Debates in U.K. and U.S. Differ Sharply in Tone and Substance

Europe|Leaders successful Their Prime Debate Substance successful Detail (No, Not successful the U.S.)

Forty-eight hours earlier President Biden and erstwhile President Donald J. Trump clashed onstage successful Atlanta connected Thursday, the leaders of Britain’s 2 large parties, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, went head-to-head successful Nottingham, England.

To accidental their debates were antithetic doesn’t statesman to seizure the Atlantic Ocean-sized chasm that separated them.

In content, code and atmosphere, the British statement showcased 2 politicians successful their prime, sparring implicit the issues — often heated, not without idiosyncratic jabs, but focused connected the argumentation nuances of taxes, migration and wellness care. Neither Mr. Sunak, 44, nor Mr. Starmer, 61, brought up his play handicap.

Britain and the United States are often viewed arsenic operating nether the aforesaid governmental upwind strategy — the blimpish crook to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the pivot to younker and the center-left with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, and the anti-establishment, populist backlash that fueled Brexit and Mr. Trump. But this week’s back-to-back encounters showed however sharply these democracies person diverged, astatine slightest successful this predetermination cycle.

“These are 2 countries successful precise antithetic places, with precise antithetic views of their spot successful the world,” said Kim Darroch, who served arsenic Britain’s ambassador to Washington during the Trump administration.

“The code betwixt Sunak and Starmer was that of 2 profoundly earnest politicians,” Mr. Darroch continued. “Between Biden and Trump, it was barbed, it was nasty, it was childish, but it was not earnest.”