Public faith in politics slumps

The Conservatives have “withdrawn support” from Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, the candidates embroiled in the gambling scandal, nearly two weeks after reports first emerged. 

So what? It feels like the last straw. Voters are drawing a dotted line from gamblegate to partygate – and further back – and rendering a miserable verdict on standards in public life.

In the past 14 years

• sleaze has made a comeback in the form of sexual misconduct and political corruption;
• populism has tested the norms of an unwritten constitution to breaking point; and
• hypocrisy and disdain for truth on the part of a prime minister and his chief lieutenant have prompted a collapse of faith in politics.

That collapse can be measured: the British Social Attitudes survey shows the share of voters who don’t trust government to put country over party nearly doubled between 2020 – when Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings broke the Covid lockdown rules they set for the country – and 2023.

Labour hopes to capitalise. Its manifesto promises a “clean-up” of public life. Smaller parties, too, are hoping to scoop up support from voters disillusioned with Westminster-as-usual.  

Cleanish slate. On his arrival in Number 10 Sunak vowed to restore “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level” of government, yet he has repeatedly been slow to take action when accusations have arisen. 

On his watch: 

• Gavin Williamson and Dominic Raab, both cabinet ministers, were embroiled in bullying scandals that forced them from office;
• Nadhim Zahawi was sacked as party chairman after failing to disclose that HMRC was investigating his taxes;
• Mark Menzies MP was revealed to have used party funds to pay off “bad people” who had locked him in a flat;
• William Wragg MP admitted sharing other politicians’ personal numbers as part of a honeytrap sexting scam;
• Scott Benton MP was caught offering to leak information and lobby ministers for the gambling industry;
• Sunak himself was found to have failed to declare his wife’s interest in a childcare firm that was benefiting from a policy change;
• Police launched a criminal investigation into PPE Medpro, a firm linked to the Tory peer Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman which won a £203 million Covid contract; and
• Frank Hester, the Conservatives’ biggest ever donor, apologised following reports of racism.

Where to start? Well before Sunak became prime minister. Under his predecessors multiple sleaze and sexual assault allegations were brought against Conservatives MPs, the most serious leading to jail for Charlie Elphicke, to whom Theresa May restored the whip while attempting to get her Brexit deal through Parliament in 2018.

Other scandals involved

• Housing secretary Robert Jenrick fast-tracking a development after sitting next to the developer and donor Richard Desmond at a dinner in 2019;
• David Cameron warning about lobbying, then being caught up in the Greensill lobbying scandal; 
• Johnson ignoring calls to sack Cummings for breaching lockdown rules in 2020; and
• Johnson’s attempts to get Owen Paterson, a former minister, off the hook for lobbying breaches in 2021.

Before that Johnson was forced to deny he’d lied to the Queen over the prorogation of parliament in 2019. Later, he denied the evidence of multiple photographs that he’d attended lockdown parties in Downing Street. 

Pyrrhic party. The scandal which eased Sunak into Number Ten also ensured he wouldn’t stay for long. Professor Sir John Curtice says partygate is one of two “crucial points” at which the public turned against the Tories; the other being Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-Budget. 

Sunak’s refusal to condemn Johnson for his part in the scandal solidified the view in some voters’ minds that the Tories were collectively tainted rather than afflicted by a single rotten apple. 

This point was put to Sunak at the Sky leaders’ debate by a former local Conservative Party chair, who told him she couldn’t move on from the mental image of the Queen sitting on her own at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. One of the Downing Street parties took place the same weekend. 

Mr Standards. Starmer has positioned himself as the person to “restore public service to Westminster”. But even – especially – with a small army of eager new MPs, it will be a mammoth task.