Sunak is out of touch, and always has been

Rishi Sunak says it was a ‘mistake’ to leave the 80th anniversary commemorations for D-Day early. That’s one way to describe ditching a memorial to the liberation of Western Europe to record an election interview for the telly. We have heard the various reasons as to why this was such an error. It was dreadful judgement. Terrible optics. Anathema to the very Silent Generation and Baby Boomer voters his election campaign is tailored to.

But while I have no designs on defending him, I suspect this is just who Sunak is. As one highly astute commentator, who isn’t above saying ‘I told you so’, once observed: ‘He combines the perception he is out of touch with the fact of actually being out of touch.’ It would not have occurred to him to stay and talk to the few surviving British veterans of D-Day, to grin for endless photographs as he listened to the same accounts over and over again.