It never rains but pours for Rishi Sunak. After a weekend of negative headlines over the Tory gambling scandal and a grilling on the Sun’s leaders’ election special, the Prime Minister has decided to take action. In a statement released this morning, a Conservative spokesman said the party is withdrawing support from the two Tory candidates being investigated by the Gambling Commission:
‘As a result of ongoing internal inquiries, we have concluded that we can no longer support Craig Williams or Laura Saunders as Parliamentary Candidates at the forthcoming General Election. We have checked with the Gambling Commission that this decision does not compromise the investigation that they are conducting, which is rightly independent and ongoing.’
So, why now? Up until this morning, the line from Sunak and his team was that it would be wrong to suspend a Tory candidate as it would interrupt the Gambling Commission’s investigation – but an internal investigation was underway. In the comment above, the Tory spokesperson says that they have checked with the commission ahead of making the decision. But that raises the question: why didn’t they check sooner if that was the main reason for not taking action?
The risk for Sunak is that it looks as though he has changed course as a result of media pressure and Tory unease. As I reported on Monday, Conservative candidates say the gambling story has been cutting through on the doorstep – and playing into the perception that Sunak is weak. Speaking to Tory candidates this morning, there is a sense that if the party was going to take action it should have done so immediately, rather than over a week in.
Given the electoral commission deadline has passed, both candidates will still appear on the ballot as Tory candidates – with the party distancing themselves publicly. Laura Saunders’ target seat of Bristol North West was always going to be hard for the Tories to take – so the move that will hurt Sunak and his party the most relates to Williams. Williams is a long-time ally of the Prime Minister, serving as his parliamentary private secretary – his eyes and ears in the Commons’ tearooms. The pair have a close relationship and Williams has been praised for his work in the role. Withdrawing support for him will have been a painful decision for Sunak – and could in part explain the delay. Williams’s seat of Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr is also one the Tories were hoping to keep hold of. That task now looks much harder.
The hope in Conservative Campaign Headquarters is that this will draw a line under the whole debacle, but in the immediate term it will move the story back to the front page. Sunak will be praying that no further revelations come to light. Senior Tories believe part of the reason Sunak took so long was to see how many candidates were being investigated. ‘It’s one thing to withdraw support from two candidates,’ says one candidate. ‘It’s another to have to do it to 15 of them’.
Hear more analysis from Katy Balls on Coffee House Shots:
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