The election bet and the Tory culture of corruption

Craig William's bet on the snap election date is yet another example of the culture of corruption at the heart of Tory HQ

Craig Williams MP is one of Rishi Sunak’s closest aides, and he used his inside knowledge of what Sunak was plotting to put a £100 bet on the date of the next election with Ladbrokes, seeking to cash in on 5-1 odds.

It’s not just against betting company rules to use insider knowledge to fix bets, it’s a criminal offence too under section 42 of the Gambling Act. However the Tory government is seeking to brush off this misconduct as "a personal matter for the individual in question" citing the Gambling Commission inquiry as justification for making no further comment.

Given that Williams has admitted the offence, this justification is beyond ludicrous.

The Tories know for a fact that one of Sunak’s closest advisers misused his inside knowledge to seek financial gain for himself, and that if this kind of misconduct isn’t considered a disciplinary matter then so-called "parliamentary standards" are an absolute joke.

Just look at the punishments for gambling misconduct and misuse of insider knowledge in other professions.

In football Brentford’s Ivan Toney was fined £50,000 and banned for 8 months for betting on football matches, and Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali has just been hit with a 10 month ban for betting too.

Neither were even betting on their own games, but the rules are absolutely clear that footballers in the professional game cannot bet on any football matches, so they’ve been severely punished.

In snooker 10 Chinese players were hit with punishments between two years and lifetime bans from the sport for betting and match fixing, while Mark King has been suspended and under investigation for 18 months over suspicious betting patterns on one of his games.

If you or I had ever been caught misusing insider knowledge about our employers for financial gain (betting or stock market investment for example) then we’d have been fired, and probably taken to court too.

But somehow when it comes to a top Tory MP misusing insider political knowledge to try and scam a bookmaker out of five hundred quid, it’s suddenly "a personal matter"!

This lax Tory attitude towards this blatant corruption is indicative of the corrupt culture of impunity within the Tory ranks.

£500 is tiny in comparison to the £billions in public cash that were doled out in incredibly dodgy covid contracts to Tory politicians, their spivvy mates, their family members, and even Matt Hancock’s former pub landlord.

The Tories used the pandemic as an excuse to lavish public cash on themselves and their mates and not one of them has ended up in jail for it, and the way that Williams is being allowed to get away with such corrupt misuse of insider knowledge just goes to reinforce how untouchable these corrupt Tory grifters think they are.

Consider the Covid support loans that were never repaid, including by companies operated by Rishi Sunak’s wife!

There’s also the incredibly dodgy decision to sell off Royal Mail at miles below the real market value which benefited a load of Tory-connected corporate profiteers to the tune of £billions, and the scandalous giveaway of hundreds of state schools (property and all) to a bunch of Tory party donors.

Then there was Boris Johnson’s shocking efforts to protect his mate Owen Paterson after he was caught red-handed using his political connections to lobby for his employers Randox.

In comparison to all of these other Tory corruption scandals, that add up to £billions worth of public cash, William’s effort to scam £500 out of Ladbrokes is absolutely minuscule, but the idea that this brazen misconduct is "a personal matter" that doesn’t even warrant suspension is extraordinary.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s giving away public assets; doling out ludicrously over-priced and untendered contracts for largely unusable PPE; cashing in on political connections for lobbying purposes; or misuse of insider knowledge to scam gambling companies, the Tory attitude is always the same.

They firmly believe that they’re above the laws that govern the rest of us, and the lack of punishment for almost all of this corruption; the Tory outrage when Paterson was actually investigated over his lobbying scandal; and their "it’s a personal matter" excuse for William’s bet, is all proof that they’re absolutely confident that they can get away with it too.

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