Rishi Sunak avoided media interviews as he returned to the campaign trail on Saturday amid the fallout from his early return from the D-day commemoration ceremony in Normandy.
The prime minister was due to meet reporters during a visit to County Durham and Yorkshire on Saturday but the interviews were cancelled, with Tories citing “time constraints”.
Sunak provoked condemnation from a senior cabinet colleague and fury from Conservative grassroots after he was forced to apologise for skipping a key part of the D-day commemorations to do a political TV interview instead.
A planned “huddle” with journalists, in which reporters ask a few brief questions, was called off as the D-day row continued, although the prime minister did meet volunteers at Auckland Castle before heading off to a village fete in Great Ayton, a village in his Richmond constituency.
It came after another cabinet minister said Sunak had made a “mistake” by skipping a significant D-day event. Mark Harper said he agreed “with what the prime minister himself said – it was a mistake for him to leave early”.
The transport secretary told BBC Breakfast on Saturday: “I don’t know what the detail was of putting the prime minister’s schedule together, which, as he said, was done some time ago before the election campaign was called.
“But look, it was a mistake. People make mistakes. The prime minister has made a mistake. He’s apologised for it. And he’s apologised to those that would have been particularly hurt by it.”
However, he did not go as far as his fellow senior Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt, who said Sunak’s decision to leave early was “completely wrong” during a multiparty BBC debate on Friday night.
Mordaunt, a navy reservist, said during the debate: “What happened was completely wrong and the prime minister has rightly apologised for that, apologised to veterans but also to all of us, because he was representing all of us.”
After she said the incident should not become “a political football”, Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, replied: “Well, it already is. It already is because the veterans themselves are speaking out saying he’s let the country down.”
An average audience of 3.2 million tuned in across BBC One and the BBC News Channel to watch the seven senior party leaders clash over immigration and the state of the NHS, according to overnight ratings.
The lineup for the first multiparty debate in this year’s campaign featured Mordaunt, the Conservative leader of the House of Commons, Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Carla Denyer, the Green party co-leader, and Farage.
During the debate, hosted by the BBC news presenter Mishal Husain, Mordaunt and Rayner engaged in heated exchanges over tax, NHS waiting lists and the push for net zero.
However, a snap poll of more than 1,000 viewers conducted by researchers More In Common placed Farage as the winner with 25%.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, said people were “flabbergasted” by the prime minister’s decision, which was “such a letdown for our whole country and our history, particularly for our brave veterans”.
“I share the concerns of veterans and people across the country who feel really let down and are upset, and indeed some very angry,” he told the PA news agency during a visit to Newbury.
