The head-to-head TV debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss is underway - and viewers are saying the same thing about the BBC show's opening. The debate between the two politicians - one of whom will be the next Tory leader and Prime Minister - began with the camera zooming in to them closely.
Mr Sunak and Ms Truss stood rigid still in front of a lectern, both smiling. And according to viewers taking to social media as they watched at home, they looked like cardboard cut-outs.
"Omg what an unnerving intro that was - I genuinely thought they were both cardboard cut-outs or waxworks," said Nick (@nickoverheard) on Twitter. "Omg they look like cardboard cut-outs," said another Twitter user (@philford).
"I legit thought these were cardboard cut outs for a second then," added Twitter user Nadine Batchelor-Hunt (@nadinebh_). Others tweeted screenshots of the show's opening. "I'm scared," said Sam Ellis on Twitter (@SamCEllis).
Another viewer hailed 'the most unsettling start to any TV programme in history' while another posted: "Were those cardboard cut-outs?" "How have they made both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak look like their own cardboard cut-outs? Are they even human?" questioned Rob Kidman on Twitter (@kidmanproject).
Mr Sunak and Ms Truss are going head to head as the battle to become the next prime minister became toxic with the two rival camps clashing over immigration, China and the economy.
The BBC debate at 9pm comes after a weekend that saw allies of the two Tory leadership hopefuls trade increasingly personal attacks. Both candidates will spend Monday engaging in final preparations ahead of the first showdown between the two.
Sophie Raworth is hosting the debate in Stoke, with the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason and economics editor Faisal Islam offering analysis and some follow-up questions. The studio audience will be made up entirely of people who voted Conservative at the last general election.
With postal ballots set to arrive on Tory members’ doorsteps by August 5, Mr Sunak faces pressure to use the BBC debate – and another hosted by TalkTV and the Sun on Tuesday – to make an early breakthrough. Although he comfortably won the leadership race among Tory MPs, bookmakers have made Ms Truss favourite after a series of opinion polls and surveys put her firmly ahead with Conservative members.
Mr Sunak will meet Tory members at low-key events on Monday and will use the debate to” make a positive case for Britain’s future, debating all kinds of policy areas, including those he has already set out detailed plans for over the last few days, including immigration, Covid backlogs and foreign policy”, a campaign insider said.
The former chancellor’s major foreign policy announcement was a tougher line on China, which he called the “biggest-long term threat to Britain” – but allies of Ms Truss hit back, claiming he had argued for closer economic ties while in the Treasury.
In a hardening of tone against Beijing, Mr Sunak promised to close all 30 of the country’s Confucius Institutes in the UK. Funded by the Chinese Government, they are ostensibly culture and language centres but critics have labelled them propaganda tools amid worsening relations between the West and China.
Mr Sunak accused China of “stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities”, pledging to work with US President Joe Biden to stand up to China at home and abroad.
But those claims were met with scepticism by Truss supporters, with former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith saying “over the last two years, the Treasury has pushed hard for an economic deal with China” despite sanctions against him and other MPs and peers and a record of human rights abuses.
In a message to Mr Sunak he said: “After such a litany, I have one simple question, where have you been over the last two years?”Mr Sunak also came under pressure from his rival over his strategy to combat illegal migration, as he seeks to win over the Tory grassroots voters who will decide the next Conservative leader.
Calling the current system “broken”, he offered a 10-point plan on Sunday that included a commitment to a narrower definition of who qualifies for asylum compared to that from the ECHR, with enhanced powers to detain, tag and monitor illegal migrants.
Mr Sunak also promised to give Parliament control over who comes to the UK by creating an annual cap on the number of refugees accepted each year, albeit one that can be changed in the case of sudden emergencies.
But those proposals were picked apart by Truss allies, who raised questions about Mr Sunak’s proposals, arguing that it was unclear how the refugee quota would work and suggesting that some of his plans amounted to a “rebrand”. Allies of Ms Truss also queried a suggestion from Mr Sunak that illegal migrants could be housed on cruise ships, something the Truss camp suggested would amount to arbitrary detention and a breach of both domestic and international law.
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