Leaving the D-Day commemorations early – is this Sunak’s election defining moment?
It’s impossible to escape the fact that we are in the throes of a general election, with both campaigning and media coverage starting to reach fever pitch.
The general election has dominated the headlines ever since a rain-drenched Rishi Sunak surprised most of us by announcing the election would be held in early July instead of the widely-anticipated autumn date.
Since then, the party campaigns have swung into action with politicians racing across the country canvassing for votes, while the media track their every move.
There have been manifesto launches, opinion polls, live TV debates, photo opportunities and policy announcements a-plenty, as each party tries to communicate their message and persuade the electorate that they’re the party who deserves the keys to number 10.
But isn’t it funny that – in spite of all this tightly controlled choreography – it is often be an unscripted moment that can, if not entirely turn the course of the election, have a significant impact upon it?
For Gordon Brown, this moment happened in 2010, when he was caught on mic calling Rochdale Labour supporter, Gillian Duffy, a “bigoted woman”. Labour subsequently came second to the Conservatives, resulting in the first hung parliament for 36 years. For Neil Kinnock, it was the Sheffield rally, a week out from the 1992 election, where his triumphalist shouts of “all right” were credited as one of the reasons why the Conservatives won a fourth consecutive term.
Unfortunately for Sunak, there have already been a number of headline grabbing gaffes, from his misleading claim about Labour’s tax rises during his first TV debate with Starmer, which saw him get a rap over the knuckles from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) to his lament that he had to make do without Sky TV when growing up.
But maybe his ultimate ‘moment’ could be leaving the D-Day commemorations early to return to the UK to do a TV interview.
As has been widely reported, rather than standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other world leaders, including Macron, Scholz and Biden, who had gathered on the Thursday to pay their respects as part of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Sunak was hot footing it back to the UK, leaving David Cameron to stand in his place.
It was an enormous error of judgement. Attacks came in from all sides, even from among his own party, and not least from those who had served during the war, with D-Day veteran, Ken Hay, claiming Sunak “lets the country down”. A poll by The Telegraph found that two thirds of voters found Sunak leaving the commemorations early as “unacceptable”.
It led to a hasty apology from Sunak, who posted on social media “On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologise”. A couple of days later, and after keeping a low profile over the weekend, this turned into him having to defend his position as prime minister, saying he was not considering resigning.
In light of moments like this, it probably comes as no surprise that a new report for the National Centre for Social Research by Sir John Curtice finds that trust and confidence in the UK’s politics and election system has never been worse, with 45% of voters saying they would “almost never” trust the government to put country before party.
From a PR perspective, the surprising thing about Sunak’s D-Day gaffe is not only that his advisers did not see being photographed with world leaders as a far better option than a campaign interview but that they do not appear to have adequately ‘risk assessed’ the decision, as would be normal for any item on his itinerary.
Whether this will end up being Sunak’s election defining moment remains to be seen. As Harold Wilson famously said: “A week is a long time in politics”, and there are still just over two weeks to go until 4 July.
At the end of the day, whether it’s the leaders of our country or the bosses of our companies, we want those in charge to act with integrity. And Sunak abandoning the commemorations early has led many to question not only his judgement but also this most fundamental of qualities. Just 18 days out from the biggest political fight of his life, this is far from a comfortable position to be in.
This article was written by our chief executive, Angharad Neagle, and featured in the Western Mail on 17 June 2024