Politics

Why are UK politicians in trouble for placing bets on election date?

Published

3 months ago

June 27, 2024

As British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer faced off in their final televised debate on Wednesday night ahead of next week’s general election, a betting scandal which is likely to become the source of major embarrassment to the ruling Conservative Party continued to grow.

On Wednesday, it emerged that the Metropolitan Police have taken a more prominent role in an investigation into bets that senior politicians and officials placed on the upcoming general election.

Amid angry exchanges with the prime minister about plans for taxation, immigration and even transgender rights, Starmer took aim at top Conservatives who are suspected of using inside information to bet on the date of the election before it was announced when he said it showed the “wrong instinct” to bet on the future of the country.

Described by one senior Conservative figure, Baroness Ruth Davidson, as akin to political “insider trading”, allegations that some party officials placed bets on the date of the election look set to hound what could be the Conservative government’s final days after 14 tumultuous years in office.

“Firstly, I mean, how tawdry is it?” raged Davidson on last Friday’s Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast about the allegations currently pummelling her party, which has been led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak since 2022.

Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Conservative Party at the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, added: “I literally have no words. I’ve been involved in fighting elections for more than 15 years and I literally have no words.”

What is the scandal about?

Allegations that some Conservative candidates and officials bet on the date of Britain’s July 4 general election have been growing since it was revealed two weeks ago that Craig Williams, an aide to Sunak, had placed a 100-pound ($127) wager on there being a July vote just days before Sunak himself announced the date of the poll to the British public.

So far, five Conservative officials have been named as being under investigation by the Gambling Commission (GC) for allegedly placing bets on a July election using inside party knowledge.

The GC, the United Kingdom body responsible for regulating Britain’s gambling laws, is believed to be investigating as many as 15 Conservative Party candidates and officials for allegedly betting on the timing of the election.

In a separate but related development, the Conservative Party’s Scottish Secretary Alister Jack admitted to placing several small bets on the election date during March and April – but has insisted that he broke no rules and said that he was not under investigation by the GC.

In a twist on the betting scandal, The Sun newspaper reported on Wednesday that another Conservative, Philip Davies, bet 8,000 pounds ($10,115) that he would lose his marginal seat of Shipley in West Yorkshire in the upcoming election. Davies told the Sun that he “fully expects to lose” his seat to Labour, which is forecast to win, and added that it was “nobody’s business” if he decided to bet against himself.

The Labour Party has not emerged entirely unscathed by the betting scandal. Kevin Craig was stripped of his candidacy by the Labour Party on Tuesday after it came to light that he was under investigation by the GC for betting that he would lose his own bid to become an MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich in the upcoming election.

Conservative MP Craig Williams, pictured here after winning the constituency of Montgomeryshire in the UK’s 2019 general election, in Builth Wells, Wales, UK on December 13, 2019, was the first to be named as one of those being investigated by the Gambling Commission [File: Rebecca Naden/Reuters]

Which five Conservatives are under investigation for placing bets?

Williams, the first to be named as being under investigation by the Gambling Commission (GC), was standing as the Conservative Party candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr in Wales when he came under investigation.

The 39-year-old admitted to making a “huge error of judgement” in seeking to make money from placing his 100-pound bet, with odds of 5-1, on the election date, meaning he could have won 500 pounds ($633). He has not revealed whether he had inside knowledge of the election date before he made his bet, but Ladbrokes, the betting firm with which he placed the wager, refused to register the bet after it flagged him up as a “politically exposed person”, and referred the matter to the GC.

Laura Saunders was the second party official to come under GC investigation as she canvassed as the Conservative candidate for Bristol North West. Saunders was soon joined by her husband, Tony Lee, the Conservative Party’s director of campaigning, who took a leave of absence after it emerged that he was also being investigated by the GC.

On Tuesday, both Williams and Saunders were dropped by their party as candidates, but they appear to still be contesting their respective seats, meaning that, if elected, they would sit as independents in the House of Commons.

The Conservative Party’s chief data officer, Nick Mason, became the fourth Conservative to come to the attention of the GC after it was alleged that he, too, had placed a number of election bets before the date of the snap poll was announced by Sunak.

Russell George, a Conservative member of the devolved Welsh Parliament, was revealed on Tuesday evening as the fifth party figure to face an inquiry by the GC, despite not running for a seat himself in the general election.

An unnamed police constable, who was part of the prime minister’s security detail, was arrested on June 17 following allegations that he had placed a similar bet. A further five police officers are also being investigated by the GC, it has since emerged.

What are the rules for MPs and others placing bets using inside information?

Section 42 of the 2005 Gambling Act explicitly forbids gamblers from using inside information (also known as insider trading) to place a bet or provide the necessary information to someone else to place a bet on their behalf. It carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.

The Parliamentary Code of Conduct also warns MPs against doing anything which might “cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons”.

Appearing on a special edition of BBC Question Time on June 20, Sunak himself stated that the scandal is “a really serious matter – it’s right that they’re being investigated properly by the relevant law enforcement authorities”.

Sunak said he was “incredibly angry” about the allegations. “The integrity of that process should be respected,” he said. “But what I can tell you is, if anyone is found to have broken the rules, not only should they face the full consequences of the law, I will make sure that they are booted out of the Conservative Party.”

What does this mean for the Conservative Party’s election campaign?

Sunak’s Conservative Party was already trailing badly behind Labour in the polls prior to the betting revelations. A recent Savanta survey for the Telegraph has shown that this is likely to further damage the party, with two-thirds of voters saying they disapproved of Conservative candidates placing bets on the date of the election.

Furthermore, this scandal is just the latest in a long list of controversies that have dogged Britain’s ruling Conservatives in recent times, and is symptomatic of a party that has grown “corpulent with complacency” during its 14 years in power, said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

“As the 19th-century politician, Lord Acton, once wrote, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’” Bale said of the Conservative Party’s list of travails, such as “Partygate”, the scandal over parties and gatherings held at then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official residence in Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, which broke lockdown rules.

Bale said: “Because the Labour Party provided no serious opposition to them for a decade, all too many Conservatives, having had it too easy for too long and taking their cue from the very top, got used to thinking they could, as the saying goes, get away with murder.”

He added: “But that era of impunity was never going to last once Labour recovered its senses and voters grew tired of the government’s failure to deliver on the fundamentals.”

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Politics

B.C. Conservatives, NDP both announce plans to help ease B.C. housing crisis

Published

14 hours ago

September 27, 2024

Anne Joseph

Both of the main candidates in British Columbia‘s election campaign pushed their own plans to solve parts of the housing crisis.

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad told a news conference in Surrey that his government would end the multi-year permit delays and would get homes built at the speed and scale needed to address the housing crisis.

NDP Leader David Eby went to Cumberland on Vancouver Island to promote his party’s plan to fast-track factory-built homes.

Eby said pre-built homes would cut waste, reduce emissions, and advances in the industry mean the homes are “beautiful and high-quality.”

He said the process was “more like Lego” than normal construction.

“The idea is pretty straightforward. In a controlled factory environment, you can build faster, you can build with less waste and the homes that are built are more consistent and more efficient and it’s cheaper.”

Rustad said the Conservative Party of B.C. would redesign the approval process for home building, setting a six-month limit for rezoning and development permit and three months for a building permit.

“This means that we will significantly be able to improve the time frame it takes to actually get construction happening in this province, and we’ll be working with city halls across the province to be able to meet these timelines,” Rustad said.

If a clear yes or no isn’t issued by a city within that limit, the province would issue the permit, said a B.C. Conservative news release announcing the platform.

Rustad said the party would remove NDP taxes on housing, support transit-oriented communities, reform development cost charges and make taxes fair for homeowners.

“We have so much regulation that has been put in place associated with housing that it makes it really difficult for anybody to be able to actually get through and build things, not to mention the cost,” he said. “So we’ll amend the Local Government Act to prevent any home killing red tape that has been introduced by this government.”

The party’s statement also outlined their zoning plan, adding that it would work with BC Assessment “to make sure that current homeowners don’t get hit with higher tax bills based on future potential.”

The party statement said, if elected, a Conservative government would build new towns, saying B.C. is blessed with an abundance of land, but the NDP refuses to use it to end the housing shortage.

“We will identify land outside the Agricultural Land Reserve that has the potential to support beautiful new communities.”

A statement issued by the NDP on Friday said it would work with industry, municipalities and First Nations to create a provincewide framework for prefabricated homes so builders know what’s required in every community.

It said there would be a pre-approved set of designs to reduce the permitting process, and it would work to develop skills training needed to support prefabricated home construction.

The statement said Scandinavian countries had embraced factory-built homes, which “offer an alternative to the much slower, more costly process of building on-site.”

“By growing B.C.’s own factory-built home construction industry, everyone from multi-generational families to municipalities will be able to quickly build single homes, duplexes and triplexes on land they already own,” Eby said.

The party said legislation passed by the NDP government last year was a “game changer” for the factory-built home construction industry in the province, where there are currently 10 certified manufacturing plants.

Muchalat Construction Ltd. is one of them, and owner Tania Formosa said pre-approved structures speed up the building process considerably.

She said her company’s projects currently take 12 to 13 months to complete, from startup design to getting the house on site.

“If everything was in place and fast-tracked at the beginning and we were able to just fly along, it would probably take three months off the full schedule,” she said.

She said a main issue for modular manufacturers is that work gets stalled if they run into roadblocks with jurisdictions or BC Housing in the approval process.

“There’s no option for the manufacturer to start another project,” she said. “Having our products approved prior to the process would be amazing.”

She acknowledged the potential drawback of pre-approved designs creating a cookie-cutter look for some neighbourhoods.

“Unfortunately (what) happens in your jurisdiction, in your city, is it ends up looking a lot the same, but what are your priorities?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.

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Technology upgrades mean speedier results expected for B.C. provincial election

Published

2 days ago

September 26, 2024

Anne Joseph

British Columbians could find out who wins the provincial election on Oct. 19 in about the same time it took to start counting ballots in previous votes.

Andrew Watson, a spokesman for Elections BC, says new electronic vote tabulators mean officials hope to have half of the preliminary results for election night reported within about 30 minutes, and to be substantially complete within an hour of polls closing.

Watson says in previous general elections — where votes have been counted manually — they didn’t start the tallies until about 45 minutes after polls closed.

This will B.C.’s first general election using electronic tabulators after the system was tested in byelections in 2022 and 2023, and Watson says the changes will make the process both faster and more accessible.

Voters still mark their candidate on a paper ballot that will then be fed into the electronic counter, while networked laptops will be used to look up peoples’ names and cross them off the voters list.

One voting location in each riding will also offer various accessible voting methods for the first time, where residents will be able to listen to an audio recording of the candidates and make their selection using either large paddles or by blowing into or sucking on a straw.

The province’s three main party leaders are campaigning across B.C. today with NDP Leader David Eby in Chilliwack promising to double apprenticeships for skilled trades, Conservative Leader John Rustad in Prince George talking power generation, and Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau holding an announcement Thursday about mental health.

It comes as a health-care advocacy group wants to know where British Columbia politicians stand on six key issues ahead of an election it says will decide the future of public health in the province.

The BC Health Coalition wants improved care for seniors, universal access to essential medicine, better access to primary care, reduced surgery wait times, and sustainable working conditions for health-care workers.

It also wants pledges to protect funding for public health care, asking candidates to phase out contracts to profit-driven corporate providers that it says are draining funds from public services.

Ayendri Riddell, the coalition’s director of policy and campaigns, said in a statement that British Columbians need to know if parties will commit to solutions “beyond the political slogans” in campaigning for the Oct. 19 election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.

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Politics

How Many Votes Are Needed for a Vote of No Confidence in Canada?

Published

2 days ago

September 26, 2024

Harry Miller

In Canadian parliamentary democracy, a vote of no confidence (also known as a confidence motion) is a crucial mechanism that can force a sitting government to resign or call an election. It is typically initiated when the opposition, or even members of the ruling party, believe that the government has lost the support of the majority in the House of Commons.

What Is a Vote of No Confidence?

A vote of no confidence is essentially a test of whether the government, led by the prime minister, still commands the support of the majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons. If the government loses such a vote, it is either required to resign or request the dissolution of Parliament, leading to a general election.

This process upholds one of the fundamental principles of Canadian democracy: the government must maintain the confidence of the elected House of Commons to govern. This rule ensures accountability and provides a check on the government’s power.

How Many Votes Are Needed for a No Confidence Motion?

In the Canadian House of Commons, there are 338 seats. To pass a vote of no confidence, a simple majority of MPs must vote in favor of the motion. This means that at least 170 MPs must vote in support of the motion to cause the government to lose confidence.

If the government holds a minority of seats, it is more vulnerable to such a vote. In this case, the opposition parties could band together to reach the 170 votes required for the no-confidence motion to succeed. In a majority government, the ruling party has more than half the seats, making it more difficult for a vote of no confidence to pass, unless there is significant dissent within the ruling party itself.

Types of Confidence Votes

Explicit Confidence Motions: These are motions specifically introduced to test whether the government still holds the confidence of the House. For example, the opposition might move a motion stating, “That this House has no confidence in the government.”
Implicit Confidence Motions: Some votes are automatically considered confidence motions, even if they are not explicitly labeled as such. The most common example is the approval of the federal budget. If a government loses a vote on its budget, it is seen as losing the confidence of the House.
Key Legislation: Occasionally, the government may declare certain pieces of legislation as confidence matters. This could be done to ensure the support of the ruling party and its allies, as a loss on such a bill would mean the collapse of the government.

What Happens If the Government Loses a Confidence Vote?

If a government loses a confidence vote in the House of Commons, two outcomes are possible:

Resignation and New Government Formation: The prime minister may resign, and the governor general can invite another leader, typically the leader of the opposition, to try to form a new government that can command the confidence of the House.
Dissolution of Parliament and General Election: The prime minister can request that the governor general dissolve Parliament, triggering a general election. This gives voters the opportunity to elect a new Parliament and government.

Historical Context of Confidence Votes in Canada

Canada has seen several instances of votes of no confidence, particularly during minority government situations. For example, in 2011, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper lost a vote of confidence over contempt of Parliament, which led to the dissolution of Parliament and the federal election.

Historically, most no-confidence votes are associated with budgetary issues or key pieces of legislation. They can be rare, especially in majority governments, as the ruling party usually has enough support to avoid defeat in the House of Commons.

To pass a vote of no confidence in Canada, at least 170 MPs out of 338 must vote in favor of the motion. This vote can lead to the government’s resignation or a general election, making it a powerful tool in ensuring that the government remains accountable to the elected representatives of the people. In the context of Canadian democracy, the vote of no confidence is a key safeguard of parliamentary oversight and political responsibility.