The D-Day commemoration may go down in history as the moment Rishi Sunak lost the 2024 general election

The image of David Cameron, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden in Normandy may go down in history as a snapshot of the moment when Rishi Sunak lost the 2024 general election.

The prime minister’s decision to leave the D-Day commemorations early was such a serious error of judgement that it is hard to understand. Did Lord Cameron, foreign secretary and former prime minister, not say to his friend: “You are going back to London and want me to stand in for you? Are you out of your mind?”

Did no adviser say: “Are you sure, Prime Minister?”

There are no excuses that are adequate. In his apology interview, the prime minister said that the itinerary, which had him going back to record a TV interview, had been set some time in advance. This has nothing to do with whether or not it was the right itinerary.

He said he had “participated in all the British events with British veterans” and only skipped “the international leaders’ event”. Yet his apology was a feeble one. “On reflection, that was a mistake and I apologise.”

Then: “I think it’s important, though, given the enormity of the sacrifice made, that we don’t politicise this. The focus should rightly be on the veterans who gave so much.”

Sir Keir Starmer, who attended the D-Day commemorations in full, could not resist a slightly unseemly comment: “Rishi Sunak will have to answer for his own actions. For me, there was nowhere else I was going to be.”

But the opposition parties have not needed to “politicise” the prime minister’s dereliction: Mr Sunak did that all by himself. It was he who took the focus away from “the veterans who gave so much”.

Johnny Mercer, the minister for veterans’ affairs, did more to politicise the issue than either Sir Keir or Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s all-purpose election spokesperson. Mr Mercer admitted the prime minister’s mistake was “disappointing”, but added: “I do find the faux outrage from people who’ve done nothing but make my life difficult trying to improve veterans’ affairs over the years is pretty nauseating, to be frank.”

In fact, the outrage that matters has come from the veterans for whom Mr Mercer is responsible, not to mention from any British citizen who, putting politics to one side, must be aghast at the failure to pay fitting tribute to those of the generation at the margins of historical memory who fought and died.

Mr Sunak’s apology has failed to dispel the notion, which formed during the first days of his premiership, that he regards foreign trips as a waste of his valuable prime-ministerial time. One of his early decisions in No 10 was to reverse his refusal to travel to Egypt for the Cop27 climate summit. That could be put down to inexperience and confusion at the time. No such excuses are available now.

Mr Sunak should have the courage to take responsibility for his mistake, and to ask, humbly, for forgiveness.