Rishi 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, the biggest misstep yet of an already faltering election campaign.
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, criticised the prime minister’s absence from the international events as “completely wrong” during the BBC general election debate on Friday night, while Tory officials said internal party WhatsApp groups were full of horrified responses, with some local chairs saying the decision to go back to the UK to film a TV interview could cost the party seats on 4 July.
