Labour’s international trade secretary Barry Gardiner owned Tory foreign secretary Dominic Raab after the 6 December BBC leaders’ debate. In fact, even a BBC presenter couldn’t help laughing at Raab.
“One percent of the nation prime minister”
Raab was attempting to push Boris Johnson’s mantra “get Brexit done”. Until Gardiner delivered quite the takedown:
Your supposed prime minister had no grasp of numbers tonight. Whether it was the 40 new hospitals, whether it was the 50,000 nurses that didn’t exist, or whether it was the one nation Conservative. This is not a one nation prime minister. This is a one percent of the nation prime minister.
Barry Gardiner is the mailman. He always delivers.#BBCLeadersDebate #bbcdebate pic.twitter.com/X96DNzHJ8O
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) December 6, 2019
“How do you justify that?”
Raab was trying to promote Boris Johnson as the “prime minister” with the “passion and the plan to get Brexit done”. But then Gardiner stepped in and said:
Why are you sweating then, and why am I not?
And later, Gardiner followed through on his “one per cent of the nation” line:
The top 1% of this nation, over the past 10 years, has seen its income go up by 185%, and at the same time you’ve got four million children in poverty. How do you justify that? Dominic, how do you justify that?
Indeed, the UK’s richest 1,000 families have increased their wealth by over £500bn since the 2008 financial crash, while the majority of us have faced brutal austerity cuts. Gardiner delivered a no-nonsense takedown of obscene inequality, from which there was no way for Raab to crawl back. If there are more takedowns like this, Labour could well win the 12 December election.
Featured image via Aaron Bastani/ Twitter
