 seconds
Johnson interruptions: 74
Corbyn interruptions: 26
Boris rude and bumbling
Corbyn calm and composed#GE2019 #ITVDebate
— Dave Ward (@DaveWardGS) November 19, 2019
In the end, discussion dissolved into ridicule of Mr Johnson’s repetitious verbiage:
I wonder who won the sweep for how many times Johnson would say " get Brexit done " ?
— ishmael59 (@ishmael591) November 19, 2019
We’re playing a Johnson Debate drinking game here. Already taken many swigs for
✅ oven ready
✅ get Brexit done
✅ dither and delayI’m tipsy already 😂
— Queen of Scotties (@RedWoman1552) November 19, 2019
It seems likely Mr Johnson wishes he had been!
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I found the whole thing pretty disappointing really, a waste of time. They didn’t exactly get down to the nitty gritty, no in depth discussion or heated exchange about the things that matter, the devastating effects of Austerity and Welfare reforms, the millions living in poverty, the disgraceful rise in foodbank use, the Benefit Sanctions, the miserly amounts of UK Benefits, the rise in Pension age, all the suffering, misery and deaths, the WCA /PIP debacle, the lunacy of sending 60 odd year old men on Back-to-Work courses at the taxpayers’ expense, etc. etc. Not to mention the huge increases in the wealth of the rich, or the £16 Billion recklessly spent on Universal Credit during Austerity. I would have preferred to have seen them arm wrestling or having a cage fight, or just Boris being repeatedly punched in the face by the entire population of South Yorkshire, one at a time. But that’s just me. Angry? much?