Rishi Sunak has apologised for leaving D-day anniversary events early to take part in a TV interview, admitting it was “a mistake not to stay in France longer”.
The prime minister had been heavily criticised for allowing the foreign secretary, David Cameron, to take his place in the late afternoon ceremony at Omaha beach on Thursday, while he left Normandy to do a prerecorded ITV segment to be broadcast next week.
On Friday, the prime minister said on X: “I care deeply about veterans and have been honoured to represent the UK at a number of events in Portsmouth and France over the past two days and to meet those who fought so bravely.
“After the conclusion of the British event in Normandy, I returned back to the UK. On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologise.”
Conservative activists reacted with fury at the sight of Cameron standing alongside the French, German and US leaders, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden, with one saying it had left them questioning whether to “bother to continue campaigning”.
Apparently his itinerary was set “weeks ago”. So he arranged to be recording a TV interview before the election had even been announced…?
Part to me would think that it was all part of some conspiracy where he knew the election was going to happen already. But that requires a level of competence that frankly he’s not demonstrated.
I actually genuinely believe that was the date they chose for the interview and it was just going to be some interview and it’s changed into a political appeal one. And no one in his team can add up dates in their head, so it never occurred to anyone that that was a stupid date to pick.
I’m inclined to agree. There’s no conspiracy, just incompetence. I think also it simply never occurred to Sunak what the optics would be. He only thought in terms of “this event is just me hanging around talking to people, I’ve got much more important stuff to do”, and he just doesn’t understand that talking to people and trying to be a human being is part of the job of prime minister.
Wast majority of cases are perfectly explained by the fuck-up theory, and it’s hard for me to see how this is any different. That doesn’t make things any better, though. I would absolutely expect the PM and the team around the PM being much, much better. This is a devastating verdict on Sunak’s leadership, as if yet another one was needed.
Besides which, D-Day commemorations would have been planned much further back than that, including the attendance of the British PM. That would have been in the diary of No.10 long before Sunak himself took office, with just very fine details to tweak nearer the day.