Sunak is “incredibly angry” about the gambling scandal, but refuses to suspend candidates involved

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Rishi Sunak admitted he was “incredibly angry” that members of his inner circle were involved in a gambling scandal involving election day betting.

But when the Prime Minister appeared before a BBC Question time In front of an audience just two weeks before the election date, he refused to suspend two candidates who are currently under investigation by the Gambling Commission.

With polls still pointing to an overwhelming Labour majority and a crushing Tories defeat as many voters defect to the Reform Party, Sunak was relying on his half-hour contribution to the debate to turn the tide in the closing stages of the campaign.

Instead, he was confronted with the betting scandal that led to his campaign manager Tony Lee being placed on leave. Meanwhile, Lee’s wife Laura Saunders, a Bristol candidate who has worked for the party since 2015, and Craig Williams, his parliamentary private secretary, are being investigated for placing bets shortly before Sunak’s surprise re-election.

A tired and tense-looking Mr Sunak appeared annoyed when faced with hostile questions about his own performance during the election 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 chanted “shame” for promising to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if it prevented him from protecting Britain’s borders on migration.

He told the Question time Audience: “For the reasons I have explained, it was the right time to call elections.”

When asked if he was happy that elections had been called, he replied: “I am.”

The Prime Minister, who has repeatedly attacked his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, compared his current prospects to those he faced against Ms Truss in the race for the Tory leadership in 2022.

In a defiant remark about why he would not give up despite the polls going against him, Sunak said: “Even though people didn’t want to hear it at the time, I carried on and kept saying what I thought was right for this country. I stuck it out to the end and you know what? I was proven right then.”

“And that’s why you can trust me now when I say that what Keir Stammer is promising you is the same fantasy as Liz Truss and it will only result in your taxes going up and that’s important to me because I don’t want that to happen.”

Mr Sunak, who voted to leave the EU in 2016, also defended Brexit. Asked whether Brexit had robbed young people of a future, he said: “We had a referendum, it’s time to move on.”

He said it was time to “make sure we reap all the benefits of Brexit”.

Previously, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had been questioned about the numerous U-turns he had made and his integrity as a politician.

He was questioned over his previous support for Jeremy Corbyn and his claims that he would be a great Prime Minister, and Sir Keir again sought to distance himself from his recent past.

The Labour leader said: “I am a common sense politician. I go through the issues and for me it made no sense to nationalise energy and not reduce electricity bills. So I decided we were going to work to reduce electricity bills.”

However, he refused to give figures or a timeframe for his promise to reduce migration.

He was also criticised for his treatment of Canterbury Labour candidate Rosie Duffield, who was marginalised for her advocacy of protecting women’s biological rights.

When asked for his opinion on the definition of a woman, Sir Keir said he agreed with Sir Tony Blair’s recent comment that a woman has a vagina and a man has a penis.

Sir Keir said: “There are many people who do not identify with the gender they were born with.”

The Labour leader said he wanted to “give dignity to every person” and criticised Mr Sunak for a comment about transsexuality allegedly related to Brianna Ghey.

“I want to bring the country together,” he added, “during the pandemic, people have looked after each other.”

The first to address the audience were Liberal Democrat Sir Ed Davey and SNP leader John Swinney.

As the four main party leaders were questioned by members of the public for the first time, Mr Davey faced difficult questions about his performance during the coalition years and as a minister in the Horizon scandal.

When a student challenged the Liberal Democrats over their promise to abolish tuition fees in the coalition government, Sir Ed said: “I understand why your generation has lost faith in us. It has been a difficult government.”

He said the loss of confidence in his party after that period was “very painful” and admitted that he was “not proud” of some of the votes he had to take part in.

At the SNP leader’s meeting, Fiona Bruce repeatedly questioned Mr Swinney on what it would mean for his democratic mandate for independence if the SNP failed to win a majority of Scottish seats in July. She said it would be a “democratic decision that you should not seek independence”.

When he reiterated that he wanted the people of Scotland to vote confidently for the SNP so that the party could implement its manifesto, she expressed her conclusion that he would not answer the question.

He was also asked why the SNP had backed away from its opposition to new oil and gas licences. He said that while the need to move to net zero was “absolutely inevitable”, the use of fossil fuels would be necessary “for some time to come”.