‘Betgate’ might be giving us some laughs but there’s one person who clearly isn’t cracking jokes. A notably vexed Rishi Sunak gave an interview to STV this afternoon on a visit to campaign with the Scottish Conservative party. He told the broadcaster that he was ‘angry’ about allegations that Tory candidates put bets on the date of the election and that the Conservatives are now running its own probe alongside the Gambling Commission. Anyone want to place a wager on who the culprits are?
It was left to broadcaster Colin Mackay to suggest to Sunak that he should remove Craig Williams and Laura Sanders as Tory candidates before the election day. Mackay pointed out that Williams was Sunak’s trusted confidante as his parliamentary private secretary (PPS) and noted too the Prime Minister’s pledge in October 2022 to uphold the integrity of his office: ‘By your own standards you’ve failed’. The high (or perhaps low) point of the interview came in this exchange:
CM: ‘He [Williams] was your PPS. Do you think he made a huge error of judgement or not?’
RS: ‘We are conducting our own internal inquiry as we speak in parallel because I don’t have-‘
CM: ‘A lot of people will think you’re making a huge error of judgement now, you’re showing weak leadership by not suspending these people.’
RS: ‘As I said, we have been conducting our internal inquiries in parallel and will not hesitate to act on any findings or information that that brings to light.’
CM: ‘But not yet?’
RS: ‘It’s important that we conduct our own internal findings. It’s also important that we recognise that there are parallel and very serious law enforcement investigations that are happening and it is important that we don’t do anything that compromises those investigations and I am sure that you will understand that.’
How much longer will that line hold?
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