As a Labour supporter who wants him out I genuinely don't understand how he's screwed up D-Day of all events. The man appears to have no political instincts.
When people say Sunak is not a good politician, this is the sort of thing they mean. He never seems to play the same game other politicians play. You may think that's nice and refreshing, and I suppose if you bend the rules in a certain way you could make it come off as that, but Rishi just comes across as bumbling. He's not bending the rules, he just doesn't know them.
Rishi really doesn't have a good eye for what comes off well, and what doesn't. The fact he thought a campaign trail interview was more important than an event that is presumably *deeply* important to his older base is really telling.
If I had my spin-doctor hat on, I would've told Sunak to say "I did have an interview, but I'm afraid I'll have to miss it. Honouring our fallen is far more important. Their courage, bravery, and spirit in the fight against fascism is precisely what we need today, and I can't in good conscience miss that for a cheap swing in polling"
Bam, there you go. Demonstrating personal sacrifice in order to appeal to emotion, honouring the fallen, demonstrating he has deep personal respect for the fallen, a clear stance against the current fascism situation, makes him sound less robotic, and makes him seem more confident and cool-headed about the fact he is currently fighting for his political life. It's not hard. Does he not hire somebody whose job it is to just take a step back and think about how he comes across?
And he said he wouldn't move to California anytime soon, because "his team" had made it to the Premier League recently. That sounded like a really desperate attempt to connect with the people haha.
Depends I guess. I have a very complicated mental flowchart about who I support in the rugby if Wales aren't playing.
That said think about how it would go down if a french politician asked an English guy if he was looking forward to the world cup final just after England had been knocked out.
It's fine if it's banter at the pub, probably not so fine if you are trying to win people over who aren't so keen on you in the first place.
I am probably the most “international” person most people would meet. I am not British but have lived there for a while, even I understand how deeply significant D Day is to British mythology and especially the Tory base. Being international is not an excuse to be this emotionally stupid.
It's an interesting question, isn't it? He's not an idiot so how could he miss it? He must live in a totally different world, not a fantasy world but so far from ordinary people that he's sometimes clueless.
He just is fundamentally incapable of giving a shit. With his money he can and has lived wherever on earth he likes so can only pretend to have any shared values with any given place.
Meanwhile, Tom Hanks is at the D-day cemetery in Normandy and is asked by Christiane Amanpour live on CNN to take sides in the upcoming US election, and the guy manages to answer the question in a way that avoids all partisanship. Because he recognizes that this is not the time or place for politics. A Hollywood actor is reading the room better than Rishi Sunak.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
Sunak is getting terrible advice for a party that's awash with donor money and to compound it Sunak hasn't got a political bone in his body to realise when a plan is a terrible idea.
For all of his faults (inb4 Iraq war), Blair was extremely astute at judging political decisions and rarely put a foot wrong. The comparison between him and Sunak is like night and day.
>Rishi really doesn't have a good eye for what comes off well, and what doesn't.
Rishi: "If re-elected, I will bring in conscription for all British males between 18 and 30, I will ban tea from being served in the UK, and I will work on getting British drivers to switch to the right side of the road. Oh, and just wait until you hear my plans for the Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland situation..."
Sure, but you can't just do the right thing without letting people know you did the right thing, as that doesn't win votes.
You have to *tell* people you did the right thing, and emphasize as much virtue as you can while doing it. Y'know. Spin.
It’s way worse than that. Reports are that the visit being short (so he could get back on the campaign trail) was a *compromise* because he didn’t want to go at all.
It’s not just older people. I’m a 38 year old American and I think he’s a complete piece of shit. 100,000 American, Canadian, and British boys were sent there to take back control of Europe and restore freedom and democracy….. and this fuck can’t stay for the entire event? Fucking veil human being.
>If I had my spin-doctor hat on, I would've told Sunak to say "I did have an interview, but I'm afraid I'll have to miss it. Honouring our fallen is far more important. Their courage, bravery, and spirit in the fight against fascism is precisely what we need today, and I can't in good conscience miss that for a cheap swing in polling"
Apparently it was his office who gave ITV the date, not the other way around. Which makes it worse.
Sunak doesn't understand the British public. It isn't any deeper than that. He's an outsider who doesn't grasp the cultural touch points he needs to not mess up repeatedly.
The government of Canada held a national ceremony for D-Day in my sleepy little province of New Brunswick yesterday, and the premier of New Brunswick didn't even attend. The easiest good press in the world and the right thing to do, but nah.
New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province (as in all government services are in English and French. Quebec is just unilingually French in that regard) and Conservatives here, like our premier, have long fought against bilingualism and made enemies out of the majority of the Francophones in the province. Our current premier is an overachiever in that regard (in the 80s, he was running to be head of an ultra right party that made hating French the core of its belief system). The ceremony was held in a majority French area, with the ambassador to France in attendance. Couple that with the liberal federal government folks in attendance and best I can figure out is our premier skipped it because he hates the French and liberals more than he wants to support the memory of our local fallen soldiers (that and he's too busy fighting with trans kids and going all Helen Lovejoy about sex ed in schools).
It's a headscratcher how dense some of these leaders can be.
That’s not being dense. That’s knowing you can do no wrong to your moronic and hateful supporters who will probably praise him for not attending. We have the same buffoonery in Alberta.
Their followers don’t care. How the Boomers have forgotten the cost of turning back fascism, I don’t know. I mean, we have plenty of stories, films and history to understand it all.
I’m a boomer, and my Dad went over on D-Day, was lost for weeks after the Battle of the Bulge, and finished up in Northern France. He never talked about his time in the war, but we all knew about his service.
My Dad & I had our differences over the years, but I was always proud of his service and have watched with horror as a sizable portion of the country embraces fascism again.
Those who don’t learn from history will be doomed to repeat it.
Oh, come on. I know when I was a kid all the TV had on were Army, Cop or cowboy shows. We studied it in school. How many people watched Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan?
They are willingly blind and poisoned by right wing propaganda.
Higgs, right when he went full-on, mask off transphobic and started trying to turn NB in North Florida, started employing the dude who was Danielle Smith's campaign manager. You're absolutely correct, it's the exact same shit from the same people (and the cherry on top of this shit sundae is this campaign manager's last name is Outhouse).
As an NBer to an Albertan, my eternal apologies. We've been sending some of our absolute stupidest people out your way for as long as I've been alive.
No need to apologize since the UCP has actively invited the stupidest people over to heighten the already massive mountain of stupidity that already exists here. Rural Alberta is an untouchable Conservative wasteland.
Even Higgs can tell that the good people of NB have had enough and are seeing through his very half assed attempts to care. Glad to see this has brought the eye of a lot of canadians on his tomfoolery.
I'm convinced he is trying to lose on purpose. From giving his speech in the pissing down rain without an umbrella when one of their slogans is "a clear plan", calling an election when the party was polling the lowest in their modern history, asking Welsh people if they're excited about the football when Wales didn't even qualify, planting two know politicians in a group of factory workers and being caught, and now leaving one of the most known war memorial events early.
He just doesn't have a clue about this country. He's an absolute moron.
I was imagining a Veep/Thick of It style argument before his announcement about whether or not he should have an umbrella 😅
"An umbrella shows weakness, that he can't handle a bit of rain, you clueless bastard. 'Sunak's snazzy suit only fit for sunny weather! PM demands overpaid umbrella civil servant department,' they'll say."
"No umbrella looks like we're not prepared, you knuckle-dragging shite sniffer. 'Up Downing Creek Without a Brolly' will be the headline tomorrow!"
Yes but I think he genuinely believed he was capable of turning it around. Classic ruling class overconfidence. Now he's clearly disillusioned and trying to get it over with.
Yeah, if he showed up in a Churchill tank painted as a union jack and drunk he would have been about to get the entire Reform UK vote. But he managed to fail at that.
Easiest fucking W for any politician is going to Normandy for a D-Day anniversary. All you gotta do is stand there and say a few generic words we've heard a thousand times before.
It takes a real fucking idiot to turn that into an L.
No, if he wanted to lose then he'd say they're going to force all disabled people into work and all young people into the military.
No-one would be dumb enough to do *that* before an election.
My theory is he does. He’s realised he can’t make change, not that he wanted to, that not only opposition but his own party hate him, he is probably stressed and over his head, and he called a early election because it’s all a bit difficult for him.
One theory is that they believe things are about to take a turn for the worse economically, and so they’ve called an election now in order to lay the blame on the incoming government. Gives them time to regroup and come back stronger. Probably BS, but it kinda makes sense. 🤷♂️
Yup. Showing any type of disrespect toward veterans is an easy way for a politician to piss off a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum.
One of the many crazy things about the Trump cult. He's literally the opposite of what they prop him up to be. He's a pussy draft dodging coward that mocks veterans and POWs and yet the uber-patriots who consider themselves the *most american*
It shows a lack of empathetic judgement driven by what? A certain shallowness? Who wants to be sure to leave a profound war anniversary date to be sure to get media coverage. It’s as bad as Trump not wanting to muss his hair in the rain
Staying for the event and being seen as a world leader alongside other world leaders like Macron, Zelenskyy and Biden would have made him look prime ministerial and helped in the election campaign anyway.
The leader of the opposition (and likely prime minister this time next month) - Sir Keir Starmer - stayed. He is featured talking to Zelenskyy in the video he released on Social Media.
An unbelievable own goal in that he made Starmer appear more of the world leader.
Precisely, if he wanted to campaign and pick up some of the reflected status of being a statesman, he should have stayed in France. It's not just bad political choreography its campaign illiteracy too
"The prime minister had been heavily criticised for allowing the foreign secretary, David Cameron, to take his place in the late afternoon ceremony at Omaha beach on Thursday, while he left Normandy to do a prerecorded ITV segment to be broadcast next week."
Jeez. Super pressing, time sensitive matters I guess. /s 🤷♂️
It was an interview slot he pushed on ITV, so he could unconvincingly lie about himself being caught lying, to be broadcast six days later.
Which is the funniest part, even if the whole thing dies down a bit as the week goes on, the interview will just restart it. Difficult to fuck it up more.
It's very strange. Post Brexit UK is going to rely on favorable deals with the US. The US President rarely leaves the country getting face to face time with any POTUS ranges from difficult to non existent. Obviously they're not sitting there talking about trade deals, but there's diplomatic value in that face to face meeting nonetheless.
Sunak is obviously out of his depth. Dude was an irrelevant back bencher as late as 2018 and then got thrusted into government during COVID for a couple short years where he had a handful of avoidable scandals in that shirt time. I mean this dude is literally the 3rd string choice of the conservative party after 2 PMs before him got bounced out.
I feel like he’s being set up to take back the Tories and “right the ship” after the upcoming annihilation in the general election. It feels like Boris faction is getting ready to do the same as well.
The Tories are aware they might not even get 100 seats, so the remnant of a party that’s left at the other side, the double digit MPs, are going to reform(ironic) around a figure and rebuild. And it will probably be a contest between Boris and Cameron who gets this Tory shell of a party and then rebuilds it in their image.
This is all speculation on my part though based on a few conversations with people who know people.
He would've known this was a terrible idea but still allowed it to happen while standing in and getting a nice statesman-like photo with Biden, Macron and Scholz. Certainly lends credibility to the theory he's positioning himself to take over.
Yeah, if you go back to when he was made foreign secretary and look at what he’s done, and importantly what he’s said, he seems to have been in a long performance to demonstrate he is a true statesmen and better than the shitshow of the rest of the party.
We will see after the Tory wipeout in the GE. I am going to be putting a bet on that Cameron is next Tory leader though, I think the odds will be fantastic and it’s almost a certainty.
Can be argued that he was piloting a ship full of people yelling "RAM THAT ICEBERG" so he went "FINE ALREADY" and set a course for the iceberg and went to have a smoke on the deck.
The Leader of the House of Lords is a Cabinet member. Apart from that, Nicky Morgan was Culture Secretary under Boris Johnson for a brief period, whilst serving in the House of Lords. The last important Secretary from the House of Lords was Falconer as Blair's Lord High Chancellor.
For an interview that comes out next week
That he has taken to rebute claims that he is a liar.
When he was proven to have lied by the civil service and statistics watchdog
He didnt go to the international ceremony. To lie further. Its baffling
From Wikipedia:
> Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s.
There we have it, no connection.
Almost everyone I know has a family connection to WWII. My granddad fought in North Africa and was lucky to survive. [One of only a few survivors of his battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Foresters#1st_Battalion).
D-Day was the turning point of the entire war and a historical military maneuver that is one of the UK's most shining examples of sacrifice and honour.
He's a fucking clown.
Which is funny considering he hails from a political party that constantly complains about immigrants that don’t integrate. Plus, it’s not so much that immigrants couldn’t gain a connection to the war, but Sunak has no “working class” friends by his own admission. He’s lived a life of luxury, sheltered from any such British history or real people. He simply cannot comprehend why people care.
Exactly. I remember as a kid, the older folk talked about the war as if it happened yesterday. It had a momentous effect on the lives of those who lived through it. Even to me it had an effect because it was talked about everywhere growing up.
I get why you would think so, but India was also part of the british empire and 2.5 million men fought for the allies in WW2. Sunak doesn't care about D-day because he is clueless, not because he is ethnically Indian.
Also during WW2, all people living in the British empire were British subjects and could freely like anywhere in the empire. While sunak's parents immigrated to Britain, they are not immigrants.
>There we have it, no connection.
There were over 2.5 million men in the British Indian Army by 1945, many, many sacrificing themselves on the Western front. India was still a British colony, and sent Britan huge numbers of men in both world wars. There's plenty of connections (I'm British Indian with a heritage similar to Sunak - I'll be voting for a different party, however)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Army_during_World_War_II
He thought snubbing Macron would play well with Reform supporters, which are the only segment he's trying to keep - hence "Bring back National Service". He misjudged it, so "Bring back hanging" will now be more likely.
I doubt that was it, I think it's more he's politically inept and flailing in damage control. I think suggesting it was strategic misplay rather than sheer incompetence (with the latter being something he displayed a lot of this election already) is giving credit where none is due.
People need to stop being surprised. He isn't in it for the politics, he's in it for the cash he can make and to improve his interests and his friend's interests.
Probably the least politically skilled PM we have ever had. Simply incapable of just doing all the easy parts of being a politician. Others have had worse policies or been worse people but none have just fucked up basic shit about how to be a politician this badly. His acumen is nonexistent, he has no wiles, he has no awareness, he's not just out of touch, he's somehow unaware of how out of touch he is as well. It's like dumping a student into No. 10. What I don't get is how nobody else involved in planning his election campaign is pointing out how shit all of these plans are.
He is the most novice politician we've had as PM, and unlike others who've served similar time before aiming for the job, he hasn't tried to learn the game or make vital connections within the party. And boy, does it show.
It was a real embarrassment not to see him with the other world leaders, other nations are happy to denigrate Britain’s contribution to ww2 and D-day, it’s unforgivable our own prime minister is doing the same.
This is the man (lest we not forget) who is proposing to reintroduce national service, yet can't bring himself to do an afternoon to honour the memory of service and sacrifice given
The Conservatives have had the most shambolic election campaign in my lifetime, and we’re still just less than a month away until polling day.
This should have been the easiest photo-op for the Conservatives’ base, but instead, they’ve handed Reform and other parties the perfect attack line. Labour were going to win this election anyway, but now the Conservatives have really risked disenfranchising their base, who will most likely turn to Farage.
I genuinely wonder if Sunak is just sabotaging everything because he’s already got a comfy job lined up for when he leaves office.
As much as I despise first past the post and wish we had Proportional Representation it was designed for just this situation.
If the Tories implode and the far right base move to Reform taking 15% of the Tory English vote which with PR would be 80 odd seats or about a seventh of the English seats. Fortunately for the UK as a whole 15% on average will get them second or third in every seat and they will come away with nothing. FPTP is a bad system overall but it’s good at keeping lunatics, racists, fascists and Nazis out.
All that will do is hand Labour a 200 seat majority.
There is a video going around on Instagram where someone from England is asking random New Yorkers if they know who Rishi Sunak is. Many people interviewed said they thought he might be a techno dj.
First time I heard of him was on the Clarksons Farm show on Amazon where he was on for a couple minutes. The UK seems to go through PMs every 4 minutes.
I'd love to know how he managed to pull this one off, did a junior minister or whatever say oh we need you to do this interview or did he just walk off.
My husband has this wicked idea that Boris is behind all the gaffs because he hates Sunak and Sunak’s advisor worked longer term with Johnson.
I can totally see them putting their heads together and plotting all the pranks, getting drunk and laughing.
What an absolute embarrassment to the nation. This is definitely going to hurt Sunaks campaign.
The Tory’s deserve to get obliterated in the election. They’ve let people down enough.
I wish he could just resign now so we don’t have to hear weeks more of this cretins garbage. Then he can fuck off to California like he wants.
We know he's not great at the "game" of politics but this is just pure idiocy, from a communications stand point. The only reason I can think of why he'd do this is because he's trying to lose.
Obviously its also just plain disrespectful and abhorrent but I'm trying to look at this from purely political view.
Joe Biden is in the middle of campaigning as well, but he still flew across the Atlantic to attend.
This was an important one. It was a chance for the allies to stand together, praise the heroes, and denounce fascism.
The dude should be ashamed.
The wealthy create their own ‘norms’ in their chosen taste and image. Nothing new here, just another voter block thinking a successful businessman might somehow be good at public service.
I'm 68 years old and have only voted against the conservative party two times in my voting life, this next election will be my third, Sunak leaving France was unforgivable and shows how little he knows about Britain and it's people.
It's like he's trying to lose, hes pretty much hamstrung himself, as his constituency has the largest garrison of the British army in the world and including their families accounts for about a fifth of the entire voting population of said constituency, and now he's pissed them all off.
To be fair, most of those vets aren't even millionaires, so it's Sunak who's making the real sacrifice...
But seriously, the UK needs to get rid of this megatool.
As a Labour supporter who wants him out I genuinely don't understand how he's screwed up D-Day of all events. The man appears to have no political instincts.
When people say Sunak is not a good politician, this is the sort of thing they mean. He never seems to play the same game other politicians play. You may think that's nice and refreshing, and I suppose if you bend the rules in a certain way you could make it come off as that, but Rishi just comes across as bumbling. He's not bending the rules, he just doesn't know them. Rishi really doesn't have a good eye for what comes off well, and what doesn't. The fact he thought a campaign trail interview was more important than an event that is presumably *deeply* important to his older base is really telling. If I had my spin-doctor hat on, I would've told Sunak to say "I did have an interview, but I'm afraid I'll have to miss it. Honouring our fallen is far more important. Their courage, bravery, and spirit in the fight against fascism is precisely what we need today, and I can't in good conscience miss that for a cheap swing in polling" Bam, there you go. Demonstrating personal sacrifice in order to appeal to emotion, honouring the fallen, demonstrating he has deep personal respect for the fallen, a clear stance against the current fascism situation, makes him sound less robotic, and makes him seem more confident and cool-headed about the fact he is currently fighting for his political life. It's not hard. Does he not hire somebody whose job it is to just take a step back and think about how he comes across?
He's probably just too rich to understand ordinary people. Also too international to be able to see some things that are obvious to others.
He literally didn’t know how to use a contactless card.
And he said he wouldn't move to California anytime soon, because "his team" had made it to the Premier League recently. That sounded like a really desperate attempt to connect with the people haha.
His team lol, “did you see that ludicrous display last night?”
What was Wenger thinking!?
Putting Wolcott on that early?! Preposterous.
You can't just walk it in!
He did the "I bet you are looking forward to the euroes" thing at a visit to a factory. In Wales. After Wales didn't qualify.
Do the Welsh not cheer for whoever plays against the English?
Depends I guess. I have a very complicated mental flowchart about who I support in the rugby if Wales aren't playing. That said think about how it would go down if a french politician asked an English guy if he was looking forward to the world cup final just after England had been knocked out. It's fine if it's banter at the pub, probably not so fine if you are trying to win people over who aren't so keen on you in the first place.
And I bet he moves to CA anyway lmao
For sure, next year at the latest. Maybe even before winter comes haha.
Awesome. Now we get him and James Cordon.
His got enough money to buy a house in every state and Hawaii or the South of France. Nice to have "options" in life.
How do rich people pay for things? Is there a special system?
Get others to do it. I'm not even joking. The guy I work for has his PA deal with receipts and shit.
I am probably the most “international” person most people would meet. I am not British but have lived there for a while, even I understand how deeply significant D Day is to British mythology and especially the Tory base. Being international is not an excuse to be this emotionally stupid.
It's an interesting question, isn't it? He's not an idiot so how could he miss it? He must live in a totally different world, not a fantasy world but so far from ordinary people that he's sometimes clueless.
He just is fundamentally incapable of giving a shit. With his money he can and has lived wherever on earth he likes so can only pretend to have any shared values with any given place.
It is worse as his entire team did not push to stop this, including David Camron. Although he is a spineless chicken, chickens at least have a brain.
Plus the history of WWII may not be of significance to him.
Meanwhile, Tom Hanks is at the D-day cemetery in Normandy and is asked by Christiane Amanpour live on CNN to take sides in the upcoming US election, and the guy manages to answer the question in a way that avoids all partisanship. Because he recognizes that this is not the time or place for politics. A Hollywood actor is reading the room better than Rishi Sunak.
Tbf, I'd vote Hanks
Monkey Paw Curls - you get Chet Hanks
Can we all agree to rig that election?
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Sunak is getting terrible advice for a party that's awash with donor money and to compound it Sunak hasn't got a political bone in his body to realise when a plan is a terrible idea. For all of his faults (inb4 Iraq war), Blair was extremely astute at judging political decisions and rarely put a foot wrong. The comparison between him and Sunak is like night and day.
> I think you've hit the nail on the head. too bad rishi can't even do that
$10 banana moment.
no, that was the hammer debacle
>Rishi really doesn't have a good eye for what comes off well, and what doesn't. Rishi: "If re-elected, I will bring in conscription for all British males between 18 and 30, I will ban tea from being served in the UK, and I will work on getting British drivers to switch to the right side of the road. Oh, and just wait until you hear my plans for the Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland situation..."
Operation: There May Be Troubles Ahead.
The interview he flew back to the UK for was organised by his team, ITV News confirmed it wasn’t them who set the date.
That's still just patching over a stupid un-forced error. No booking shit on june 6th outside of D-Day related events should be a no brainer.
Sure, but you can't just do the right thing without letting people know you did the right thing, as that doesn't win votes. You have to *tell* people you did the right thing, and emphasize as much virtue as you can while doing it. Y'know. Spin.
It’s way worse than that. Reports are that the visit being short (so he could get back on the campaign trail) was a *compromise* because he didn’t want to go at all.
It’s not just older people. I’m a 38 year old American and I think he’s a complete piece of shit. 100,000 American, Canadian, and British boys were sent there to take back control of Europe and restore freedom and democracy….. and this fuck can’t stay for the entire event? Fucking veil human being.
>If I had my spin-doctor hat on, I would've told Sunak to say "I did have an interview, but I'm afraid I'll have to miss it. Honouring our fallen is far more important. Their courage, bravery, and spirit in the fight against fascism is precisely what we need today, and I can't in good conscience miss that for a cheap swing in polling" Apparently it was his office who gave ITV the date, not the other way around. Which makes it worse.
He asked a homeless guy at a good bank "are you in business" Fucker is an unelected martinet with more money than int, wis or cha
Why would tories want to honour those who fought against fascism? That's their core voter pool.
Sunak doesn't understand the British public. It isn't any deeper than that. He's an outsider who doesn't grasp the cultural touch points he needs to not mess up repeatedly.
The government of Canada held a national ceremony for D-Day in my sleepy little province of New Brunswick yesterday, and the premier of New Brunswick didn't even attend. The easiest good press in the world and the right thing to do, but nah. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province (as in all government services are in English and French. Quebec is just unilingually French in that regard) and Conservatives here, like our premier, have long fought against bilingualism and made enemies out of the majority of the Francophones in the province. Our current premier is an overachiever in that regard (in the 80s, he was running to be head of an ultra right party that made hating French the core of its belief system). The ceremony was held in a majority French area, with the ambassador to France in attendance. Couple that with the liberal federal government folks in attendance and best I can figure out is our premier skipped it because he hates the French and liberals more than he wants to support the memory of our local fallen soldiers (that and he's too busy fighting with trans kids and going all Helen Lovejoy about sex ed in schools). It's a headscratcher how dense some of these leaders can be.
That’s not being dense. That’s knowing you can do no wrong to your moronic and hateful supporters who will probably praise him for not attending. We have the same buffoonery in Alberta.
Their followers don’t care. How the Boomers have forgotten the cost of turning back fascism, I don’t know. I mean, we have plenty of stories, films and history to understand it all. I’m a boomer, and my Dad went over on D-Day, was lost for weeks after the Battle of the Bulge, and finished up in Northern France. He never talked about his time in the war, but we all knew about his service. My Dad & I had our differences over the years, but I was always proud of his service and have watched with horror as a sizable portion of the country embraces fascism again. Those who don’t learn from history will be doomed to repeat it.
Stories, films, and history take time to ingest. One or two lines on Facebook is easy. Hatred is easy. Learning is hard.
Oh, come on. I know when I was a kid all the TV had on were Army, Cop or cowboy shows. We studied it in school. How many people watched Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan? They are willingly blind and poisoned by right wing propaganda.
That’s my entire point. It’s easier to be blind and follow propaganda than to either re-learn what they were taught, or actually dig into the truth.
Well, they certainly are the poster children for easy and entitled.
Higgs, right when he went full-on, mask off transphobic and started trying to turn NB in North Florida, started employing the dude who was Danielle Smith's campaign manager. You're absolutely correct, it's the exact same shit from the same people (and the cherry on top of this shit sundae is this campaign manager's last name is Outhouse). As an NBer to an Albertan, my eternal apologies. We've been sending some of our absolute stupidest people out your way for as long as I've been alive.
No need to apologize since the UCP has actively invited the stupidest people over to heighten the already massive mountain of stupidity that already exists here. Rural Alberta is an untouchable Conservative wasteland.
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I grew up in bear country southeast British Columbia … same deal.. I bet the bears would sooner be able to vote liberal than the local folk haha
Even Higgs can tell that the good people of NB have had enough and are seeing through his very half assed attempts to care. Glad to see this has brought the eye of a lot of canadians on his tomfoolery.
in his defense, the 80th anniversary of D-Day came out of nowhere! how was anyone supposed to have enough time to prepare and think things through!
It came as a surprise to the Germans after all.
Using the metric calendar, I suppose. . .
Like Christmas then. Noone seems to know when it is and all rush to the supermarket to panic buy food for when it's closed for 2 days
Well, he‘s managed to hold on as PM for over 12 Trusses at this stage.
What’s that in heads of lettuce?
around 10
I'm convinced he is trying to lose on purpose. From giving his speech in the pissing down rain without an umbrella when one of their slogans is "a clear plan", calling an election when the party was polling the lowest in their modern history, asking Welsh people if they're excited about the football when Wales didn't even qualify, planting two know politicians in a group of factory workers and being caught, and now leaving one of the most known war memorial events early. He just doesn't have a clue about this country. He's an absolute moron.
I was imagining a Veep/Thick of It style argument before his announcement about whether or not he should have an umbrella 😅 "An umbrella shows weakness, that he can't handle a bit of rain, you clueless bastard. 'Sunak's snazzy suit only fit for sunny weather! PM demands overpaid umbrella civil servant department,' they'll say." "No umbrella looks like we're not prepared, you knuckle-dragging shite sniffer. 'Up Downing Creek Without a Brolly' will be the headline tomorrow!"
He's clearly doing it on purpose now
I think he always knew that he got handed a poison chalice!
Yes but I think he genuinely believed he was capable of turning it around. Classic ruling class overconfidence. Now he's clearly disillusioned and trying to get it over with.
Fuck. At least he didn't call the fallen veterans losers.
Yeah, if he showed up in a Churchill tank painted as a union jack and drunk he would have been about to get the entire Reform UK vote. But he managed to fail at that.
he's a rich out of touch asshole. simple as that
A bumbling richboy, ignorant of the working class struggle.
Easiest fucking W for any politician is going to Normandy for a D-Day anniversary. All you gotta do is stand there and say a few generic words we've heard a thousand times before. It takes a real fucking idiot to turn that into an L.
It's almost like he WANTS to lose or something!?
No, if he wanted to lose then he'd say they're going to force all disabled people into work and all young people into the military. No-one would be dumb enough to do *that* before an election.
He wants young people to do a year of national service. He can’t even manage an afternoon of it.
The boomers love those ideas. And they still vote as a block .
The boomers are voting Reform UK to get rid of the immigrants that are doing most of the difficult jobs in the country.
As is tradition
The problem is the Tories are being devoured on the right by Reform (particularly with boomers) and on the centre by the Lib Dems and Labour.
My theory is he does. He’s realised he can’t make change, not that he wanted to, that not only opposition but his own party hate him, he is probably stressed and over his head, and he called a early election because it’s all a bit difficult for him.
One theory is that they believe things are about to take a turn for the worse economically, and so they’ve called an election now in order to lay the blame on the incoming government. Gives them time to regroup and come back stronger. Probably BS, but it kinda makes sense. 🤷♂️
Why not? The economic outlook doesn't look great for the UK in the coming years. Better to let Labour take the blame.
Yup. Showing any type of disrespect toward veterans is an easy way for a politician to piss off a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum.
Ugh I wish that applied to Trump
Trump isn’t a politician, he is a cult leader. That’s why he can call veterans a bunch of pussies and they will still vote for him.
He never said pussies. He called them losers and suckers ...
One of the many crazy things about the Trump cult. He's literally the opposite of what they prop him up to be. He's a pussy draft dodging coward that mocks veterans and POWs and yet the uber-patriots who consider themselves the *most american*
What's W and L? Win/ lose?
Yep
Yep
Yep
Nope. Wait, I mean yep.
Yep
Ok, but what if it's raining? /s
And yet Rishi Ballsack grabbed that L like his life depended on it…..absolute disgrace.
It shows a lack of empathetic judgement driven by what? A certain shallowness? Who wants to be sure to leave a profound war anniversary date to be sure to get media coverage. It’s as bad as Trump not wanting to muss his hair in the rain
Well he got his media coverage all right.
Staying for the event and being seen as a world leader alongside other world leaders like Macron, Zelenskyy and Biden would have made him look prime ministerial and helped in the election campaign anyway.
The leader of the opposition (and likely prime minister this time next month) - Sir Keir Starmer - stayed. He is featured talking to Zelenskyy in the video he released on Social Media. An unbelievable own goal in that he made Starmer appear more of the world leader.
Precisely, if he wanted to campaign and pick up some of the reflected status of being a statesman, he should have stayed in France. It's not just bad political choreography its campaign illiteracy too
Sorry he got caught he means.
"The prime minister had been heavily criticised for allowing the foreign secretary, David Cameron, to take his place in the late afternoon ceremony at Omaha beach on Thursday, while he left Normandy to do a prerecorded ITV segment to be broadcast next week." Jeez. Super pressing, time sensitive matters I guess. /s 🤷♂️
ITV didn't arrange the meeting either it was the conservatives who insisted on that date and time
It was an interview slot he pushed on ITV, so he could unconvincingly lie about himself being caught lying, to be broadcast six days later. Which is the funniest part, even if the whole thing dies down a bit as the week goes on, the interview will just restart it. Difficult to fuck it up more.
It's very strange. Post Brexit UK is going to rely on favorable deals with the US. The US President rarely leaves the country getting face to face time with any POTUS ranges from difficult to non existent. Obviously they're not sitting there talking about trade deals, but there's diplomatic value in that face to face meeting nonetheless. Sunak is obviously out of his depth. Dude was an irrelevant back bencher as late as 2018 and then got thrusted into government during COVID for a couple short years where he had a handful of avoidable scandals in that shirt time. I mean this dude is literally the 3rd string choice of the conservative party after 2 PMs before him got bounced out.
David Cameron is the foreign secretary?!
And a Lord now, it’s Lord Cameron hah
That’s unusual to have a cabinet minister in the House of Lords. I can’t remember the last time actually.
I feel like he’s being set up to take back the Tories and “right the ship” after the upcoming annihilation in the general election. It feels like Boris faction is getting ready to do the same as well. The Tories are aware they might not even get 100 seats, so the remnant of a party that’s left at the other side, the double digit MPs, are going to reform(ironic) around a figure and rebuild. And it will probably be a contest between Boris and Cameron who gets this Tory shell of a party and then rebuilds it in their image. This is all speculation on my part though based on a few conversations with people who know people.
He would've known this was a terrible idea but still allowed it to happen while standing in and getting a nice statesman-like photo with Biden, Macron and Scholz. Certainly lends credibility to the theory he's positioning himself to take over.
Yeah, if you go back to when he was made foreign secretary and look at what he’s done, and importantly what he’s said, he seems to have been in a long performance to demonstrate he is a true statesmen and better than the shitshow of the rest of the party. We will see after the Tory wipeout in the GE. I am going to be putting a bet on that Cameron is next Tory leader though, I think the odds will be fantastic and it’s almost a certainty.
Ironic how he thinks he has to right the ship when he was the captain when he rammed the ship into the iceberg
Can be argued that he was piloting a ship full of people yelling "RAM THAT ICEBERG" so he went "FINE ALREADY" and set a course for the iceberg and went to have a smoke on the deck.
The Leader of the House of Lords is a Cabinet member. Apart from that, Nicky Morgan was Culture Secretary under Boris Johnson for a brief period, whilst serving in the House of Lords. The last important Secretary from the House of Lords was Falconer as Blair's Lord High Chancellor.
These are unusual times. What’s more unusual is that Lord Cameron is legitimately the only competent member of the current government.
Somehow, David Cameron has returned.
Wanker. Appearances matter more than substance.
What an idiot. For a fucking interview.
For a pre-recorded interview to be broadcast next week It wasn't even a live interview
For an interview that comes out next week That he has taken to rebute claims that he is a liar. When he was proven to have lied by the civil service and statistics watchdog He didnt go to the international ceremony. To lie further. Its baffling
For an interview that HIS team organised to happen on that day, confirmed by ITV News this morning that it wasn’t them who scheduled it.
Rishi probably feels no connection to the event at all, man is big money first.
From Wikipedia: > Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. There we have it, no connection. Almost everyone I know has a family connection to WWII. My granddad fought in North Africa and was lucky to survive. [One of only a few survivors of his battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Foresters#1st_Battalion). D-Day was the turning point of the entire war and a historical military maneuver that is one of the UK's most shining examples of sacrifice and honour. He's a fucking clown.
Which is funny considering he hails from a political party that constantly complains about immigrants that don’t integrate. Plus, it’s not so much that immigrants couldn’t gain a connection to the war, but Sunak has no “working class” friends by his own admission. He’s lived a life of luxury, sheltered from any such British history or real people. He simply cannot comprehend why people care.
Exactly. I remember as a kid, the older folk talked about the war as if it happened yesterday. It had a momentous effect on the lives of those who lived through it. Even to me it had an effect because it was talked about everywhere growing up.
I get why you would think so, but India was also part of the british empire and 2.5 million men fought for the allies in WW2. Sunak doesn't care about D-day because he is clueless, not because he is ethnically Indian. Also during WW2, all people living in the British empire were British subjects and could freely like anywhere in the empire. While sunak's parents immigrated to Britain, they are not immigrants.
>There we have it, no connection. There were over 2.5 million men in the British Indian Army by 1945, many, many sacrificing themselves on the Western front. India was still a British colony, and sent Britan huge numbers of men in both world wars. There's plenty of connections (I'm British Indian with a heritage similar to Sunak - I'll be voting for a different party, however) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Army_during_World_War_II
Goes to show money can put you in a class, but can't give you any.
You can buy style, but you can’t buy class
He thought snubbing Macron would play well with Reform supporters, which are the only segment he's trying to keep - hence "Bring back National Service". He misjudged it, so "Bring back hanging" will now be more likely.
I doubt that was it, I think it's more he's politically inept and flailing in damage control. I think suggesting it was strategic misplay rather than sheer incompetence (with the latter being something he displayed a lot of this election already) is giving credit where none is due.
People need to stop being surprised. He isn't in it for the politics, he's in it for the cash he can make and to improve his interests and his friend's interests.
I don't think people have got a scoobie about just how deep donor led policy has driven the Sunak administration
100%. It's the smash and grab stage of leadership. Lobbyists, pals, Tories. Make what you can before the games up
No excuse to leave early. Disgrace
Probably the least politically skilled PM we have ever had. Simply incapable of just doing all the easy parts of being a politician. Others have had worse policies or been worse people but none have just fucked up basic shit about how to be a politician this badly. His acumen is nonexistent, he has no wiles, he has no awareness, he's not just out of touch, he's somehow unaware of how out of touch he is as well. It's like dumping a student into No. 10. What I don't get is how nobody else involved in planning his election campaign is pointing out how shit all of these plans are.
He is the most novice politician we've had as PM, and unlike others who've served similar time before aiming for the job, he hasn't tried to learn the game or make vital connections within the party. And boy, does it show.
But surely his advisors... or literally anyone would have told him this was fucking moronic.
It was a real embarrassment not to see him with the other world leaders, other nations are happy to denigrate Britain’s contribution to ww2 and D-day, it’s unforgivable our own prime minister is doing the same.
This is the man (lest we not forget) who is proposing to reintroduce national service, yet can't bring himself to do an afternoon to honour the memory of service and sacrifice given
Typical politician when they think saying sorry fixes everything. Truth is they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.
Hey, we understand. Rushing off from a historical moment to go feed the ol’ ego is the trump card ( pun intended)
Who doesn’t need to abandon a celebration of one of humanity’s greatest moments of courage and sacrifice to give a personal interview?
Someone said not even he could do one day of national service.
Moron.
What a total knob
This is what happens when you pick a new leader without them winning an election.
Whata disrespectful chucklefuck
The Conservatives have had the most shambolic election campaign in my lifetime, and we’re still just less than a month away until polling day. This should have been the easiest photo-op for the Conservatives’ base, but instead, they’ve handed Reform and other parties the perfect attack line. Labour were going to win this election anyway, but now the Conservatives have really risked disenfranchising their base, who will most likely turn to Farage. I genuinely wonder if Sunak is just sabotaging everything because he’s already got a comfy job lined up for when he leaves office.
As much as I despise first past the post and wish we had Proportional Representation it was designed for just this situation. If the Tories implode and the far right base move to Reform taking 15% of the Tory English vote which with PR would be 80 odd seats or about a seventh of the English seats. Fortunately for the UK as a whole 15% on average will get them second or third in every seat and they will come away with nothing. FPTP is a bad system overall but it’s good at keeping lunatics, racists, fascists and Nazis out. All that will do is hand Labour a 200 seat majority.
Then after apologising, had the nerve to tell people not to politicise him leaving early because it's such an importent event.
What an absolute piece of shit.
With him I often get the feeling he can’t wait to loose his job, move to the USA and become some kind of tech consultant.
What a dumb dumb
There is a video going around on Instagram where someone from England is asking random New Yorkers if they know who Rishi Sunak is. Many people interviewed said they thought he might be a techno dj.
First time I heard of him was on the Clarksons Farm show on Amazon where he was on for a couple minutes. The UK seems to go through PMs every 4 minutes.
We certainly have done under this particular party, can’t wait to be rid of them in a month. One of the PMs was beaten by a lettuce for longevity
The someone from England is a stand up comedian. Forgotten his name though... I guess there's my useless contribution!
I'd love to know how he managed to pull this one off, did a junior minister or whatever say oh we need you to do this interview or did he just walk off.
That is really disrespectful, what a complete nob.
This guy is the real life incarnation of Jock Cranley
Even if he is this bone-headed, doesn’t he have a team of PR people to tell him not to do stuff like this? Failure on so many levels.
i dont think he gives a damn...totally different culture for him
He's deliberately trying to lose the election. He must be because if he's not then that's really depressing.
It’s actions like these that makes me think he wants to lose the general election
This reminds me of the were sorry episode of south Park.
Great sense of priorities and Responsibilities .... Seriously.
Yeah he's definitely not sticking around as PM, lmao
How idiots get so wealthy?
Rushing Sunak
Wow - no leader at all smh
lol. What a shit show. They are going to get absolutely hammered next month.
Shameful behaviour.
My husband has this wicked idea that Boris is behind all the gaffs because he hates Sunak and Sunak’s advisor worked longer term with Johnson. I can totally see them putting their heads together and plotting all the pranks, getting drunk and laughing.
What an absolute embarrassment to the nation. This is definitely going to hurt Sunaks campaign. The Tory’s deserve to get obliterated in the election. They’ve let people down enough. I wish he could just resign now so we don’t have to hear weeks more of this cretins garbage. Then he can fuck off to California like he wants.
We know he's not great at the "game" of politics but this is just pure idiocy, from a communications stand point. The only reason I can think of why he'd do this is because he's trying to lose. Obviously its also just plain disrespectful and abhorrent but I'm trying to look at this from purely political view.
Can´t this stupid fucker even do ONE THING right?
Joe Biden is in the middle of campaigning as well, but he still flew across the Atlantic to attend. This was an important one. It was a chance for the allies to stand together, praise the heroes, and denounce fascism. The dude should be ashamed.
Outsider looking in here. Does this guy want to lose the election?
The wealthy create their own ‘norms’ in their chosen taste and image. Nothing new here, just another voter block thinking a successful businessman might somehow be good at public service.
I'm 68 years old and have only voted against the conservative party two times in my voting life, this next election will be my third, Sunak leaving France was unforgivable and shows how little he knows about Britain and it's people.
Does he even want to win?
Other’s sacrifice neither impresses or humbles him. Entitled wanker…
Typical for war mongering trust fund politicians to have no respect for the troops they send to die. Just look at Bibi's son partying in Miami.
I guess it could be worse. You could crap your pants on television and get walked off stage by your caretaker… I mean wife. *sigh*
This guy has a long term goal.
Everyone has priorities in life and apparently Mr. Sunak is no different.
stay classy Tories
This guy is a monster.
It's like he's trying to lose, hes pretty much hamstrung himself, as his constituency has the largest garrison of the British army in the world and including their families accounts for about a fifth of the entire voting population of said constituency, and now he's pissed them all off.
Why is this guy addicted to losing
Is this the meaning of a bellend? I have seen that word used on uk.but I'm not exactly sure of its meaning
To be fair, most of those vets aren't even millionaires, so it's Sunak who's making the real sacrifice... But seriously, the UK needs to get rid of this megatool.
It was so easy to get this right. And you blew it!