When Rishi Sunak missed a key D-day event in favour of an ITV interview, it is unlikely he had considered what a political storm it would prompt.
But the prime minister is far from the first party leader to make ill-advised decisions in the heat of the campaign. In fact, Sunak’s early departure is just one of a long list of political gaffes made during a general election campaign.
Gordon Brown calls Gillian Duffy a ‘bigoted woman’ (2010)
Gordon Brown’s election campaign was thrown into turmoil after he was caught on mic calling a Labour supporter a “bigoted woman”.
Gillian Duffy, then 65, questioned the prime minister as he was interviewed live on TV in Rochdale about the state of the economy and the party’s immigration policies. As Brown got in his car, he was still wired up to a Sky News microphone, which picked up comments he made rebuking his advisers.
He said: “That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? Ridiculous.” Asked what she had said, he replied: “Everything, she was just a bigoted woman.”
Brown later phoned Duffy to apologise for his remarks – but not before the recording of his comments had been aired on every television bulletin.
Boris Johnson hides in a fridge (2019)
Boris Johnson bizarrely opted to hide in a fridge rather than face questions from Good Morning Britain in the last general election campaign.
When the producer Jonathan Swain approached the prime minister during a pre-dawn visit to the company the Modern Milkman in Pudsey, he asked: “Morning prime minister, would you come on Good Morning Britain, prime minister?” Johnson’s press secretary, Rob Oxley, was seen mouthing, “Oh for fuck’s sake”, in response.
Johnson replied: “I’ll be with you in a second” and walked off – straight into a fridge stacked with milk bottles. Conservative sources later insisted that Johnson was “categorically not hiding” in the fridge.
Theresa May’s ‘dementia tax’ (2017)
When Theresa May called a snap general election for June 2017, egged on by rightwing Brexit-supporting newspapers, her hope was that a stonking majority would allow her to face down opponents of her Brexit deal and – to borrow a phrase – “crush the saboteurs”.
But May’s plan totally backfired when her proposal to change the way retirees pay for long-term care was criticised across the political spectrum and was quickly called the “dementia tax”. May was forced to make an embarrassing partial reversal.
She went on to lose her majority in the Commons and relied on support from the Democratic Unionist party over the course of the next parliament before resigning soon after.
Neil Kinnock’s ‘all right’ (1992)
As election day approached in April 1992, opinion polls were beginning to suggest Labour could usurp John Major’s Conservatives as the biggest party in the Commons.
During a rally in Sheffield, buoyed up by growing optimism for Labour in the polls, the leader Neil Kinnock walked out on stage and shouted three times a phrase that sounded like “We’re all right!”, but was, in fact, Kinnock himself said later, “‘Well, all right!’ … in the manner of a rock’n’roll singer”).
His overconfidence was perceived to be one of the reasons Labour fell way short and the Conservatives won a fourth consecutive term.
John Prescott punches man with mullet haircut (2001)
Labour’s reelection in 2001 was a relatively low-key campaign. In fact, very little of note happened at all. That was until the deputy prime minister John Prescott punched a man with a mullet hairdo after having an egg thrown at him while campaigning.
The incident threatened to derail Labour’s campaign, but Tony Blair successfully defused its impact at the following morning’s press conference. “John is John,” he said.
