In politics, as in comedy, timing is often important.
And you would have thought the Conservative official in charge of social media might have sensed the danger before running an ad on party channels featuring a roulette wheel and the caption: “If you bet on Labor, you’ll never win.”
Because just a few hours after the button was pressed on that post, the following facts were confirmed: A second Tory candidate was being investigated. The suspicion is that he made a bet on the timing of the general election just before it was made public.
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Now we also know that Bristol North West standee Laura Saunders is married to the party’s campaign director. It is believed that this person could potentially have access to her personal information regarding the election.
This is important legally because it is a crime to use inside information that has not been revealed to others to gain an unfair advantage when betting.
The Gambling Commission did not name the individuals but said it was “investigating possible criminality related to Election Day”.
But the situation is also politically important for two reasons.
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Firstly, to state the obvious, there are two weeks left until polling day and the current government is: They are lagging badly in opinion polls..
At least Rishi Sunak wants to talk about the dangers (in his view) of a Labor administration, and certainly not activities that seem suspicious in his own ranks.
Minutes and inches are more important in the final stages of an election campaign, and this is another story that sucks up bandwidth and crowds out the message the Conservatives want to get out.
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Second, this story has the potential to be damaging because it focuses on existing political vulnerabilities in the Conservative Party.
More specifically, it runs the risk of being woven into the toxic political juggernaut of a topic often known as “Tory vulgarity.”
So the thought process might go something like this: “They were partying when the country was in lockdown, their colleagues were making money off PPE amid the pandemic, and now they’re even trying to make money on general election day.”
That’s right. The party will argue that in all these cases it is right to claim that a small number of people broke the rules.
But in the glare of a campaign, that may not matter. D-Day Story It consisted of accusations against the Prime Minister, who was out of touch. This story risks hurting the election.
Read more on Sky News.
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There is one caveat, though.
We at Westminster can sometimes exaggerate the extent to which stories like this harm a political party. But the reality is that it often serves to hurt all politicians in the minds of voters, regardless of their affiliation.
This may be offset by the political emphasis on political parties that elections inevitably bring.
But the campaign was marked by apathy and lack of faith in the wider political class, so don’t be surprised if this latest scandal erodes trust in all would-be leaders.
