Sunak 'angry' about betting on election date allegations

Question Time viewers also give Keir Starmer a tough ride

- DAVID MADDOX

Rishi Sunak confessed to being “incredibly angry” over members of his inner circle being caught up in a gambling scandal over bets on the date of the election.

But, as the prime minister faced a BBC Question Time audience with just two weeks of the election to go, he refused to suspend two candidates currently being investigated by the Gambling Commission.

With polls still pointing to a massive Labour majority and a Tory wipeout with many voters defecting to Reform, Mr Sunak needed his half-hour slot in the debate to be a platform to turn things around in the closing stages of the election campaign.

Instead he was confronted by the betting scandal which saw his director of campaigning Tony Lee “take a leave of absence”. Meanwhile, Mr Lee’s wife Laura Saunders, a candidate in Bristol who has worked for the party since 2015, and Craig Williams, his parliamentary private secretary, are all being investigated for placing bets just before Mr Sunak called his surprise snap election.

A tired and tense looking Mr Sunak looked exasperated as he was confronted with hostile questions on his own performance during the campaign, the scandal and other issues.

At the end of his 30 minutes he managed to attack members of the audience and was booed and catcalled with cries of “shame” over his promise to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if it prevented him from protecting the UK’s borders on migration.

He told the Question Time audience: “It was the right moment to call the election, for the reasons that I have outlined.”

Asked if he was glad to have called the election, he added: “I am.”