Good afternoon. If you were a certain kind of world-weary Tory official today, you might conclude: the real scandal is how crap we are. I am referring, of course, to the news that finally came this morning of the Conservative party withdrawing support from two candidates who have been accused of making suspicious bets on the timing of the election.
The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar first broke this story on 12 June, when she revealed that Craig Williams, the candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, had bet £100 on a July vote. Williams himself swiftly admitted the bet, if not foreknowledge of the result, but no action from his party followed. As Keir Starmer quite reasonably asked earlier today, in a rare moment of harmony with exasperated Tory candidates: “Why didn’t that happen a week ago?”
