Many stories of political wrongdoing involve an element of plain stupidity – at least the ones we find out about. In fact, many of the most famous scandals in modern history have involved moments where one thinks, “Crikey, these guys aren’t half as smart as they think they are.”

Partygate is a pretty good example. Having illegal gatherings in government premises is wrong – taking photos of said parties is asking to be caught. And the 2009 expenses scandal had its fair share of elements which raised an eyebrow – floating ornamental duck house anyone?

There are any number of problems with betting on an election date when you obviously have some kind of proximity to the person who makes the decision about when that election is called – especially when the decision appears to come out of nowhere to practically everyone else. But, without wanting to sound too much like Michael Gove, it’s hard to properly unpick everything whilst an investigation is going on.

This legal issue makes it quite hard to analyse any political scandal until well after the fact. So far we know that two Conservative election candidates (who both remain in the race) are under investigation after bets placed on when a general election would be called were flagged as suspicious with the Gambling Commission.

Craig Williams, Rishi Sunak’s former aide and a candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr said: “I put a flutter on the general election some weeks ago. This has resulted in some routine inquiries and I confirm I will fully cooperate with these”.

Another........

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