Watch: Sunak fumes over betting scandal

‘Betgate’ might be giving us some laughs but there’s one person who clearly isn’t cracking jokes. A notably vexed Rishi Sunak gave an interview to STV this afternoon on a visit to campaign with the Scottish Conservative party. He told the broadcaster that he was ‘angry’ about allegations that Tory candidates put bets on the date of the election and that the Conservatives are now running its own probe alongside the Gambling Commission. Anyone want to place a wager on who the culprits are?

It was left to broadcaster Colin Mackay to suggest to Sunak that he should remove Craig Williams and Laura Sanders as Tory candidates before the election day. Mackay pointed out that Williams was Sunak’s trusted confidante as his parliamentary private secretary (PPS) and noted too the Prime Minister’s pledge in October 2022 to uphold the integrity of his office: ‘By your own standards you’ve failed’. The high (or perhaps low) point of the interview came in this exchange:

CM: ‘He [Williams] was your PPS.