Just as people go bankrupt in two ways – gradually, then suddenly, as Ernest Hemingway famously put it – so organisations corrode morally, first bit by bit and then all in a rush. We are seeing this play out for the Conservative party in the final week of the UK’s general election campaign.

After almost two weeks of delay, the party finally decided to withdraw support for two parliamentary candidates: one (Craig Williams) who has admitted to placing a bet on the election and another (Laura Saunders) who is so far not saying if she did or not. She has agreed to cooperate with an investigation by the Gambling Commission on the matter.

They are two of an unknown number of people close to prime minister Rishi Sunak – including his police protection officers – who are being investigated after a surge in betting was recorded just before Sunak called an election for July 4. The bets – wagering on the date of the election – were placed before the public announcement and therefore could have been driven by the use of inside information.

The Labour party is not emerging untouched by this scandal, either. One of its candidates in a safe Tory seat (Central Suffolk and north Ipswich) has also admitted to having placed a bet … on his opponent, to win.

Williams issued a kind of semi-apology to voters........

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