The British general election is being fought on Omaha beach

The 40th anniversary of D Day was a very big affair because many veterans would not be there on the 50th anniversary. I remember it well, just after I came down from the university and before life began. 

In fact D-Day anniversaries were not big international events before 1984. 

They are a tradition invented by President François Mitterrand who invited six heads of state, including Queen Elizabeth II and Ronald Reagan who made a memorable speech. 

People said how nice it was to see the French, British and Americans without the Germans for once. 

Heads of government were not invited, so Mrs Thatcher did not attend. 

How Rishi Sunak wishes they had kept it to heads of state. He left after the 'British events' but before the end and will not recover from this error.

I just about at a stretch understand why he thought he could get away, without arousing unfavourable comment, before the 'French event' on the last evening, which Messrs Starmer and Lammy then muscled their way into, but I absolutely cannot understand why he did not see that his standing beside Messrs Macron, Biden, Scholtz and the inescapable Zelensky was not only the right and respectful thing to do but excellent electioneering. 

Dan Hodges tweeted: "Not possible to overstate scale of anger from Tory MPs. One says: “If this had happened outside the election, he’d be gone. The letters would be in”.''

Now the poor man is refusing to speak to journalists as he canvasses in Red Wall Northern seats that had been safe Labour until 2019 and which he knows full well his party has no hope of winning. 

From the Times yesterday:

Another ally [of Mr Sunak] pointed out that in his 2014 party conference speech as leader, Cameron talked about how the then 70th anniversary of D-Day had been “the best moment of my year”, and that when he was prepping for the speech he told aides: “There’s a risk I may start crying here, because it gets me so emotional.”

A Whitehall source said Cameron was “apoplectic” about Sunak’s decision but, when asked why he had not “picked Sunak up by his lapels”, he said: “There is only so much I can do.”

That's a damning thing to say.

The Times continued much more damningly:

There was also fury at Buckingham Palace, where courtiers pointed out that the King, who is being treated for cancer, was advised not to travel but was determined to do so, despite being in pain.

Isaac Levido told Sunak to apologise and he did, adding

I think it’s important though, given the enormity of the sacrifice made, that we don’t politicise this.

The shocking thing about the apology is that, despite having been to Winchester and Oxford, he does not know what 'enormity' means. 

Has Mr Sunak read many good books, for pleasure I mean? I know Jilly Cooper is his favourite.

He also doesn't understand in his heart the importance of D-Day, which for patriots means our island story and for the left means defeating racism.

Below is a dog whistle by Nigel Farage.

 

Others have said that someone whose parents came to the UK does not have the same visceral feeling of D-Day as someone whose grandparents lived through the war in the UK. 

On the other hand Mr Farage himself, in reply to a harridan on TV, said that 40% of the British dead in the Second World War were people "from what we now call the Commonwealth".  The Empire is the word he was anxious to avoid.

But globalist is the word for Sunak and Farage is as British as an Edwardian music hall turn or a fruit cake.

The D-Day mistake reminded us of this and much more importantly made us all see the Prime Minister is not good at politics and therefore not much use as Prime Minister. 

Starmer will be very, very much worse though. 

Some polls suggest the Tories will get less than the 156 seats they won led by A J Balfour in 1906. (Balfour's illustrious career was a string of disasters, including plotting treason in 1914 and making contradictory undertakings in his famous Declaration.)

Even fewer than 50 seats, one poll said. 

But a mistake that is much worse than failing to be at the D-Day celebration on the last evening is that Mr Sunak is bombing Yemen, where we have absolutely no business, 56 years after the UK declared that she had no interests east of Suez.