Tory campaign engulfed by election gambling scandal

The Conservatives are facing electoral meltdown after the scandal over betting on the election date engulfed the party’s top campaign team.

- DAVID MADDOX

The party admitted its director of campaigning, Tony Lee, had “taken a leave of absence” hours after it was revealed that his wife, Laura Saunders, was being investigated by the Gambling Commission. Ms Saunders is the Tory candidate for Bristol North West and has worked for the party since 2015.

With the party’s electoral hopes in freefall, the forced departure of a senior campaign figure just two weeks before the polls open could not have come at a worse time for Rishi Sunak. Meanwhile, a Redfield and Wilton poll has become the latest to put Reform UK ahead of the Tories, on 19 per cent against 18 per cent.

Reform leader Nigel Farage was quick to capitalise on the Tories’ problems, saying: “From all the news that’s breaking today, it looks like the Conservative Party is more corrupt than even its worst critics could have imagined. They are literally stealing the lightbulbs on the way out the door. This is another shocking scandal.”

Gallows humour among Tory MPs was summed up by former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is facing defeat in his Chingford and Woodford Green seat. He told the News Agents podcast: “They say it is armageddon, but I armageddon on with it here in this constituency.”

The scandal, which also involves one of the police officers on Mr Sunak’s close protection team along with his chief parliamentary aide, Craig Williams, broke as postal voters are already completing and returning their ballots.

Tory candidates and MPs have told The Independent that the scandal, which comes in the wake of the outcry over Mr Sunak’s decision to make an early exit from a D-Day commemoration event earlier this month, is “absolutely killing” their hopes of getting elected.