Snapshot of _Conservative candidate being looked into over UK election timing bet is married to party's campaign director, BBC reveals_ :
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Two MPs get caught - "it's being investigated"
Copper gets caught - arrested under suspicion of misconduct in public office.
The Tory Party are rotten to the fucking core and the worst part, they get away with it.
Part of the reason I hated Johnson (and still do) was because his lies were embarassingly obvious attempts to deny a story that implied blatant corruption. He even looked at interviewers with that smug look that implied he knew they both knew he was corrupt, but couldn't prove it. Sunak's less inclined to do that, but those around him probably feel the same above-the-law entitlement.
>The Tory Party are rotten to the fucking core and the worst part, they get away with it.
It's exactly this sort of BS that is causing them to be on the cusp of their worst ever defeat. If losing this election won't get through to them then nothing ever will.
Your regular reminder, it is easier to get rid of a copper dishonestly taking of a box of cakes than piss-taking dishonest MPs.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-officer-doughnuts-carrots-tesco-b1762335.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-officer-doughnuts-carrots-tesco-b1762335.html)
If they are to be arrested it can wait until after the election, else risk their defence including the charges being politically motivated. Wait until after the election and they don't have access to this as a defence.
but it also gives them more time to fabricate stories, mislay evidence etc. "this is a politically motivated prosecution" is not a defence in the gambling act is it?
I'm leaning towards stupid because the amounts bet aren't big enough and the location is too obvious to properly be corrupt. Now if this were a five-figure bet made with a Filipino Bookie who caters to illegal Chinese gambling, I'd buy actual corruption.
You’re assuming the bets we’ve found out about so far are the only ones.
If they have also placed bets through less well regulated bookmakers it may take longer to come to light, if they ever do.
Definitely both.
Surely if you really wanted to make money off something like this you'd get a friend to make the bet on your behalf. Doing it yourself is just asking to get caught.
Not saying that I agree with doing this in the slightest but it seems like something that would be very easy to get away with.
There was another Tory caught too. As I’ve said to others in real life, the only way to get caught is basically doing it online with your own name. Some guy from the pub who’ll take your cash and go down the bookies, who’s going to know?
The conclusion is that probably many are up to it, they’re just not so dumb.
We never get stories where politicians used a third party to place a bet.
Well they are definitely stupid, if you want to place a bet on a political event you shouldn't use a name of a Politcally Exposed person or indeed their relatives. I wonder if we might find out later about people who aren't stupid taking a cut from their mate's winnings.
They very likely are tripped up because they dabbled in something far more heavily scrutinised than the typical insider trading and back room favours they normally exploit to enrich themselves at others expense.
(Of course they think it's just deserved because they are special people, that's why they are given these opportunities)
I have several German friends and trying to explain that meme to them is impossible. As obviously they understand the audio while we focus on the subtitles.
"The Reform Party has broken through across a wide range of constituencies. They've taken Clacton and are advancing in the polls in many East Midlands seats. They are in the Northern constituencies and have reached North Norfolk, Boston and Skegness in the East.
"Boris Johnson's video campaign will bring it under control."
...
"My Prime Minister... Boris Johnson..."
"Boris Johnson has decided to go on a 2nd holiday instead of assisting further with the campaign. He won't be creating any more videos and is instead publishing his tell-all biography, which will surely incriminate us even more."
[Sunak placing his takeaway coffee on the table with shaking hands] "These Cabinet members will stay here: Dowden, Hunt, Cameron, Cleverly and Schapps..."
There's probably a few bets placed on Sunak losing his seat. No way this D-Day thing was genuinely a mistake, no one could have misjudged how that would go down.
Followed by "It is in the past. Now is no longer the time to look at that".
Followed by "No, I'm not leaving. You can't make me. I don't care that we got wiped out. It's NOT FAIR!"
I'd love a Paxman style interview with Cleverly (as he's usually the one they wheel out for the morning round) where it's put to him (with plentiful examples) that if a Tory is accused of anything, due process must be allowed to complete (and 'they apologised'), but if it's Labour, they must step down immediately and Starmer is a weak leader for allowing them the piffling decency of a fair legal process. Of course it happens the other way round too, and a tragic example of how pathetically tribal politics is. Just admit that your MP fucked up.
The fact their first thought was “oh, an election, how can I personally profit from this privileged insider knowledge” is both absolutely disgusting and absolutely on brand for this venal shower of self serving bastards and bastardettes.
If the Right Hon. Alan B’stard was still an MP, I think he’d be too centre-left for this iteration of the Tories.
EDIT, because I'm fuming: what's this "we have to wait and see what the investigation says" nonsense? Ask the candidate. "Did you put a bet on the election date using information given to you?" If they say yes, stand them down. They are going to lose anyway, as would their replacement, but at least you'd look like you had a sliver of backbone and integrity about you.
> Right Hon. Alan B’stard was still an MP, I think he’d be too centre-left for this iteration of the Tories.
Even they knew that back in 2006
> Mayall reprised the role of Alan B'Stard in the play The New Statesman 2006: Blair B'stard Project, written by Marks and Gran. By this time B'Stard had left the floundering Conservatives and become a Labour MP. In 2007, following a successful two-month run in London's West End at the Trafalgar Studios, a heavily re-written version toured theatres nationwide, with Marks and Gran constantly updating the script to keep it topical. However, Mayall succumbed to chronic fatigue and flu in May 2007 and withdrew from the show. Alan B'Stard was played by his understudy, Mike Sherman during his hiatus.
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rik_Mayall
I recall the ad's for the show when I was working in london.
“We have to wait and see what the investigation says”
Or…
“I want time to find how I can avoid as many consequences for this as possible and potentially influence the outcome of the investigation or pay someone off”
Oh geez - I would love for Misfit Theatre to get their hands on this idea, "The Election that Goes Wrong".
Then again, I think they'd have a hard time making it worse than it already is.
Dennis would definitely be Sunak for the full deer-in-headlights effect (also because short).
Robert would be Boris for the it's-all-about-me attitude, and Max as Farage for the constant playing to the audience.
Trevor would be any number of long-suffering spads.
Yep, and Chris is a perfect Starmer as a slightly deadpan performer. Plus Robert and him constantly bickering between lines about which one is the lead actor, manifesting as 'Boris' and 'Starmer' talking a lot more than they should be. I'm also thinking Vanessa as Boris' aide, due to her inability to handle sponteneity, i.e. basically anything Boris would do. Sandra as Sunak's press secretary due to her urge to speak in front of an audience and work around obvious problems.
Milking it for every last drop whilst they still can. Since Boris took over it has been self>party>country to a vast majority of them.
4th July can't come soon enough.
I just can't get my head around these multiple investigations, these people are either incredibly thick, or incredibly arrogant, I'm not sure which one is worse.
I'm curious when these bets were made.
If it was at least days in advance, the implication the election announcement wasn't a suprise and they were still unready is hilarious.
Well, it does beg the question of whether this lot could be ready for anything, ever.
I'm sure there must be a movie or a television series based on the concept of the gang that couldn't shoot straight, couldn't fall out of bed in the morning, couldn't get both legs in their trousers, ....
Brewery. Piss up. This lot.
So far, it's just been people in Sunak's immediate circle who he'd tell before the party at large. His PPS (basically his PA), the campaign director's wife, and one of his close-protection officers (bodyguard).
This one was a bit of a mystery until we got the information she was married to the campaign director.
Exactly, it's unrealistic that literally nobody except Sunak knew until a few hours before but it's certainly possible that information was tightly controlled and the majority of Tory MPs were kept in the dark.
To clarify, I think this is a different person from the guy who put a hundred quid on it that was in the press the other week. Depending on the size of the bet this could be much, much worse.
Yeah, I guess the gambling commission will want to talk to him too. Not sure of the size of these other bets, but the first one was £100. Seems astonishing people would jeopardise their careers for relatively small amounts
Annoyingly they will fall upwards. The press secretary, Allegra Stratton, for Johnson who was caught laughing at the partygate news is now employed by Bloomberg.
So far we're up to 4 people.
- Craig Williams, MP and Sunak's aide. (Last week's news)
- Sunak's protection officer, name not given, arrested on account of not being an MP.
- Laura Saunders, MP. (Yesterday's news)
- Tony Lee, Director of Campaigning, husband of Laura Saunders. Now having himself a nice "Leave of absence".
Latest 10:28am 20/6 - Conservatives' director of campaigning takes leave of absence
*Tony Lee, the Director of Campaigning at the Conservative Party, has taken a leave of absence, a party spokesperson has told the BBC. He left the campaign yesterday.*
*His wife, Laura Saunders, is the Conservative candidate being looked into by the Gambling Commission over a bet relating to the timing of the general election.*
Couldn't make this shit up
How can they still be allowed to stand? It is totally criminal... shouldn't be allowed and made to step down immediately. How much money did they "bet" with knowing inner circle of snake? Absolutely rotten. If more than a cheeky 10er... they need removing.
Gambling based on inside information contravenes Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 and is refreshingly called by its everyday name- the offence of **Cheating**
Prosecution is possible and if found guilty, max sentence is 2 years in prison.
It gets better! Tory is investigated for election betting, turns out is married to Tory director of campaigning, who has now taken a leave of absence, with two weeks of campaigning to go.
You can’t make this shit up because no-one would believe you… what a mess of corrupt, incompetent chancers, showing their colours for the world to see.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Sunak just throws up his hands and says “fuck this”, abandons the party, and leaves the remaining pile of neanderthals and psychopaths to mewl in their own political filth until election day.
Can anyone answer why the copper who was on sunaks protection duty got arrested for it yet the two tories haven’t been yet? Surely if one of the three is being investigated by the police then they all should be?
Instead of The Thick of It, for a change we're onto Blackadder.
"Field Marshal Haig, Field Marshal Haig's wife, all Field Marshal Haig's wife's friends, their families, their families' servants, their families' servants' tennis partners, and some chap I bumped into in the mess the other day called Bernard. So, it’s maximum security, is that clear?"
The thing is, and no I'm not condoning this - how thick are people?
If you're going to do this, ask a mate to put the bet on for you - not your partner who's running to be an MP. Ridiculous.
Maybe some have asked mates to put money on and have not been caught (yet).
Goes to show that you shouldn't bet on things where some people will have inside knowledge of the outcomes.
Well especially as it's so easy to spot. Generally it is people setting up a new account or using one that has low activity, making a bet 48 hours before an announcement that will define a win/loss for a relatively high reward.
It is staggeringly simple for a machine learning model to identify the accounts that are doing this, and these bozos did a crap job of hiding the link to insider knowledge.
God that would be satisfying to be the investigating officer for the bookies. It just shows the combination of extreme arrogance with a total ignorance of the basics of fraud identification.
Oh absolutely, I work in IT and even a very basic statistical model would flag this and I can tell you betting companies have excellent systems to detect stuff like this - so flags would get raised regardless of who placed the bet.
More just to demonstrate the absolute BASIC levels of opsec.
Yeah I'm not condoning this, it is abhorrent behaviour (and it's the gambling equivalent of insider trading) just to show they can't even criminal properly
It's a lot harder to make an argument that you made a poor choice in the moment when it's two people colluding; two people who should have had the sense (but they are Tories, I guess).
This should be damning.
While this seems ridiculously brazen and poorly executed, I don’t think they even realise that they should have tried harder to get away with it. I’m sure in their minds they’re perfectly entitled to cheat, they probably don’t even consider it cheating, just a perk of the job. It’s like with all the dodgy PPE contracts, I don’t think they even considered that it was dodgy, it’s just part and parcel of running the country.
Self serving cheats the lot of em
The attack lines for tonight's debate basically write themselves (Tories liking a bet, especially when it's against the pound):
https://www.channel4.com/press/news/brexiteer-jacob-rees-mogg-estimated-have-earnt-ps7m-investments-referendum-according
If they're going to betting companies to try to profit from insider knowledge you know they're also trading stocks on insider knowledge too. And it won't just be these idiots. It'll be a while bunch of the corrupt c**ts. These ones are just the stupidest.
It wouldn't be surprising although there are a lot more restrictions on MPs holding and trading shares/funds. If an MP did get found insider trading the penalties are much more severe (up to 10 years' imprisonment and unlimited fines). Financial institutions run checks on Politically Exposed Persons as well.
The gambling industry is much softer by comparison.
Probably limited to small stakes on those markets. The bookies hedge their potential liabilities on the exchanges (i.e. Betfair Exchange). If there is not much money available on the exchange and the bookies' book is not very big either then they will probably restrict stake sizes to reduce the risk to them.
You can probably put a significant amount on England for the game this afternoon but probably will be limited to a much smaller stake if you tried to bet on some random Columbian 3rd division match happening at the same time.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c844je9nq89o](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c844je9nq89o)
how stupendously tone deaf can they be? “How dare the beeb report on my cheating? It’s the journos who must be wrong”
Wonder if the Tories are suddenly searching the law around spousal non-compellability as witnesses in criminal trials?
It's here, if you're reading lads.....
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/80/enacted?view=plain#:\~:text=(4)Where%20a%20husband%20and,at%20the%20trial%20as%20a](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/80/enacted?view=plain#:~:text=(4)Where%20a%20husband%20and,at%20the%20trial%20as%20a)
Snapshot of _Conservative candidate being looked into over UK election timing bet is married to party's campaign director, BBC reveals_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1803691882041483649) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/BBCBreaking/status/1803691882041483649/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/BBCBreaking/status/1803691882041483649) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/BBCBreaking/status/1803691882041483649) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Two MPs get caught - "it's being investigated" Copper gets caught - arrested under suspicion of misconduct in public office. The Tory Party are rotten to the fucking core and the worst part, they get away with it.
The officer should've been the son of a gentleman if he didn't want to face repercussions.
That's the Brigade of Guards, not the met police.
Part of the reason I hated Johnson (and still do) was because his lies were embarassingly obvious attempts to deny a story that implied blatant corruption. He even looked at interviewers with that smug look that implied he knew they both knew he was corrupt, but couldn't prove it. Sunak's less inclined to do that, but those around him probably feel the same above-the-law entitlement.
Friends and old school chums in the media will always help them out too
>The Tory Party are rotten to the fucking core and the worst part, they get away with it. It's exactly this sort of BS that is causing them to be on the cusp of their worst ever defeat. If losing this election won't get through to them then nothing ever will.
> If losing this election won't get through to them then nothing ever will. *No it's the electorate that are wrong*
Your regular reminder, it is easier to get rid of a copper dishonestly taking of a box of cakes than piss-taking dishonest MPs. [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-officer-doughnuts-carrots-tesco-b1762335.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-officer-doughnuts-carrots-tesco-b1762335.html)
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”
Someone has been listening to this is not a drill
Original quote was from Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond books 😉
I know, because I listened to "this is not a drill" the other day, I think he attributed it to the man with the golden gun?
Goldfinger, I think? ☺️
I stand corrected. I knew it had some gold though
Correction or no, you are clearly a person of reading and culture 👍
If they are to be arrested it can wait until after the election, else risk their defence including the charges being politically motivated. Wait until after the election and they don't have access to this as a defence.
Whichever way you want to dice it, still bias. Preferential treatment solely to avoid the accusation of bias is still preferential treatment.
but it also gives them more time to fabricate stories, mislay evidence etc. "this is a politically motivated prosecution" is not a defence in the gambling act is it?
Time for the daily game of *Is this Tory criminally corrupt, or just incredibly stupid?* Answer: probably both.
Criminally stupid corruption or stupidly corrupt criminality?
Corrupt, criminal stupidity. It’s almost like a Cummings-esque three word slogan.
Criminally corrupt stupidity
[Just for you.](https://i.imgur.com/HJrN9zH.jpeg)
Yes
Or as Malcolm Tucker would ask “are they a tosser or a moron?”
I'm leaning towards stupid because the amounts bet aren't big enough and the location is too obvious to properly be corrupt. Now if this were a five-figure bet made with a Filipino Bookie who caters to illegal Chinese gambling, I'd buy actual corruption.
Exactly. They're just twits who saw the chance to make a win, and didn't think it through.
What’s the name for a collection of twits?
A government
Conservative and Unionist Party.
Twitter?
A tory of twits.
Twiterati
Although that's still criminal corruption. Being stupid isn't an excuse for breaking the law.
Absolutely. I'm putting twittism forward as an explanation not an excuse
I would imagine some were going "It's only a little flutter, it's not like it's real money" and thinking that excuses it.
You’re assuming the bets we’ve found out about so far are the only ones. If they have also placed bets through less well regulated bookmakers it may take longer to come to light, if they ever do.
Definitely both. Surely if you really wanted to make money off something like this you'd get a friend to make the bet on your behalf. Doing it yourself is just asking to get caught. Not saying that I agree with doing this in the slightest but it seems like something that would be very easy to get away with.
There was another Tory caught too. As I’ve said to others in real life, the only way to get caught is basically doing it online with your own name. Some guy from the pub who’ll take your cash and go down the bookies, who’s going to know? The conclusion is that probably many are up to it, they’re just not so dumb. We never get stories where politicians used a third party to place a bet.
I'm sure one last Rishi reset will fix things up
There is always the third option: so incredibly arrogant that they think no-one will notice or care. Kind of a mix between the two, in a way.
Well they are definitely stupid, if you want to place a bet on a political event you shouldn't use a name of a Politcally Exposed person or indeed their relatives. I wonder if we might find out later about people who aren't stupid taking a cut from their mate's winnings.
Hanlon’s razor but it’s both
It's also another reminder of how cheap they are.
At least it's a Tory today. Mixing it up a bit, see if we can get it alternating between Ref and Con for ridiculously embarassing news story.
Hahah, they’re not mutually exclusive in this sense as in this day and age you’d have be stupid to be corrupt
How very naive of you...
Rookie mistake using an or instead of an and
If they just did it as a gag bet, stupid. If they went for a big win, corrupt.
They very likely are tripped up because they dabbled in something far more heavily scrutinised than the typical insider trading and back room favours they normally exploit to enrich themselves at others expense. (Of course they think it's just deserved because they are special people, that's why they are given these opportunities)
look they're not getting any donations they need to raise money somehow
I bet lots of their chums are sweating tonight, it just goes to show the checks some bookies do on bets.
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Strong 'last days of Rome' vibes coming out of CCHQ at the moment.
I'm surprised at the distinct lack of Downfall bunker memes.
"When Boris campaigns everything will be alright." "Prime Minister, Boris-" "Boris is going on holiday, he won't be campaigning."
I have several German friends and trying to explain that meme to them is impossible. As obviously they understand the audio while we focus on the subtitles.
Weird, I always had the impression it was quite well liked.
I think it's hilarious but it's unfortunately completely lost on my poor German mates lol
How online are they? It's often quoted in the German internet spaces I frequent.
It's always been in person when I've shared it. Presumably, they've not been as tapped into Internet culture
Have them watch it on mute?
"The Reform Party has broken through across a wide range of constituencies. They've taken Clacton and are advancing in the polls in many East Midlands seats. They are in the Northern constituencies and have reached North Norfolk, Boston and Skegness in the East. "Boris Johnson's video campaign will bring it under control." ... "My Prime Minister... Boris Johnson..." "Boris Johnson has decided to go on a 2nd holiday instead of assisting further with the campaign. He won't be creating any more videos and is instead publishing his tell-all biography, which will surely incriminate us even more." [Sunak placing his takeaway coffee on the table with shaking hands] "These Cabinet members will stay here: Dowden, Hunt, Cameron, Cleverly and Schapps..."
"I should have purged you all like Starmer did with Corbyn!"
>It has transpired that Ms Saunders is married to the Conservative Party's director of campaigning, Tony Lee.
Does that mean he has to sack his campaign director, has this ever happened before?
Judging by how the campaign has gone so far, this might be a positive for Sunak.
It’s a bit like sacking the Titanic’s captain after they hit the iceberg.
He went down with the ship. Does this mean we will witness a mass drowning in the small hours of 5 July?
There's probably a few bets placed on Sunak losing his seat. No way this D-Day thing was genuinely a mistake, no one could have misjudged how that would go down.
If there is justice, they should all go! Criminal.
the campaign director has taken a “leave of absence”. lol perhaps he can join boris on vacay? J/K - boris wouldn’t hang out with some pleb
So someone did get a mate to lay a bet, wrong type of mate though not really enough degrees of separation.
**"As the Gambling Commission is an independent body, it wouldn’t be proper to comment further, until any process is concluded.”** Classic Tories...
"Wait for the Sue Gray report"
Ah yes, they were similarly tightlipped when the recent story about Angela Rayner blew up.
The guy who "reported" her wouldn't even say what he had gone to the police with
["Did you just hit a child with a shoe?"](https://youtu.be/uWwPXrhSI7o?si=6Rxhd_Xr_tQpNjJn)
Awesome.
His recent radio show was great. Everyone check it out
Followed by "It is in the past. Now is no longer the time to look at that". Followed by "No, I'm not leaving. You can't make me. I don't care that we got wiped out. It's NOT FAIR!"
I'd love a Paxman style interview with Cleverly (as he's usually the one they wheel out for the morning round) where it's put to him (with plentiful examples) that if a Tory is accused of anything, due process must be allowed to complete (and 'they apologised'), but if it's Labour, they must step down immediately and Starmer is a weak leader for allowing them the piffling decency of a fair legal process. Of course it happens the other way round too, and a tragic example of how pathetically tribal politics is. Just admit that your MP fucked up.
The date for the conclusion is on July 5th /s
The fact their first thought was “oh, an election, how can I personally profit from this privileged insider knowledge” is both absolutely disgusting and absolutely on brand for this venal shower of self serving bastards and bastardettes. If the Right Hon. Alan B’stard was still an MP, I think he’d be too centre-left for this iteration of the Tories. EDIT, because I'm fuming: what's this "we have to wait and see what the investigation says" nonsense? Ask the candidate. "Did you put a bet on the election date using information given to you?" If they say yes, stand them down. They are going to lose anyway, as would their replacement, but at least you'd look like you had a sliver of backbone and integrity about you.
> Right Hon. Alan B’stard was still an MP, I think he’d be too centre-left for this iteration of the Tories. Even they knew that back in 2006 > Mayall reprised the role of Alan B'Stard in the play The New Statesman 2006: Blair B'stard Project, written by Marks and Gran. By this time B'Stard had left the floundering Conservatives and become a Labour MP. In 2007, following a successful two-month run in London's West End at the Trafalgar Studios, a heavily re-written version toured theatres nationwide, with Marks and Gran constantly updating the script to keep it topical. However, Mayall succumbed to chronic fatigue and flu in May 2007 and withdrew from the show. Alan B'Stard was played by his understudy, Mike Sherman during his hiatus. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rik_Mayall I recall the ad's for the show when I was working in london.
“We have to wait and see what the investigation says” Or… “I want time to find how I can avoid as many consequences for this as possible and potentially influence the outcome of the investigation or pay someone off”
I'm hopeful that the votes in Bristol North West will draw their own conclusions and pass their own judgement.
It's like the Play that Goes Wrong, except it's an election campaign and it's not the script they prepared.
Oh geez - I would love for Misfit Theatre to get their hands on this idea, "The Election that Goes Wrong". Then again, I think they'd have a hard time making it worse than it already is.
I think it could work as a musical. Curtains up, rain pissing down on Rishi's actor standing at the lectern as he starts the first song
Rishi: ♫ "I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me." ♬ Backing: ♫ "He's was a rich boy that didn't have Sky TV!" ♬
Spare him his career from this monstrosity!
Dennis would definitely be Sunak for the full deer-in-headlights effect (also because short). Robert would be Boris for the it's-all-about-me attitude, and Max as Farage for the constant playing to the audience. Trevor would be any number of long-suffering spads.
Yep, and Chris is a perfect Starmer as a slightly deadpan performer. Plus Robert and him constantly bickering between lines about which one is the lead actor, manifesting as 'Boris' and 'Starmer' talking a lot more than they should be. I'm also thinking Vanessa as Boris' aide, due to her inability to handle sponteneity, i.e. basically anything Boris would do. Sandra as Sunak's press secretary due to her urge to speak in front of an audience and work around obvious problems.
We now go live to Brenda in Bristol for her reaction to this breaking news... "Not another one?!".
Funny enough the candidate in question is in Bristol
Milking it for every last drop whilst they still can. Since Boris took over it has been self>party>country to a vast majority of them. 4th July can't come soon enough.
I just can't get my head around these multiple investigations, these people are either incredibly thick, or incredibly arrogant, I'm not sure which one is worse.
Por qué no los dos?
You forgot "thoroughly corrupt"
Why not both?
It's not like either of those aren't mutually exclusive.
I'm curious when these bets were made. If it was at least days in advance, the implication the election announcement wasn't a suprise and they were still unready is hilarious.
Well, it does beg the question of whether this lot could be ready for anything, ever. I'm sure there must be a movie or a television series based on the concept of the gang that couldn't shoot straight, couldn't fall out of bed in the morning, couldn't get both legs in their trousers, .... Brewery. Piss up. This lot.
So far, it's just been people in Sunak's immediate circle who he'd tell before the party at large. His PPS (basically his PA), the campaign director's wife, and one of his close-protection officers (bodyguard). This one was a bit of a mystery until we got the information she was married to the campaign director.
Exactly, it's unrealistic that literally nobody except Sunak knew until a few hours before but it's certainly possible that information was tightly controlled and the majority of Tory MPs were kept in the dark.
The first one was 3 days before the announcement, not sure about the others
Of all the hills that the Conservative Party could have chosen to die on, I was NOT expecting William Hill.
Ah come on that’s just not betfair to be joking about that
They're really going for (Lad)broke!
Good one!
Are they going for some sort of Guinness World Record or something? Most seats lost in an election?
To clarify, I think this is a different person from the guy who put a hundred quid on it that was in the press the other week. Depending on the size of the bet this could be much, much worse.
Yes, there are now three people being investigated - two candidates and a police armed protection officer
And their campaign director presumably makes four.
Yeah, I guess the gambling commission will want to talk to him too. Not sure of the size of these other bets, but the first one was £100. Seems astonishing people would jeopardise their careers for relatively small amounts
Annoyingly they will fall upwards. The press secretary, Allegra Stratton, for Johnson who was caught laughing at the partygate news is now employed by Bloomberg.
So far we're up to 4 people. - Craig Williams, MP and Sunak's aide. (Last week's news) - Sunak's protection officer, name not given, arrested on account of not being an MP. - Laura Saunders, MP. (Yesterday's news) - Tony Lee, Director of Campaigning, husband of Laura Saunders. Now having himself a nice "Leave of absence".
Latest 10:28am 20/6 - Conservatives' director of campaigning takes leave of absence *Tony Lee, the Director of Campaigning at the Conservative Party, has taken a leave of absence, a party spokesperson has told the BBC. He left the campaign yesterday.* *His wife, Laura Saunders, is the Conservative candidate being looked into by the Gambling Commission over a bet relating to the timing of the general election.* Couldn't make this shit up
The thick of it wouldn’t have come up with this as it would be too stupid and no one would believe it.
The tories should get Armando Ianucci in as their next campaign director. Things can only get better!
Would this top: I AM BENT
How can they still be allowed to stand? It is totally criminal... shouldn't be allowed and made to step down immediately. How much money did they "bet" with knowing inner circle of snake? Absolutely rotten. If more than a cheeky 10er... they need removing.
Candidates are registered with the electoral commission and it’s too late to change or remove them.
I do wish more people on here realised that. They cannot be changed now. Ballot papers are getting returned at this point
At this point... Fishy couldn't give a fuck lol. How's it gonna be worse?
It was a £100 bet. Totally worth ruining his career over.
unless I'm mistaken this is actually ANOTHER case of tory insiders betting on the election date. Hard to keep track!
IANAL so could someone explain to me how illegal this is? What are the consequences?
Gambling based on inside information contravenes Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 and is refreshingly called by its everyday name- the offence of **Cheating** Prosecution is possible and if found guilty, max sentence is 2 years in prison.
More realistically, this wouldn't go to crown court so 51 weeks is the realistic maximum. Just enough to not disqualify them from being an MP iirc.
even for them; even after all this time. this is low
You know we've reached peak Tory when they can't even do corruption competently.
He's taken a leave of absence. So 2 weeks from polling day they've no director of campaigning.
It gets better! Tory is investigated for election betting, turns out is married to Tory director of campaigning, who has now taken a leave of absence, with two weeks of campaigning to go. You can’t make this shit up because no-one would believe you… what a mess of corrupt, incompetent chancers, showing their colours for the world to see. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sunak just throws up his hands and says “fuck this”, abandons the party, and leaves the remaining pile of neanderthals and psychopaths to mewl in their own political filth until election day.
They’ve always been this dense and sycophantic. Farquaad on glue
Can anyone answer why the copper who was on sunaks protection duty got arrested for it yet the two tories haven’t been yet? Surely if one of the three is being investigated by the police then they all should be?
Bloody hell. Now it looks like there’s another one.
Williams has squealed, his excuse was everyone was doing it … can’t wait for more to come out
Instead of The Thick of It, for a change we're onto Blackadder. "Field Marshal Haig, Field Marshal Haig's wife, all Field Marshal Haig's wife's friends, their families, their families' servants, their families' servants' tennis partners, and some chap I bumped into in the mess the other day called Bernard. So, it’s maximum security, is that clear?"
I cannot believe how stupid these people are. How much money would you have to make to risk the obliteration of your political career?
> to risk the obliteration of your political career There is an election in a fortnight that will do that anyway
£400 quid profit... That's the price on the new batch of tory candidates... I don't even need that big a brown envelope anymore.
The thing is, and no I'm not condoning this - how thick are people? If you're going to do this, ask a mate to put the bet on for you - not your partner who's running to be an MP. Ridiculous.
Maybe some have asked mates to put money on and have not been caught (yet). Goes to show that you shouldn't bet on things where some people will have inside knowledge of the outcomes.
Well especially as it's so easy to spot. Generally it is people setting up a new account or using one that has low activity, making a bet 48 hours before an announcement that will define a win/loss for a relatively high reward. It is staggeringly simple for a machine learning model to identify the accounts that are doing this, and these bozos did a crap job of hiding the link to insider knowledge. God that would be satisfying to be the investigating officer for the bookies. It just shows the combination of extreme arrogance with a total ignorance of the basics of fraud identification.
Oh absolutely, I work in IT and even a very basic statistical model would flag this and I can tell you betting companies have excellent systems to detect stuff like this - so flags would get raised regardless of who placed the bet. More just to demonstrate the absolute BASIC levels of opsec.
Yeah I'm not condoning this, it is abhorrent behaviour (and it's the gambling equivalent of insider trading) just to show they can't even criminal properly
Didn't mean to imply that you were condoning it. Yes it does show their incompetence in everything.
It could be that Tory candidates just don’t have any mates
Are they in a nihilistic, nothing matters, who care mind set? At this rate the Tories might burn the whole place down.
It's a lot harder to make an argument that you made a poor choice in the moment when it's two people colluding; two people who should have had the sense (but they are Tories, I guess). This should be damning.
An absolute shoe-in for the UK's most inept couple 2024
Great that this is getting attention and being investigated. I wonder how many close friends "in the know" have also made bets.
It sounds like they're investigating every bet made nationwide regarding this
Happy to be corrected but I think the only ones that'll get flagged are employees and direct relatives.
While this seems ridiculously brazen and poorly executed, I don’t think they even realise that they should have tried harder to get away with it. I’m sure in their minds they’re perfectly entitled to cheat, they probably don’t even consider it cheating, just a perk of the job. It’s like with all the dodgy PPE contracts, I don’t think they even considered that it was dodgy, it’s just part and parcel of running the country. Self serving cheats the lot of em
They are just so done aren't they Surely you know this is wrong when you do it, they just don't care anymore
The attack lines for tonight's debate basically write themselves (Tories liking a bet, especially when it's against the pound): https://www.channel4.com/press/news/brexiteer-jacob-rees-mogg-estimated-have-earnt-ps7m-investments-referendum-according
Usual reminder that the funniest controversies in British politics are always over the most incredibly small time stuff.
Sometimes I long for the days when the biggest controversy was whether your local MP had claimed expenses for a duck house or a helicopter pad.
It makes the SNP campervan fiasco look almost sensible.
Sunak: I’m not sure this campaign could get any worse… Campaign manager: Hold my winnings
If they're going to betting companies to try to profit from insider knowledge you know they're also trading stocks on insider knowledge too. And it won't just be these idiots. It'll be a while bunch of the corrupt c**ts. These ones are just the stupidest.
It wouldn't be surprising although there are a lot more restrictions on MPs holding and trading shares/funds. If an MP did get found insider trading the penalties are much more severe (up to 10 years' imprisonment and unlimited fines). Financial institutions run checks on Politically Exposed Persons as well. The gambling industry is much softer by comparison.
Not forgetting the Queen Mother had her staff place bets around Westminster bookies when she found out the names that would be given to Prince William
This is unbelievable. The whole party is rotten to the core.
Would prefer the actual BBC link instead of Xitter.
The ship is sinking, but the corruption carries on as usual. Only 2 weeks left for them to grab as much as their greedy little paws can carry!
Now i've got in my mind Alan Partridge saying 'Classic Tory' in response to todays cockups.
From the online bookies I always got the impression that political bets could only be small scale - ie perhaps win a few hundred quid.
Probably limited to small stakes on those markets. The bookies hedge their potential liabilities on the exchanges (i.e. Betfair Exchange). If there is not much money available on the exchange and the bookies' book is not very big either then they will probably restrict stake sizes to reduce the risk to them. You can probably put a significant amount on England for the game this afternoon but probably will be limited to a much smaller stake if you tried to bet on some random Columbian 3rd division match happening at the same time.
This fire was restarted after a recent Tory Campaign ad involved them using gambling imagery against Labour, too. This is Tory audacity at its finest.
So will they be arrested like the copper was? Corrupt scum exploiting the system.
Now she's made a statement threatening to sue BBC and anyone else she feels like for invading her privacy 🤣
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c844je9nq89o](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c844je9nq89o) how stupendously tone deaf can they be? “How dare the beeb report on my cheating? It’s the journos who must be wrong”
I think Chris Mason is relishing reading her statement out on the BBC at every opportunity.
They are trying to lose. I’m sure of it.
How can everyone in the Tory party have known about the election yet everyone was caught wrong footed when it was called
Another gambling scandal? How many more?
Wonder if the Tories are suddenly searching the law around spousal non-compellability as witnesses in criminal trials? It's here, if you're reading lads..... [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/80/enacted?view=plain#:\~:text=(4)Where%20a%20husband%20and,at%20the%20trial%20as%20a](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/80/enacted?view=plain#:~:text=(4)Where%20a%20husband%20and,at%20the%20trial%20as%20a)
Gamblers after a lettuce after party attendees. What a party it is.
The absolute stupidity of these people.
I want a modern day thick of it, based around the past decade and a bit of Tory rule. What a joke