Sir Keir Starmer has taken aim at Rishi Sunak’s leadership ability over the election date betting scandal, accusing the prime minister of “failing to grasp the nettle” and take action quickly enough.
The Labour leader’s taunts came on the day Mr Sunak finally agreed to suspend candidates two weeks after the allegations first emerged. The scandal continued to deepen on Tuesday after Scotland Yard confirmed five more police officers were alleged to have placed bets on the timing of the general election. The Met said it had been passed information on the allegations from the Gambling Commission.
Speaking to The Independent, Sir Keir insisted that had it been Labour candidates involved in allegedly trying to use insider information to make bets they “would have been straight out of the door” and their “feet wouldn’t have touched the ground.”
The Labour leader made it clear that the final week of the election campaign will be about character and leadership over who is best placed to make the tough decisions and stamp his authority on the party and government.
The attack on the prime minister had echoes of the 2010 campaign where Gordon Brown was described as “frit” by David Cameron as he headed to defeat.
Craig Williams, the candidate for Montgomeryshire, was his parliamentary private secretary, and Laura Saunders, the candidate for Bristol North West, had worked for the party since 2015. Her husband, Tony Lee, has taken leave of absence and the Tory director of campaigning after also coming under investigation by the Gambling Commission.
Sir Keir spoke of his anger at the scandal which has tainted British politics and questioned why it took 13 days for Mr Sunak to take action.
“It’s a failure to grasp the nettle,” he said. “It’s, I don’t know how many days after the first I think admission, I think it’s 13 days, and certainly a good week and a bit since [it first broke]. If they had been my candidates, they’d have been straight out of the door and their feet wouldn’t have touched the floor, but to wait a week to see making excuses for acting like that.”
The Labour leader has himself been accused of delaying in taking action against candidates in the past including in the Rochdale by-election April when Labour’s candidate Azhar Ali was suspended for repeating conspiracy theories over Israel claiming they had orchestrated the Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023.
Ali’s words were first put to Labour on the Saturday and broke in the evening, after Labour attempted to defend not suspending him on the Sunday shows, further accusations were put to Labour on the Monday and he was suspended from the party.
Sir Keir said that this showed he and his party had acted quickly in comparison to Mr Sunak and the Tories.
“I think the issue blew up on the Sunday, and he [Ali] was gone by the Monday,” he said. “That was a by-election, where we were drawing the only candidate in the by-election, where basically we had to concede the by-election.”
Sir Keir’s comments came as Mr Williams, who has admitted having a flutter, defended himself after his suspension. He said he had “committed an error of judgment, not an offence” and “I intend to clear my name”.
But public anger over the issue has been unlined in a poll which shows that support is growing for people who gambled on elections from being barred from standing as candidates.
Almost two thirds (63 percent) of the UK public say that candidates who had placed bets on the date of the general election should not be allowed to stand, in research by Savanta conducted before (21 to 24 June) the Conservative Party’s announcement of withdrawing their support.
Savanta’s research underlines the challenges the prime minister faces, as over half (54 per cent) of Conservative voters say that the candidates shouldn’t have been allowed to stand.
Mr Sunak had withstood days of mounting calls to suspend those caught up in the row, with Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker the latest senior Tory to call for action.
In a bid to head off criticism on Monday, the prime minister announced the Conservatives were conducting their own probe into the row. But a day later this party said “as a result of ongoing internal enquiries” it can no longer support either candidate.
Mr Williams, one of Mr Sunak’s closest aides as his parliamentary private secretary, appeared to admit placing a bet on the election date just days before the Tory leader announced it, saying he made a “huge error of judgement”.
Meanwhile, Ms Saunders, who is running in Bristol North West and has worked for the party since 2015, is married to Tony Lee, the Conservative Party’s director of campaigns, who is also being probed by the gambling watchdog.
Despite being ditched by their party both Mr Williams – who is standing in Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr – and Ms Saunders will still be on ballot papers, as the deadline to change these has passed.
Mr Baker piled pressure on Mr Sunak on Monday when he told ITV: “I would call them up and ask them, ‘Did you do it?’ And if they did it, then they are suspended.
“But the prime minister would have to answer why he hasn’t done it, I haven’t got inside information on why the prime minister hasn’t done it.”
He joined senior Tories including Tobias Ellwood who also called for them to be suspended.
After the announcement, a Conservative former cabinet minister, Lord Frost, tweeted: “We get there in the end. But why did it take so long to come to a decision that seemed so necessary right from the start?”
Others tied to the Gambling Commission probe include the party’s chief data officer Nick Mason, who has taken a leave of absence from Tory HQ.
A close protection officer for the prime minister has also been suspended by the Metropolitan Police and is being investigated.