Good afternoon. Rishi Sunak must have thought his day could only look up, when at 8.01am he apologised to the nation for yesterday’s decision to leave the D-day commemorations early to give an interview to ITV.
It was, indeed, extraordinary – the image of Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz standing together, David Cameron looking very slightly adrift, only a foreign secretary among leaders. For Sunak to have created a photo op so personally embarrassing when he wasn’t even there is quite something. But perhaps the signal achievement was managing to embarrass Cameron, who has always seemed a stranger to the emotion.
However, things could only get worse: Sunak became the target for every party’s leader to flex their own patriotism, while scoring an easy win. The SNP’s John Swinney was “disgusted”. Reform’s Nigel Farage asked, “who really believes in our people, him or me?”. Keir Starmer said the prime minister would “have to answer for his own choices”. Ed Davey said he’d brought shame to his office and let down our country. Oof.
More on that, and the rest of the day’s events, after the headlines.
What happened today
Frank Hester | Labour has written to Conservative candidates urging them not to hand out election material that they say is paid for by the party’s biggest donor, who has been widely condemned for allegedly making racist remarks.
Keith Vaz | The disgraced former MP has been belatedly kicked out of Labour after announcing he is standing in his old seat, Leicester East, for a new local party.
Polling | The numbers are shifting very little on voter intention, but there was new information from the Office for National Statistics on the relative salience of issues. Overwhelmingly, people were worried about the cost of living (87%) and the NHS (85%) – this is not shaping up to be the “immigration election” hoped for and promised by Reform.
Analysis: Decision to leave
The obvious problem with Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave D-day commemorations early was that it underlined how he can’t read the room, or take his nation’s temperature. He can’t apologise gracefully, but rather delivers his sorrys in instalments – one in the morning, a fuller one at lunchtime – half-heartedly, in an “exasperated” tone (as noted by Sky News’s Sam Coates), with a self-serving little kicker at the end, when he asked that people not “politicise” the mistake. He’s bad at prioritising, he’s bad at campaigning … he’s just not good at this.
But it raised a number of other questions, some from his political foes, a little more strategic than sincere, but others from veterans and voters. Ken Hay, 98, wondered about Sunak’s patriotism, which was echoed by radio phone-ins, lighting up after the prime minister’s (second) apology. Almost none of the callers were sympathetic. This plays into an existing scepticism about his commitment, not just to his office or party, but to the nation as a whole, as his riches immunise him from its realities and his thoughts seem to turn so often to California.
Then there are all the other questions as to his character: in the morning, it was rumoured that he had initially refused to attend any Normandy events at all, and only relented under pressure from the French government. His office scotched that, whereupon the assumption became that he had come back early for an ITV interview, under pressure to defend himself over his performance in Tuesday’s debate (specifically, whether he had lied in his claims about Labour’s £2,000 tax rise).
So he was forced to rebuke that, and insist his diary had been planned before the election had even been called. Yet going to the polls is quite momentous: it seems doubtful that his diary would be so inflexible. It is also among the easiest things to verify, and if it turns out by tonight’s BBC debate that he was less than straightforward, that will put Penny Mordaunt – appearing on the party’s behalf – in either a very difficult position, or a very rebellious one.
The sheer indignation has been so widespread that it’s brought together groups who would previously have been at odds. If the pensioner vote is outraged on behalf of the war dead, the youth vote is pretty vexed that it’s only a week ago this politician was asking for quite a lot of their time in the service of their nation, which he can’t even represent for a full 24 hours.
In other words, it’s become a carrier issue – for honesty, consistency and decency in the governing party and the character and credibility of the prime minister himself. It’s no wonder that it has knocked everything else off the grid, and it’s an unenviable fox hole to fight from, when both your account of yourself, and your manner of delivering it, are considered so sketchy.
His opponents, naturally, are making hay with it in relay – as soon as one moves on, another tracks back. That’s only to be expected, that’s politics; but that is Sunak’s curse, to be perpetually surprised by the completely predictable.
What’s at stake
It is not unheard of for a thinktank to make an intervention on matters of fact during an election campaign, but the Institute for Government’s plea to both Sunak and Starmer today was quite bracing. In a nutshell, the IfG asked both to come clean. Public services are in a parlous state, and the major parties vying with one another to see who can promise to spend the least does not add up to an honest conversation with voters. Writes Larry Elliott:
Warning that few incoming administrations had faced challenges on such a scale and of such severity, the thinktank called on the Conservatives and Labour to provide a “credible vision” for dealing with problems that had worsened since Boris Johnson won his landslide victory in December 2019.
The election campaign has been dominated this week by the row over Sunak’s claim that Labour would need to raise taxes by £2,000 to fund its spending pledges. Both main parties are relying heavily on a growing economy to provide extra revenues to boost public spending, although Labour has said it will raise more money through taxes on private school fees, scrapping the non-dom tax status of wealthy foreign nationals in the UK and by a stiffer windfall tax on energy companies.
Friday’s report from the IfG, titled The Precarious State of the State, said the reality was that growth had stagnated in recent years, living standards had fallen over the course of the 2019-24 parliament, tax and spending levels were already at a historically high level and plans for post-election public spending were implausible.
Emma Norris, the IfG’s deputy director, said: “Few newly elected prime ministers will have had to take on such a long and painful list of problems. Many will require immediate attention, not least to rescue services on the brink of collapse. Almost all – from stagnant growth to a fragile civil service – will require serious reform over the next parliament and beyond.”
Winner of the day
Gillian Duffy | The scourge of Gordon Brown’s 2010 campaign must have thought her day was finally over; and yet, the question on everyone’s lips after D-day – is this Rishi Sunak’s Gillian moment?
Loser of the day
David Johnston | The children’s minister had a painful experience on LBC, when he was asked the simple question: how much is child benefit worth?
Worst-kept secret of the day
Labour’s Clause V meeting is meant to be so secret that not only must delegates surrender their phones on arrival, even the venue is hush-hush. That didn’t stop activists from Green New Deal Rising picketing the event. Or maybe environmentalists are just much more savvy than they were in the olden days, and no amount of discretion can outwit them.
Quote of the day
As PM you receive a lot of advice, obviously it’s disappointing, but I do find the faux outrage pretty nauseating.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer, a lone voice of almost-allyship with Rishi Sunak
Number of the day
***
24.6%
As if to underline that voters have the tightest grip on what the real issues facing the nation are, one quarter of UK state school children are now eligible for free school meals – a record high for this measure of hardship. The general secretary of the National Education Union described the figure as “chilling”.
Dubious photo opportunity of the day
Hard to say who wins biggest from this: Keir Starmer for sticking around in Normandy, or Volodymyr Zelenskiy for taking the time out of his – let’s face it, much more daunting – diary.
Read more
Listen to this
Election Extra: New Frank Hester allegations
Former employees of Tory donor Frank Hester have made a series of fresh allegations that Hester repeatedly made comments about race or religion in the workplace, including in recent years. Archie Bland reports
What’s on the grid
7.30pm | The first BBC election debate, with a lineup of Labour’s Angela Rayner, Conservative minister Penny Mordaunt, the SNP’s Stephen Flynn, Lib Dem deputy Daisy Cooper, Green leader Carla Denyer, Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage.
