Jeremy Corbyn failed to land a knockout blow on Boris Johnson in his final pre-election debate with the prime minister on Friday night, raising Conservative hopes that the party is on course for victory in next week’s poll.
There was a palpable air of relief among Tory ministers and officials after a snap YouGov survey suggested Mr Johnson had survived intact the last big set piece television event before the election on December 12.
The survey, which asked viewers to set aside their own party preference, found that Mr Johnson was narrowly found to have won the one-hour primetime BBC confrontation by a margin of 52-48. “That was no game-changer for Corbyn,” said Matt Hancock, health secretary.
Labour is trailing the Conservatives by 10 points, according to the FT poll tracker, and Mr Corbyn badly needed to wound his opponent to change the course of a campaign which has generally run smoothly for the prime minister.
Tory officials admitted that Mr Corbyn had performed well, particularly focusing on Mr Johnson’s weaknesses on trust and targeting the Conservative record on austerity, but the prime minister relentlessly returned to his central theme of delivering Brexit.
The prime minister attempted to portray the Labour leader as weak, linking his “neutrality” on the Brexit issue to his failure to show leadership on the question of anti-Semitism in his party.
Privately some Conservative MPs believe the party is heading towards a significant victory next week, although Mr Johnson’s camp is haunted by memories of how Theresa May’s lead crumbled in the last days of the 2017 campaign.
“There is no complacency,” said one ally of Mr Johnson. The prime minister and Mr Corbyn will now spend the remaining days before polling day touring marginal constituencies in a frenetic end to what has been a largely lacklustre campaign.
Mr Johnson went on the attack on Brexit, claiming that Mr Corbyn had “no policy on the biggest issue facing the country today”, claiming that £150bn of pent-up investment in Britain would be unleashed once the country left the EU. “How do you get a new deal in Brussels if you don’t believe in it?” Mr Johnson said.
He accused the Labour leader of being weak on Brexit and on security. Conservatives were delighted that Mr Corbyn found himself talking about rehabilitation of prisoners in the wake of the London Bridge terrorist attack, while Mr Johnson talked of longer sentences.
Mr Corbyn replied that Mr Johnson would take Britain out of the EU and then find himself spending seven years negotiating a lopsided trade deal with the US. “He’ll walk out of a relationship with the EU into a relationship with nobody,” he said.
The Labour leader made more progress challenging Mr Johnson’s reputation on probity, challenging him on the Conservatives’ dubious claim to be building 40 new hospitals and on the suggestion that his EU deal would not lead to more checks on trade with Northern Ireland.
According to the YouGov survey, Mr Corbyn came out on top on trustworthiness, “more in touch with ordinary people” and stronger on the NHS.
On the other hand Mr Johnson was deemed more likeable, more prime-ministerial, better equipped to deal with Brexit, better on the economy and better on security. His poll lead on those issues has bolstered Tory confidence he will be back in Downing Street this time next week.
