The escalating “betting-gate” scandal sums up almost everything that has gone wrong with the Sunak premiership—venality, bad judgement, the disintegration of the “last days of Rome”—and reminds the voters of it in the final run-up to the election.
Two MP candidates (who have now been dropped by the Tory party) and party officials “in the know” allegedly betting on the election date is scandalously reflective of the deep entitlement and ethical disintegration of this bunch of Tories after 14 years in power. In the public mind it harks back to Boris Johnson and Partygate, Michelle Mone and the PPE procurement scandal, all the lies over Brexit and levelling-up and everything else the Tories said and did that rankles with the public after these 14 tawdry Tory years.
All that is so obvious that it hardly needs writing. It is two other aspects of the affair which are perhaps more revealing of what has gone wrong under Sunak.
First, the reason why the bets were so lucrative is that the odds against a July election were so good—5/1 on the day before the election was called, when the bets were placed. And the reason why the odds were so good is that the bookies—like virtually everyone else with political judgement—could see that it would be a mistake to call a July election.
Apart from the initial element of surprise and appearance of control, which are rapidly diminishing assets over a six-week campaign, there was no good reason for calling an early election. It didn’t even wrongfoot Sunak’s principal opponent, since Labour turned out to be better prepared for an early election than the Tories themselves.
The arguments against an early election were huge. The economy was starting to turn. There was no public emergency. The general expectation was an autumn poll. Leave it longer and something might turn up. And Farage was set to be in the US in October and November.
A snap July election was a massive misjudgement by a desperate and panicked politician whose instinct is clearly to do the shocking thing because he can’t see anything else that might work. Even when it ought to be clear that the shocking thing isn’t viable beyond its initial announcement.
It was the same instinct which led Sunak to announce the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester at the Tory party conference in Manchester. Ditto his decision to proceed with the Rwanda scheme for illegal immigrants, which he previously opposed as chancellor, because it was shocking and he couldn’t think of anything else.
What’s more, having fought Liz Truss on huge unjustified tax cuts, he proceeded to introduce his own. This made him look dishonest, ridiculous and in denial about the crisis facing the NHS in particular. He didn’t repeat the Truss mistake of massive borrowing to fund his tax cuts, but everyone can see that the government’s own spending plans are unviable, especially for the NHS.
Maybe the worst aspect of betting-gate for the Tories is that it opened the door for Farage’s Reform as a populist displacement party. Reform was always going to be hard to fight off given the general failure of the government and the salience of migration as an issue, but now it is open season.
The irony is that Farage was Sunak’s one opponent who might’ve been blindsided by the early poll, because of the Reform leader’s aspirations to be in the US for the Trump election over the summer and autumn. He initially announced he was sitting out the campaign, only to change his mind during its first two weeks as he sensed the tide turning. And that was before betting-gate.
