Rishi Sunak and the D-Day Disaster
Babes wake up, Rishi Sunak did a fuckup again!
Hokay, so, at time of writing, yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, D-Day is one of the most significant events in the largest and most destructive war humanity ever fought, and this is likely to be the last major anniversary that the surviving veterans will be alive and well enough to attend.
Political leaders from the world over made their way to the Normandy beaches for a commemoration. Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Scholz, and Zelenskyy were present. Keir Starmer was there, as were King Prince Charles and Prince William, but the UK government proper was represented by Rishi Sunak and David Hameron.
Until suddenly it wasn't!
Let's run down everything (that I'm aware of) that went wrong!
As part of the British event, army paratroopers landed on the beach... and then had to reconvene in a tent to get their credentials checked by the French authorities. Because Brexit happened and we don't have free movement any more! Pro-Brexit nimrods have, predictably, complained about getting exactly what they voted for.
Once each nation's part of the proceedings were done, they were to reconvene at Omaha Beach for an International commemoration. Speeches, medals being awarded, that sort of thing. Except... Rishi Sunak was not present.
No, see, Rishi "The Least Elected PM Ever" Sunak had stayed until the end of the British event and then promptly fucked off back to England, snubbing the leaders of America, France, Canada, Germany, and Ukraine and leaving everything in the hands of the Hameron, his also-unelected foreign secretary that last rubbed shoulders with any International politicians when he was fucking everything up in 2016. Also, in the hands of his main rival, Starmer (Okay calling Starmer and Sunak rivals is a bit unfair, it implies Sunak has a snowball's chance in hell, which he does not).
Naturally, people were pretty fuckin' steamed about this, and put Rishi on blast for showing enormous disrespect to... literally everyone involved. Especially since this is right on the heels of Sunak proposing that they bring back National Service to "fill young British people with loyalty and honour."
Don't worry it gets worse.
Naturally, there are a lot of journalists with cameras present, and this means that we get to see images like these:
Image Description: Left to right, David Cameron, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and Joe Biden, standing in front of a partially cloud blue sky. Macron, Scholz, and Biden are lit by the sun, while Cameron appears to be in the shade.
Image Description: Keir Starmer sits, centrally-framed, among D-Day veterans in ceremonial dress uniforms. To the right of the frame sits Emmanuel Macron.
Image Description: Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Keir Starmer talking, with a photojournalist in the background aiming his camera at them. Both are smiling.
Quote Pippa Crerar, writing for the Guardian (You may remember her from that time she blew the lid off of Partygate!), Starmer is "already looking like a Prime Minister."
So this is really, really bad for Rishi. Britain has been keen to support Ukraine lately, and we've actually shipped a supply of our Challenger 2 tanks over to them for their use. The impact from this hasn't been as massive as you'd hope, largely because the British military has been absolutely gutted under the Tories, for reasons that I'm sure had absolutely nothing to do with all the financial support David Cameron got from Russians, but Britain has been trying to help.
Boris Johnson in particular liked to really stress the Ukraine point whenever he was losing control of the narrative, essentially making Ukraine's plight and his support for them a shield from criticism. And now, here's the leader of the opposition being photographed in a positive light with Zelenskyy. The optics are incredibly bad for Rishi.
But surely, Rishi had a reason why he had to zip back to British soil post haste? Maybe an emergency that he had to resolve?
No, he needed to record an interview with ITV, for his election campaign. That was it.
Well, interviews in election cycles become outdated pretty quickly. Normally a few days is enough to render them outdated. It must've been pretty urgent.
No, the interview is scheduled for release in six days' time.
That's an eternity in election season. There's a high chance that more than half of its content will be void by the time it airs.
As a reminder, we are four weeks from the big day. In fact, yesterday was exactly four weeks before election night. Time is very short.
Well, maybe this was the only time they could fit him in?
Nope, Paul Brand of ITV has confirmed that this was the date and time Rishi wanted, and they could've moved it to prevent scheduling conflicts!
So, how did a fuckup on such a grand magnitude happen? How did Rishi manage to create a clash between the 80th anniversary commemoration of an event with a specific date (6th June, 1944 is not hard to remember, my guy!) and the election that he called? Well that's very simple! He didn't want to be there at all.
Yes, it seems that Rishi had already told the French government a week ago that he wouldn't be attending at all. Someone seems to have convinced him that skipping the event entirely was a bad idea, but not enough for him to actually commit to it.
Image Description: A block of text reading "The French government was told a week ago that Rishi Sunak would not attend the D-Day 80th commemoration, Tory sources have confirmed. The message to Paris from his team was that he would be too busy campaigning in the general election to make the trip. The decision was reversed, and a short visit was the compromise, but it is extraordinary that an attendance by a Conservative PM, or any PM, was ever in doubt."
Rishi has denied this, however, so the whether it's true or Sunak has elected to not lie for once, well, that remains to be seen.
Quote John Healey, Labour's defence spokesperson, “Given that the prime minister has been campaigning on the idea young people should complete a year’s national service, what does it say that he appears to have been unable to complete a single afternoon of it?”
Conservative commentator Tim Montgomery called it "political malpractice."
And so, after thumbing his nose at half the world in order to pursue an already-foundering election campaign, Rishi Sunak decided that he needed to apologise. Via tweet.
It's been a very bad day for Rishi Sunak.
