Tories ‘held in contempt by the electorate’ as pressure mounts on Rishi Sunak over betting scandal

Sir Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of “total lack of leadership” after the prime minister failed to deny cabinet ministers are among senior Tories who placed bets on the election date.

As pressure mounted over the betting scandal, Labour also condemned Mr Sunak’s decision not to suspend two candidates who are under investigation by the Gambling Commission.

Multiple cabinet ministers were forced to deny they had had a flutter on the polling date before it was announced to the public.

And as questions grew over what the prime minister knew and when, the Liberal Democrats called for WhatsApps from his inner circle to be probed.

Dominic Grieve, the former Tory attorney general, warned the party was “held in contempt” by voters.

It came as new figures showed the Tories had been dwarfed by Labour on fundraising, raising just £292,500 between 6-12 June compared to £4.4m.

Amid Tory fears the scandal will spread, defence secretary Grant Shapps told The Independent he had not placed a bet.

Welsh secretary David TC Davies said: “I just want to put on record that I certainly haven’t bet myself”.

It is understood that transport secretary Mark Harper did not place a bet, while friends of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt say she did not either.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt referred questions from The Independent to his press office.

The scandal has seen the party’s director of campaigning, Tony Lee, “take a leave of absence” in the middle of the election. Meanwhile, his wife Laura Saunders – a candidate in Bristol and who has worked for the party since 2015 – and Craig Williams, Mr Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, are under investigation for placing bets on the poll date just before the surprise snap election was announced.

Mr Williams, who is Mr Sunak’s closest aide, has admitted he made a “huge error of judgement” betting on the election date.

Campaigning in Wales, Mr Sunak refused to be drawn on whether he was aware of other Conservative candidates or officials who had placed bets on a 4 July election, saying there were “multiple investigations” under way that were “independent” and “confidential”.

He dodged a follow-up question on whether he could rule out a member of the cabinet having also placed a bet, instead repeating that it was a job for the Gambling Commission and the police to investigate.

Anyone found to have broken the rules should “not only face the full consequences of the law, but I will ensure that they are booted out of the Conservative Party too”, he added.

The Conservatives have confirmed they have been contacted by the commission “about a small number of individuals”.

Sir Keir said: “The prime minister is showing a total lack of leadership. Of course he should suspend these candidates. If they were my candidates, they’d be gone by now, out of the door. He needs to take tough action. He’s not even saying today whether there are more involved.”

Liberal Democrats have called for WhatsApps about betting to be investigated. The party’s Sarah Olney said: “WhatsApp messages of the Prime Minister’s inner circle must be handed over to the Cabinet Office, or else it raises suspicion of yet more Conservative cover-ups.”

Mr Sunak has said he is “incredibly angry” that members of his inner circle have been caught up in the furore over bets on the date of the election.

But he has refused to suspend either candidate.

Betfair data appears to show a flurry of bets on a July election were placed on 21 May – the day before Mr Sunak made his surprise announcement – including some worth hundreds of pounds at odds that would have delivered returns in the thousands.

Paul Scully, a former Tory minister, described the looming vote as a “punishment election” for the party, that the outcry over gambling allegations would exacerbate.

“It feels like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot and we’re not millipedes. We’ve only got two feet,” he said. “When you’ve got people that are wanting to punish the Conservatives and so they’re going to be looking under the microscope at absolutely everything that we do, and then we’re making it easy for them to punish us even further on that basis.”

Mr Grieve said that voters recognised the “good” the coalition government did until 2015, “despite the pain” of austerity. But he said they had expected a much better period to follow.

Instead, Brexit had led to “a high level of political chaos which was thoroughly predictable and therefore rests upon the shoulders of those who created it in the first place, namely those who advocated a reckless policy,” Mr Grieve said.

“And then to solve it, because they were becoming desperate, they went and got themselves a prime minister [Boris Johnson] who was, in fact, a charlatan. And he behaved exactly in a way that was both predictable and predicted.

“And, in fact, for all his boosterism and the fact he took them to an extraordinary election, because charlatanism often works in the short term, people landed in the long term with a massive problem of loss of public confidence, and then loss of public confidence in the integrity of government.”

“Then they were so desperate … they went off and got somebody [Liz Truss] who wrecked the economy in 49 days and caused even more trouble.”

He added: “It seems to me that getting exactly the recognition they deserve for their efforts. Which is that they’re held in contempt by the electorate.”

He added that that was “unfair in one sense” to many, including the current prime minister. But that “it should not come as a surprise to [the party] that this is a punishment election”.