Politicians have to be gamblers

Politicians pretty well have to be gamblers. You give up a promising career in, say, dentistry, teaching or accountancy for a world in which all but a fortunate few are almost bound to end in tears. No matter how diligent and attentive a constituency MP you may be, if the national mood swings against your party, you will be voted out of a job. Your party may be taken over by a dominant clique of head-bangers with views alien to your own. Even if you make it through to ministerial office, some departmental disaster created by others may have you hounded by the media until you are forced to resign.

But what on earth got into the minds of those Conservatives who seem to have used insider information to bet on the election date? Did they not think how it would be seen? Sure, I have had a few political bets in my time. Back in 1974 I took the 50-1 offered against Margaret Thatcher becoming the next leader of the Conservative party. But that wasn’t a bet based on inside information: it was my judgment as a young political correspondent at a time when my seniors regarded the amiable Willie Whitelaw as a shoo-in.

When I became political editor of the BBC, my day job when I started writing this column, I gave up political betting on the spot, aware that if it became known I had punted on some political outcome, accusations of partial reporting would rapidly follow. How much extra damage the election-date betting Tories did to a party which has developed an unrivalled capacity for self-harm is not my concern. What worries me is the damage likely to be done to horseracing by the deluge of anti-gambling headlines which have followed, as if all betting – not just corrupt betting by people who knew they were on to a sure thing – is to be condemned.