Betting scandal is worse for the Tories than Rishi's D-Day blunder | Westminster Source

Rishi Sunak surprised the nation when he called the election for July 4th. We will have a general election on the 4th of July. But what none of us saw at the time was how central that date would be in a growing gambling scandal. So the campaign is almost over. That gives us journalists a chance to step back and see what is the story of the last five or six weeks. I think actually the big picture situation is not that much has changed. That Labour poll lead, about 20 percentage points, has remained all the way throughout the campaign. Yes, Labour and the Tories have both ticked down a little. The smaller parties have increased, but fundamentally there hasn't been a dramatic switch in the race. That's different to some previous races, 2010, 2015, we're both close races. It was unclear what the result would be. Now. We never know until all the votes are counted. But there is a wide expectation looking at the polls that Labour are going to become the next government. I am excited. It's been a long time coming. I'm looking for a change, getting along with almost everybody else around here, I think. I think when you look back, there's been one really fundamental big moment in this race and that was the return of Nigel Farage. He took over the Reform leadership. He also decided to stand as an MP in Clacton, despite telling us he wasn't going to be doing that. I've changed my mind. It's allowed. You know, I think he represents the working Class A lot more than general politicians do. I mean, they're so out of touch with the working class. And what you've seen since then is actually reform surging in the polls. They got up to around 1516 percentage points in the polls. That was up from around 11 points when he took over. He is also drawing huge crowds, 1000 people plus turning out to some of his events and reformed surge has been a nightmare for the Tories. Suddenly in a whole swathe of seats they are looking vulnerable in a way they weren't a couple of months ago. Tories, they need to kick up the backside really, don't they? It's also been a campaign, I think it's fair to say, of Tory missteps. You had that moment at the very beginning, Rishi Sunak being drenched in the rain as he announced the election. I mean, seriously, we had the Prime Minister drenched in rain, his voice drowned out by the boogie blaster. And there were also a few other missteps. He appeared at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast that drew a load of jokes. And, of course, there was that D-Day moment when Rishi Sunak decided to head home early from the 80th anniversary commemorations in France. And so David Cameron stepped in in that photo with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Schultz is these events are all about the veterans and he doesn't want politics to get in the way of that. He had a long standing plan to return to the UK after the British event and not go to the international event. And but he said on reflection, he he wished he had stayed in France. But perhaps the defining Tory misstep certainly at the end of this campaign has been the betting scandal. Well, like you, I was incredibly angry. Incredibly angry to learn of these allegations. So why has this been so impactful? I think the critical point is to understand that the Conservative Party has a real weak spot. It's all about being seen as out of touch with the public. But worse than that, having one rule for themselves and another rule for ordinary people. This idea that Tories were trying to line their pockets while the country was thinking about picking the next government is just so damaging. You could see in the recent TV debate Keir Starmer trying to tie this into wider scandals in a similar area, Party Gate in particular, the Labour leader bought up that Rishi Sunak had been fined for a COVID breach in lockdown a few months ago. I remember talking to someone very senior in the Tory campaign who told me they were very nervous about this narrative of the party helping their own and their supporters on the way out of office. It was actually one of the reasons they didn't go for a cut to inheritance tax, something quite a few Tory MPs were lobbying for. There was this feeling that if they did that it would look like they were handing out cash to their supporters and not the wider country. And I'm sure Labour would have jumped on that narrative too. So you can imagine they are pulling their hair out of the fact that this narrative is dominating the final week of the election campaign. And that's how she born out in the opinion polls. There was a Sedanta poll for the Telegraph recently that showed 2/3 of voters thought it was unacceptable that Tories had bet on the election date. But what's fascinating is when you drill down into party specifics, that was true too. Among Lib Dem voters, Labour voters, Reform voters and Tory voters, about 2/3 of them all thought this was not acceptable. I committed an error of judgement looking back at the entirety of the race. I was talking to one Labour insider who made the argument actually it wasn't D-Day but this Tory betting scandal that was most damaging. They said that fundamentally, people don't think Rishi Sunak dislikes or dismisses veterans, but there is this perception that him and his party are out of touch and the betting scandal just hits that sensitive spot directly. At the start, all the headlines were about Rishi Sunak declaring in the rain, but it turns out the more significant damage was done by something happening just before that moment.