UK Politics
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Did I miss the part where the bet was something oddly specific where the aide could actually significantly impact akin to shaving points, or throwing a fight...?
Because it just says he bet on the general election, which honestly feels relatively harmless in the context of a society with widespread legalized gambling.
Not that I'd shed any tears over a Sunak aide getting fucked by any legal process, including a dubious one.
Can someone tell me if I'm missed something here?
He bet on the date of the election. It's not that he could impact the date (probably) but that he knew the announcement would happen a couple of days later. So less akin to throwing a fight and more having insider information about who was going to win. To me it seems similar (tho less financially rewarding) to buying stock in a company when your role in government means you know the value is going to increase soon when a new policy is introduced.
Actually....that makes a lot more sense and I don't recall that being brought up in article, but maybe I missed it.
I would say that elections are public affairs, and have widespread coverage, including public polling data, but I can see the analogy to insider trading.
Even if the only one's hurt here are the bookies, it's probably not an activity that should be publicly accepted as normal.
Yeah, to be fair the article's not very clear.
To be even clearer, he didn't bet on the outcome of the election, just that it would take place in July. Legally Sunak has to call an election before January 2025 but there has been a lot of speculation for the last six months about when it's going to happen. A lot of people assumed we wouldn't have an election until the autumn so Sunak's announcement a few weeks ago came as a big surprise.