UK minister calls election betting scandal another Partygate after another Tory official comes under police lens

A senior UK minister has drawn comparisons between the ongoing election betting scandal and the Partygate scandal, following reports of another Conservative Party official coming under police investigation.

Nick Mason, the Chief Data Officer of the Conservative Party, is reportedly being investigated by the Gambling Commission for allegedly placing bets on the date of the upcoming general election before it was officially announced.

The widening scandal has further damaged Sunak’s attempts to catch the opposition Labour Party, which is far ahead in opinion polls in the run-up to the election.

The official was named by the paper as Nick Mason, chief data officer at the Conservative Party. Mason did not immediately respond to a request for comment. British newspaper Sunday Times cited a spokesperson for Mason as saying he denied any wrongdoing.

The Sunday Times cited a statement from the Conservative Party as saying Mason had taken a leave of absence. The party did not confirm this when contacted by Reuters.

“As instructed by the Gambling Commission, we are not permitted to discuss any matters related to any investigation with the subject or any other persons,” a Conservative Party spokesman said.

The Gambling Commission has not confirmed the names of those under investigation. In a response to a request for comment on the Sunday Times report, a commission spokesperson said it would not provide details of its probe, including the identity of any individuals it is investigating.

Sunak said on Thursday he was “incredibly angry” to hear about the allegations against his party colleagues, calling them a “really serious matter.”

One of the Conservative candidates named in the scandal, Craig Williams, has already apologised for an error of judgment, and the party’s director of campaigning Tony Lee has taken a leave of absence.

A police officer working in a special protection unit has also been arrested over alleged bets on the election date.

In response to the allegations, Housing Minister Michael Gove expressed concerns about the potential damage to the party’s reputation, drawing a comparison to the Partygate scandal that led to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation in 2022.

“It looks like one rule for them and one rule for us… That’s the most potentially damaging thing,” said Gove, who is standing down this election after 14 years as an MP.

“That was damaging at the time of Partygate and is damaging here”, he added.

Prime minister Johnson was forced from office in 2022 following public anger at the revelations of parties held in Downing Street when the rest of the country was under lockdown during the pandemic.

Political bets are allowed in the UK, including on the date of elections, but using insider knowledge to do so is against the law.

The inquiries heap further misery on Sunak, whose party has trailed Labour by about 20 points in the polls for nearly two years, making it odds-on to be dumped out of office after 14 years.

Gove said that those involved in the betting scandal were “sucking the oxygen out of the campaign”.

With inputs from agencies