Gambling scandal strengthens British public's distrust of politicians | 2024 general election

When the Conservatives began their election campaign five weeks ago, they were 20 points behind in the opinion polls and electing their fourth prime minister in five years, it was unclear how things could get any worse.

The gambling scandal that swept the party answered that question. The extraordinary row began on June 12 when the Guardian revealed that Rishi Sunak's closest parliamentary aide, Craig Williams, was being investigated by the Gambling Commission for betting on the July election three days before the election was called.

It was later revealed that the subject of the investigation was expanded to include four Tory members, six police officers, and one Labor Party candidate.

Both Tory and Labor activists say the scandal is damaging to the government for two reasons. First, using inside information to profit when a bet is wrong or potentially illegal is easy to understand.

Second, it reinforces the idea that there are rules for politicians and rules for the public. In that sense, it has echoes of the Partygate scandal that rocked Boris Johnson's government and set off a chain of events that led to its collapse.

Michael Gove, the outgoing equalities secretary, compared the two incidents last weekend and said this was the most potentially damaging. It is the recognition that we operate outside the rules we set for others. It was damaging during Partygate and it is damaging here.

There are parallels with the expenses scandal, which seriously damaged public trust by planting in the minds of voters that politicians do not follow the rules they impose on others.

Like Partygate and the costs, the gambling scandal brought with it a constant barrage of damaging revelations that made it impossible to ignore or shut down.

A week after the Guardian story about Williams, the BBC reported that Tory candidate Laura Saunders and her husband Tony Lee, the party’s campaign director, were also being investigated by the watchdog. The broadcaster also revealed that a police officer from the Prime Minister’s security detail had been arrested on suspicion of election-timing betting, confirming that the scandal had spread beyond one person.

The debate deepened at the weekend when the Sunday Times reported that Nick Mason, the Conservative Party's data chief, was being investigated by the gambling watchdog over claims he placed dozens of small bets that could have netted him thousands of pounds. . He denied wrongdoing.

On Tuesday, London police announced they were investigating five more officers in connection with suspected betting on Election Day, and hours later the Guardian revealed that a fifth Conservative, Russell George, was being investigated.

The Conservatives sought to deal with this issue in a similar way to Partygate, by trying to contain it until further developments forced them to step up their response.

Initially Sunak was disappointed by Williams' behavior but said it was a watchdog's problem. He said he was incredibly upset after more Tories became involved. Finally, after a week of trying to work through the conflict, the prime minister withdrew his support from Williams and Saunders on Tuesday and launched an internal investigation.

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This suggests the Conservatives do not believe any more of their candidates are implicated (Sunak said on Monday he knew nothing) and are seeking to draw a line over the scandal that has plagued the party's campaign for nearly two weeks, although there have been suspensions. It was published before the revelations about George.

The surprising news that Labour candidate Kevin Craig is currently under investigation by the gambling watchdog could ease some of Keir Starmers' attacks.

Craig was immediately suspended as a candidate by Labor and is understood to be under investigation for betting that he would lose the primary in a safe Tory seat rather than acting on inside information.

This represents a significant expansion in the scope of the investigation and will spark a larger conversation about political gambling. In the US, Wall Street's top regulator is moving to ban gambling on US elections, and there have already been calls for the UK to consider similar measures.

But this will become an issue after the election. Raising the level of politics and restoring public trust in politicians will be a top priority for the next prime minister.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/25/gambling-scandal-reinforces-uk-public-distrust-politicians The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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