Olympic rower and prospective Conservative MP James Cracknell has labelled his own party a “shower of s**t” over the election date gambling scandal.
The gold medallist, standing to be Tory MP for Colchester, spoke out in a Facebook video saying: “Two weeks out from the Olympics, if we are competing against the Conservative party, my teammates and I would be saying they are a shower of s**t.
“And if one of my teammates got caught for cheating they’d be dead to me. That abuse of trust is unforgivable.”
It comes as pressure continues to grow on the Prime Minister who said the Conservatives had been carrying out their own internal probe alongside the Gambling Commission inquiry, and “will act” if it finds any wrongdoing over the scandal that has engulfed the party.
With the Tories still behind in the polls and after a bruising few days dominated by the controversy, Mr Sunak is facing pressure, including from party ranks, to take a more robust stance against those involved.
“(The Gambling Commission) don’t talk about the individuals that they are investigating,” the Prime Minister told journalists on the campaign trail in Edinburgh on Monday.
“What I can tell you is I am not aware of any other candidate that they are looking at.”
He added: “What I can tell you is, in parallel, we’ve been conducting our own internal inquiries and of course will act on any relevant findings or information from that and pass it on to the Gambling Commission.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the news that the Tories are conducting their own parallel investigation is designed to delay further fallout over the controversy.
Mr Sunak ruled out himself and family members of being the subject of investigation and said he had never placed a bet on politics while serving as an MP.
The party’s chief data officer Nick Mason is the latest figure understood to be taking a leave of absence amid claims he placed bets on the election date, along with director of campaigning Tony Lee.
Mr Lee’s MP wife Laura Saunders and fellow candidate Craig Williams, who was a parliamentary aide to the Prime Minister, are also under investigation by the Gambling Commission.
