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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during a visit to Cambridge Rugby Club in Cambridge, while on the General Election campaign trail, June 17, 2024
COLLAPSING Conservatives lost their campaign director today as the party was rocked by a fresh row over insider betting on the election date.
Tony Lee was forced to take leave of absence from the campaign as the suspension of his wife, Tory candidate Laura Saunders, was called for by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
The Gambling Commission is reported to be looking into bets placed on the timing of the election. Another Tory candidate who worked in Downing Street, Craig Williams, has already apologised for wagering on a July election in the days before PM Rishi Sunak called the snap poll.
By-election poll puts Starmer's future on a knife-edge
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet