Sunak’s failure to suspend the alleged gamblers is a bet that could backfire

The prime minister’s reluctance to mete out consistent punishments to those alleged to have bet on the election date has left his fellow Conservatives in a muddle, writes Sean O’Grady

Rishi Sunak’s attempts to win over voters are being overshadowed by the ongoing gambling scandal (PA Wire)

The Conservative Party seems to have arrived at the point where it has lost its ability to be ruthless in the pursuit and retention of power.

The party’s two parliamentary candidates who are accused of using insider knowledge to make bets on the date of the next election are being investigated by the Gambling Commission. One, Craig Williams, standing in Montgomeryshire, actually admits to making a “huge error of judgement”.

The other, Laura Saunders, who wants to be MP for Bristol North West, has said she may sue the BBC, which broke the story, over “infringement of privacy rights”. Her solicitor says: “As the Conservative Party has already stated, investigations are ongoing. Ms Saunders will be cooperating with the Gambling Commission and has nothing further to add.”

Rishi Sunak is angry – but not, it seems, angry enough to disown the pair, suspend them from the party or take internal disciplinary action. He pleads that he must allow the Gambling Commission to do its work first. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

Ironically, and predictably, even this has caused a split in the party. There’s the idea, mooted by the home secretary, that they can’t even talk about these people – an idea the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, agreed with on the airwaves this morning. Yet Tobias Ellwood, who ran the defence select committee for a while, wants them to be quarantined from the campaign, and the former justice secretary and lord chancellor, Robert Buckland, also wants them out.

Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has said that if they were his candidates “their feet wouldn’t touch the ground”. Starmer is showing the Tories how to be ruthless in the pursuit of power these days. So a serious scandal, bad enough in itself, has been exacerbated by open disagreements among Conservatives in the middle of a general election campaign. A pathologist observing these conditions in a patient would say it looks terminal.

It reminds me of one of the last days of John Major, when he was assailed by all sorts of sleaze and couldn’t or wouldn’t discard his troublesome associates. No doubt he would have loved to be rid of Neil Hamilton, the man in the cash-for-questions row, but he lacked the authority, or the ruthlessness, to do so and couldn’t even persuade the local party in Tatton to deselect him in time for the 1997 election. So Martin Bell turned up in a white suit to do the job for Major instead on polling day. Poor old Major looked hopelessly weak and beleaguered, and didn’t deserve it. Maybe Sunak is the same.

But here’s the curious, inconsistent thing: the two party officials allegedly involved have been suspended or taken leave of absence. Sunak seems to have had no difficulty telling Tony Lee, director of campaigns, and married to Saunders, to go do some gardening; and the chief data officer, Nick Mason, was also ordered to make himself scarce. In neither case has the Gambling Commission completed its inquiries. The same, by the way, goes for the unnamed police protection officer who has been arrested and suspended in connection with the scandal. If they can all be dealt with, then why not the Tory candidates?

No one can indeed take their names off the ballot paper at this late stage, but that doesn’t mean a party can’t make it clear that they are no longer their official candidate. This is precisely what happened with Andy Brown, who was Labour’s pick for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, but was disowned when it was discovered he’d been making pro-Russian comments some years ago. Why Sunak can’t do the same for Saunders and Williams (who was his parliamentary private secretary) is not at all clear.

But one thing is for certain – mumbling about the Gambling Commission doesn’t cut it.