Eighty years after Sir Winston Churchill helped mastermind the D-Day landings, a British prime minister was under fire Friday for leaving anniversary events early to return to the campaign trail of an election he looks likely to lose.
Already embattled and unpopular, Rishi Sunak cut short his time in Normandy to fly back to London for a TV interview that wasn’t due to be broadcast until next week.
Sunak apologized for what he said was a “mistake,” but not before his decision to head home early saw him assailed by criticism from his own allies as well as his political enemies.
When the time came for world leaders to line up for an official photo, President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron were left to pose with Britain’s foreign minister, David Cameron, a former prime minister but nonetheless a stand-in for the void left by his boss.
Sunak is fighting for his political life, with his Conservatives trailing the opposition Labour Party by upward of 20 points in some opinion polls ahead of a July 4 national election. If confirmed at the ballot box, this gulf in support would hand the ruling party a defeat so heavy that it could border on annihilation.
Sunak made the decision to call the surprise early vote himself, meaning the commemorations for D-Day fell in the heart of the campaign.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Faith N
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.offthepress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.