Election panel: How damaging is the gambling scandal?

Britain goes to the polls next week. Is Labour headed for a landslide? Are the Tories headed for disaster? Prospect has invited 11 politics experts to an election group chat. Imagine a WhatsApp group of your most politically informed friends from across the ideological spectrum on-hand to discuss the biggest and smallest issues as the parties campaign for our votes. Last week, we asked our panellists whether they thought turnout would be higher or lower than last time. 

Today, we asked about the allegations that Tory insiders bet on the election date.

Emily Lawford: How damaging is gambling-gate for the Tories?

Moya Lothian-McLean: Stop, stop, they’re already dead!

The latter years of this Tory administration has been stained by sleaze—perhaps not new bad behaviour but certainly performed in such an unabashed way that public awareness of it has reached a high. The Tories were already doomed. This just further cements a reputation for not just egregious corruption in the inner court, but also being very stupid and obvious about it.

Matthew d’Ancona: There are now more nails than coffin. As Michael Gove conceded at the weekend, it is all too reminiscent of Partygate—one rule for us, one rule for them. The shabbiness has been compounded by Sunak’s epically indecisive response—which means that the story will run for days, and he will continue to be criticised for not (yet) suspending the candidates under investigation. It’s pathetic: the last, unethical spasm of a dying party.

Frances Ryan: When you consider the sheer scale and number of Tory scandals over the last 14 years—many of which did very little to dent them—it would be easy to be surprised at how quickly the betting scandal has (by all accounts) “broken through” to the doorstep. But it shows, I think, how the public mood has really shifted. To many, the betting scandal reinforces everything they’ve come to see defines the Tories: corruption, deceit and above all the “one rule for them, one rule for us” sense of entitlement that was so damaging during Partygate.

Or to put it another way: the floodgates are now open and the Tory party could very well drown.

Peter Kellner: Given how far the Conservatives had fallen before gamblingate, it’s possible (though given how extraordinary this nelection is, far from certain) that their support will not fall much further. The real impact of this latest self-inflicted crisis is that it is likely to prevent the recovery the Tories need if they are to climb back towards 200 seats and avoid complete catastrophe. As I—among many others—have said over the years, elections are tests of character more than policy. This is especially true for voters who are not already passionate supporters of a particular party. These less-than-committed voters tend not to follow the detailed arguments about taxes, public services, per capita growth statistics or whatever. They look for a party that is competent, honest, on their side and with a leader they can respect. Ask about the impact of gamblingate on these judgements of Rishi Sunak and his colleagues, and the answer is surely obvious.

By the way, should it be gamblingate or gamblinggate? 

Peter Hitchens: I expect it is damaging because it is so simple. I personally find it hard to be outraged, but then I so often do. Huge issues often turn on small scandals which can easily become village gossip. Marie Antoinette and the diamond necklace, Rasputin, the Stavisky Affair, John Major’s supposed sleaze. But if your luck is in, it is amazing what you can survive, eg Formula One, or nearly losing the Falklands. Like 1997, this is an immensely important national turning point, which appears to be a ramshackle circus or perhaps a revival of Noises Off.

Matthew Lesh: This election was always going to be difficult if not impossible for the Tories to win. Every incumbent democratic government that has overseen post-Covid inflation and falling standards of living has already or is likely to do poorly in the next election. But what’s extraordinary is just how badly this is going, largely because of so many self-inflicted scandals during the campaign. In the past the Conservatives’ campaign machine was thought to be ruthless. Can’t say that anymore.

Tim Bale: It just confirms the widespread feeling that the sooner Sunak and co are slung out of office, the better. The Tory brand—shrill, sleazy, divided, incompetent, untrustworthy and led by an overpromoted and overprivileged weakling—is now terminally toxic. Whoever’s brave (or foolish) enough to take over as leader after the election is (unless Starmer’s Labour messes up big time) going to have their work cut out to try and persuade the public to give them another go at government anytime soon.

Zoë Grünewald: This is exactly right. It’s more of the same—just confirming everyones worst perception of the Tories. Comparably gamblegate feels like one of the more minor discretions—which says a lot about how many terrible things have occurred under the government’s watch over the last few years. The danger is those swing/undecided voters who wondered if they should still just give the Tories ago are now being once again exposed to Tory scandal and sleaze just a couple of weeks out from a general election. It’ll cost them some votes‚but I think most had already made up their mind that the party was not to be trusted.

Moya Lothian-McLean: Here’s a useful answer! 

Nadine Batchelor-Hunt: Essentially I think it just reaffirms what a lot of people are thinking about the Tories, that sleaze isn’t a one-off but is institutional in the party right now.