Forty-eight hours earlier than President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump clashed onstage in Atlanta on Thursday, the leaders of Britain\u2019s two main events, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, went head-to-head in Nottingham, England.<\/p>\n

To say their debates have been totally different doesn\u2019t start to seize the Atlantic Ocean-sized chasm that separated them.<\/p>\n

In content material, tone and ambiance, the British debate showcased two politicians of their prime, sparring over the problems \u2014 steadily heated, not with out private jabs, however targeted on the coverage nuances of taxes, immigration and well being care. Neither Mr. Sunak, 44, nor Mr. Starmer, 61, introduced up his golf handicap.<\/p>\n

Britain and the USA are sometimes considered as working beneath the identical political climate system \u2014 the conservative flip to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the pivot to youth and the center-left with Invoice Clinton and Tony Blair, and the anti-establishment, populist backlash that fueled Brexit and Mr. Trump. However this week\u2019s back-to-back encounters confirmed how sharply these democracies have diverged, a minimum of on this election cycle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThese are two nations in very totally different locations, with very totally different views of their place on the planet,\u201d mentioned Kim Darroch, who served as Britain\u2019s ambassador to Washington in the course of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tone between Sunak and Starmer was that of two profoundly earnest politicians,\u201d Mr. Darroch continued. \u201cBetween Biden and Trump, it was barbed, it was nasty, it was infantile, but it surely was not earnest.\u201d<\/p>\n

To some extent, that displays the totally different nature of the candidates: Mr. Sunak, a one-time hedge fund supervisor, and Mr. Starmer, a former public prosecutor, are extra technocratic, detail-oriented figures than Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden. Neither is called a charismatic politician.<\/p>\n

Additionally they have little of the private animosity between the 78-year-old Mr. Trump and the 81-year-old Mr. Biden. Each entered Parliament in 2015, they usually scarcely knew one another till Mr. Sunak grew to become prime minister in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However the totally different tone additionally displays how British politics has moved on from the poisonous divisions over Brexit. Eight years after Britons voted to depart the European Union, they’ve returned to extra atypical debates over taxes, spending, planning permits for housing, and tips on how to minimize ready occasions within the overburdened Nationwide Well being Service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSunak tried early within the marketing campaign to carry some American-style culture-war points into the controversy, however there was no urge for food for it,\u201d mentioned Robert Ford, a professor of political science on the College of Manchester.<\/p>\n

There was additionally a change in Britain\u2019s political personalities. \u201cWho was absent from that stage? Boris Johnson,\u201d mentioned Professor Ford, referring to the flamboyant prime minister who led the Brexit marketing campaign and drew comparisons to Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

Mr. Johnson was ousted by his Conservative Get together after scandals, together with social gatherings held throughout pandemic lockdowns. His successor, Liz Truss, lasted solely 44 days after her tax minimize proposals ignited a backlash in monetary markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur system appears to have more healthy formal and casual mechanisms to eliminate leaders,\u201d Professor Ford mentioned. \u201cWith Biden and Trump, there aren’t any apparent mechanisms to eliminate them,\u201d apart from defeating them on Election Day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When voters go to the polls in Britain on July 4, they’re anticipated to oust Mr. Sunak\u2019s center-right Conservative Get together after 14 years in authorities, in favor of Mr. Starmer\u2019s center-left Labour Get together. The talk was considered as one in every of Mr. Sunak\u2019s final possibilities to avert a landslide defeat.<\/p>\n

The prime minister drilled into arguments that the Labour Get together would increase taxes and throw open Britain\u2019s borders to immigrants. \u201cDon\u2019t give up,\u201d Mr. Sunak repeated a number of occasions to the studio viewers (one other distinction with the controversy in the USA, the place there was no studio viewers).<\/p>\n

Mr. Starmer\u2019s indignant response that the prime minister was mendacity about taxes was the closest the 2 got here to the blows traded by Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. In any other case, he earnestly laid out the social gathering\u2019s plans to construct 1.5 million new homes, calling the shortage of inexpensive housing the \u201ctragedy of the final 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been loads of critics of the controversy. Some faulted Mr. Sunak for being unduly aggressive, bullying Mr. Starmer. Others mentioned Mr. Starmer was unsteady, significantly on how he would attempt to curb the inflow of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth over taxes struck some as tedious. The author Jonathan Coe in contrast it unfavorably to the video games of the European soccer championship, which have been being broadcast on the identical time on one other channel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n