"The final straw' Tory campaign descends into infighting

Conservative candidates and aides have looked on aghast at the missteps of Rishi Sunak's Tory campaign over the past fortnight.

- Rowena Mason , Eleni Courea & Pippa Crerar

Anger has been building over Sunak allies being parachuted into safe seats, including the party chair, Richard Holden, the lack of preparation for the snap election within Conservative Campaign Headquarters, and the avoidable row over Frank Hester's donations.

But nothing has come close to the fury within the party over the prime minister's decision to skip part of the D-day ceremony in France, leaving the stage clear for Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage to show leadership and patriotism.

Ultimately, the choice was Sunak's: To come home for an ITV interview or to stay and honour veterans and the fallen.

However, many Tory candidates are apoplectic with rage at the strategists who allowed such a misstep to take place, questioning the quality at the heart of the party's campaign.

"The spads and clown advisers who are making these decisions will never work on so much as a Tory councillor's campaign again in their lifetime," said one irate Conservative source.

Though the campaign is being overseen in Conservative party headquarters by an experienced elections strategist, Isaac Levido, Tory candidates are concerned that Sunak's own advisers and allies appear to be in the ascendancy when it comes to decision-making.

Tory party sources described "a rupture that has not healed" between Levido and some of Sunak's aides after it became public knowledge that the campaign chief had not been in favour of a summer election.

Levido has his own team of professional campaigners alongside the team of Sunakites who have now taken up office in CCHQ. Sunak's team include his chief of staff, Liam Booth-Smith, who was in favour of an early election, Rupert Yorke, who is organising personnel, and Nerissa Chesterfield, the prime minister's communications chief.