Foreign Office officials said Rishi Sunak should attend D-day event, book reveals

Department twice provided written advice to No 10 before mistake that came to define Sunak’s election campaign

Senior officials at the Foreign Office repeatedly warned No 10 that Rishi Sunak should not leave June’s D-day commemoration in Normandy early, according to new revelations in a book about the Tories’ 14 years in power.

The department passed on two messages to Downing Street in the weeks leading up to the event, which were then ignored in what has gone down as the worst election campaign blunder of the last 14 years.

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Rishi Sunak denies he considered missing D-day events entirely as he reiterates apology – UK general election live

PM, who left to attend an ITV interview, says ‘the last thing I wanted was for the commemorations to be overshadowed by politics’

I think it would be fair to say that children’s minister David Johnston is not having a vintage media round today.

First he was ambushed by Rishi Sunak issuing his D-day absence apology while the minister was literally out defending Sunak by repeatedly pointing out that he had been in France earlier in the day and in Portsmouth the day before [See 8.18 BST].

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Rishi Sunak apologises for leaving D-day events early to record TV interview

Amid heavy criticism, the PM denies he had planned to skip commemorations entirely

Rishi Sunak has apologised for missing a key part of the D-day commemorations in northern France to film a TV interview, as he faces a wave of condemnation over what may be his biggest misstep yet in a faltering election campaign.

The prime minister was heavily criticised for leaving the 80th anniversary events for an ITV interview that is not scheduled for broadcast until next week, with opposition parties calling it crass and a dereliction of duty.

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Biden and Macron use D-day event to emphasise support for Ukraine

Leaders rally behind Zelenskiy to make clear to Putin that, as in 1944, freedom in Europe is worth fighting for

Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron have marked the 80th anniversary of D-day with a rallying cry for support for Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskiy was embraced by western leaders in Normandy.

The US president used his address at the American commemorative event to send a message to Moscow that the US and its allies “will not bow down” and will “stand for freedom”.

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D-day: Biden calls for supporting Ukraine in struggle against ‘dark forces’

President warns at 80th anniversary that democracy is under greater threat than at any time since second world war

Joe Biden has marked the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy with an impassioned call to western allies to continue supporting Ukraine in the face of the “unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom”.

Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery attended by his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and dozens of surviving veterans from the second world war, Biden drew parallels between the Allied troops who fought to free Europe and the alliance of nations that came together to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.

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D-day 80th anniversary: ‘let us have their courage,’ says Macron of veterans as he warns of war returning to Europe – as it happened

World leaders attend international commemorative ceremony as French president draws comparisons with Ukraine conflict

The British prime minister Rishi Sunak will miss the major international ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day but the Labour leader Keir Starmer will attend alongside world leaders at the Omaha Beach event.

Sunak is attending events in Normandy including speaking at the major British ceremony, but he will not be present alongside leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden at the international gathering.

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British paratroopers dropping in French field for D-day event asked for passports

French officials insist on checking paperwork of 400 troops landing in Normandy for 80th anniversary commemoration

Eyebrows were raised at the Ministry of Defence when French immigration and customs insisted on checking the paperwork of 400 British paratroopers immediately after they dropped into fields near Saneville, Normandy on Wednesday.

Some felt the French were trying to make a point in response to the UK’s decision to leave the EU and, while immigration checks for British troops on exercise abroad are routine, doing so at a public commemoration is deemed exceptional.

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D-day 80th anniversary comes at time of conflict and growing carelessness

As grim memory of world war fades, many people are anxious amid rise of nationalist, country-first rhetoric

Twenty-two British D-day veterans, the youngest nearly 100, crossed the Channel on Tuesday to mark this week’s 80th anniversary of the landings in Normandy, representing a thinning thread to the heroics of two or three generations ago when about 150,000 allied soldiers began a seaborne invasion of western Europe that helped end the second world war.

Ron Hayward, a tank trooper who lost his legs fighting in France three weeks after D-day, told crowds assembled in Portsmouth on Wednesday why he and other soldiers were there: “I represent the men and women who put their lives on hold to go and fight for democracy and this country. I am here to honour their memory and their legacy, and to ensure that their story is never forgotten.”

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‘Courage and solidarity’: King Charles pays tribute to veterans of D-day

Royals, politicians and military leaders begin two days of events to mark 80th anniversary of Normandy landings

The king has paid tribute to D-day veterans at a commemorative event in Portsmouth marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

Charles said their “stories of courage, resilience and solidarity” move, inspire and “remind us of what we owe to that great wartime generation – now, tragically, dwindling to so few”.

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RAF grounds Spitfire fleet after death of pilot in Battle of Britain air display

Announcement raises questions about aircraft’s participation in national D-day event in Portsmouth

The RAF has grounded a fleet of Spitfire planes after the death of a pilot over the weekend, raising the prospect of the legendary aircraft being absent from the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings next month.

Sqn Ldr Mark Long – a Typhoon pilot based at RAF Coningsby – was killed in a crash while flying a Spitfire belonging to the Battle of Britain Memorial Fleet as part of a memorial event.

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Vladimir Putin not welcome at French ceremony for 80th anniversary of D-day

France says Russia can be represented but president will not be invited because of war in Ukraine

Russia will be invited to send representatives to an international ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day – but not Vladimir Putin, the French organisers have announced.

The Élysée is reported to have accepted that the country should be represented but said its leader is not welcome because of Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

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Leon Gautier, last surviving French D-day commando, dies at 100

Gautier was one of 177 green berets in the Kieffer unit which stormed the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944

Leon Gautier, the last surviving member of the French commando unit that waded ashore on D-day alongside allied troops to begin the liberation of France, died on Monday. He was 100 years old.

Gautier was one of 177 French green berets who stormed the Normandy beaches defended by Hitler’s forces in 1944.

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D-day tribute or theme park? Battle rages over Normandy plan

Critics say €90m project would reduce allied landing to a money-spinning tourist attraction

A row has erupted in France over plans for a new D-day attraction near the landing beaches, which critics have likened to a Disney-style theme park.

The multimillion-euro project to retell the story of le débarquement of 6 June 1944 and the subsequent Battle of Normandy in a hi-tech 45-minute “immersive show” has sparked a furious war of words, with opponents describing it as disrespectful to those who died and their families.

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‘France is for ever grateful’: Normandy memorial for British D-day troops unveiled

Ceremony takes place at Ver-sur-Mer for 22,442 soldiers under British command who died during D-day and Battle of Normandy

They fought on the beaches of Normandy, they fought on the landing grounds in the fields and streets and hills. As Winston Churchill had promised, they did not surrender.

On Sunday, the names of 22,442 soldiers under British command who died on D-day and the subsequent Battle of Normandy were engraved in stone as a permanent reminder of their sacrifice as a new British Normandy memorial was unveiled.

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French health ban keeps Allied D-day veterans away

Normandy locals mourn the absence of the Allied soldiers forced to stay at home for the first time in 76 years

In Ranville cemetery, a lone piper playing Amazing Grace walked solemnly between the graves as the early morning sun reflected off the rows of white headstones.

Every 6 June for the last 75 years, the soldiers who made it off the Normandy beaches in 1944 have returned to remember comrades who did not. Every year, the pilgrimage became a different kind of battle but still they came, in fewer numbers but just as determined to overcome the odds as they were when they landed to liberate France.

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Trump’s family holiday to UK Disneyland makes for painful viewing | John Crace

With sketch writers banned from his press conference with Theresa May, I was forced to endure it on TV

Sometimes I worry I am more psychically connected to Tottenham Hotspur than is healthy. Having done my two events at the Hay festival, I went back to the friends I was staying with to watch the Champions League final. Only to find they didn’t have BT Sport and their internet connection was patchy at best. So I ended up viewing the game on my iPad with a screen that kept buffering and then freezing. Which of course was entirely appropriate, because buffering and freezing appeared to be Spurs’ main game plan. The biggest match in the club’s history, against a team playing well below its best, and Spurs also chose to have a complete off day. Even down to giving away a dodgy penalty inside the first minute. You can’t get more Spursy than that. It almost made me proud. Still, there was one upside. The two friends, Matthew and Terry, who ended up using my tickets kept me updated with photos throughout their trip, from their arrival in Toulouse to their eight-hour car journey to Madrid to their picnic on the beach on the way back. What struck me most was that they were both smiling in every shot. Something I would never have managed. I would have been sick with anxiety before the game and acutely depressed after it. There was no avoiding it. The right two people went to the game. Though it was a little upsetting to realise all my friends almost certainly have a better time without me.

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I’d do it again, says D-day Omaha beach ‘suicide wave’ veteran

Trump and Macron laud Russell Pickett, sole survivor of US infantry company that led the charge

As Russell Pickett, 94, from Tennessee, was helped to his feet by the French president and hugged by Donald Trump, the 15,000 people gathered at the American cemetery in Normandy to commemorate the D-day landings 75 years ago stood to applaud.

“A tough guy,” the US president said, gesturing to the sole survivor of Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, which led the charge 75 years ago on to Omaha beach, a chaotic bloodbath which became known as the “suicide wave”and was made infamous by the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.

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D-day memories highlight UK military’s vastly changed role

In a post-Brexit world British forces will be operating under different rules of engagement

It was impossible not to be moved by the dignity of the diminishing band of D-day veterans in Normandy, 75 years after “the longest day” led to the opening of a new western front that helped bring about Adolf Hitler’s downfall.

Men like Kenneth Hay, who read a poem, Normandy, by another veteran, Cyril Crain, to the congregation at Bayeux Cathedral. As he spoke its concluding words, “When my life is over and I reach the other side, I’ll meet my friends from Normandy and shake their hands with pride”, his voice began to break.

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Trump arrives for D-day ceremony in Normandy – live news

Follow live updates as world leaders join veterans to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy

The Élysée Palace is live streaming the ceremony.

EN DIRECT | Cérémonie franco-américaine au cimetière américain, Colleville-sur-Mer. #DDay75https://t.co/zh7bfyDifa

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