Dear All,

Even in their final days in government, the Conservatives are embroiled in a scandal that questions their integrity and ha damaged their credibility. This is not exactly what a political party would want a few days short of a general election. However, it seems particularly apt in the case of a Conservative party whose time in government has been marked by all sorts of scandals involving money and greed.

The betting scandal involves an investigation by the UK’s Gambling Commission, a watchdog organisation that monitors the betting sector and flags up any bets that seem suspicious. In this case, it all started with a bet concerning the date of the general election. This was deemed suspicious because it was placed three days before the elections were announced.

As you may recall this announcement was somewhat unexpected. Most people had expected an autumn date. The sudden announcement by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was something that nobody was anticipating. Therefore, the fact that a Conservative MP placed a bet on the election date being July 4 – three days before the announcement, raised alarm as to whether this was a case of trying to benefit from insider information.

The person who placed the bet was Craig Williams, Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary. Soon after The Guardian newspaper revealed that Williams was being investigated by the Gambling Commission, a few other Tory names were added to the investigation. These included Tony Lee, the Conservative party’s campaign director and by his wife Laura Sanders who is a parliamentary candidate, as well as Nick Mason, the party’s chief data officer. Another Conservative Party member Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary; and Russell George, a Tory member of the Welsh parliament, are also being investigated.

Russell George represents the same constituency (Montogomeryshire) as Craig Williams does. He announced that he has ‘stepped back from the [Welsh] shadow cabinet while the investigation is ongoing. Rishi Sunak is being severely criticised for his failure to react quickly and take swift action after this story broke, even though opposition parties (Labour in particular) said that this was shocking given that Williams and Sanders were Tory candidates in the election and that the Conservative Party should distance itself from these two candidates. It took Sunak close to two weeks to do this. The two have not been suspended or expelled from the party. The party has simply said that it is no longer supporting them i.e. they are no longer official Conservative candidates.

The betting scandal is perhaps emblematic of the behaviour of the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010: it is behaviour that places private gain and individual profit above ethical behaviour and accountability. The bets on the general election dates, for example, seem to be a case of using insider information for personal gain. This is unethical. How much, or how little, these individuals stood to gain from the bets is irrelevant. What is relevant is that they thought such actions were okay.

The truth is that nobody was really surprised when this scandal broke because the Conservatives’ reputation is already compromised by the spate of scandals concerning lucrative deals to supply PPE equipment during the pandemic. Many of these were deals given to friends, cronies and donors. Quite a few of these involved substandard or unusable equipment which then had to be stored and/ or destroyed for a further cost.

One of the most notorious of these deals concerned the Tory peer Michele Mone, whose husband’s newly set up company (Medpro) was awarded government contracts for over £200 million after she recommended the firm to government ministers. The gowns supplied by the firm were deemed to be unusable and substandard and could not be used in the NHS. Mone and her husband have since fled Britain and spent quite a lot of time on luxury yacht purchased, coincidentally, around the same time as they got these supply contracts.

Therefore, it is not totally surprising that the Conservatives are embroiled in another scandal. What is still surprising is that standards of public service and parliamentary behaviour generally have fallen to such a low level. And this seems to be something Labour is not innocent of either. A Labour candidate, Kevin Craig, is also being investigated because he recently bet against himself. He has since been suspended and expelled from the party. Some commentators argue that Kevin Craig’s bet was not really problematic since he was not benefitting from insider knowledge. They also point out that betting is legal.

The fact that such a view is being expressed shows not just how low standards in public life have sunk but also that there is now a lot of confusion as to what constitutes unethical or objectionable behaviour.

The waters have been well and truly muddied.

Best wishes.

Umber Khairi