Beth Rigby: The Tories are struggling in the polls – can Team Rishi turn things around before the next election?

Published

2 years ago

September 30, 2023

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As Rishi Sunak prepares to launch his re-election pitch from the stage in Manchester this week, it’s worth remembering that this time last year, the now prime minister – and many of his supporters – were put out to pasture and didn’t even bother to turn up for the annual Tory jamboree.

Those who did looked on with widening eyes at the accelerating car crash of the Liz Truss premiership, as her mini-budget began to unravel in real time at party conference (remember the panicked decision to U-turn on cutting the top rate tax no sooner than conference kicked off), with her administration’s complete collapse coming less than three weeks later.

It is a chapter of Conservative history that Rishi Sunak has sought to put right – spending his first year as PM trying to steady the ship and bring an air of competence and professionalism to government. There is no doubt that the tenor and tone of what could well be the final party conference before a general election will be a world away from the last.

But when it comes to the fundamentals, has that much changed? If you measure politics in its most brutal sense as victory at the ballot box, the answer is not much. The Conservatives were experiencing their worst polling since the last 1990s this time last year. Look at our Sky News poll tracker now, and you can see average support for the party is pretty much the same – about 26%. It’s barely shifted at all.

To make matters worse, Mr Sunak – who will look in his leader’s speech to the country to cast himself as the heir of Thatcher – goes to conference as the Conservative prime minister who is presiding over anything but a Thatcherite economy.

The tax burden is on course to rise by more in this Conservative parliament than during any other since the Second World War, according to analysis released by the Institute of Fiscal Studies on the eve of conference. It will rise from 33% of national income to 37% by next year. A record leap that sees families and businesses paying more than £100bn extra in tax by next year compared with the last election, it has left many Tory MPs in despair and angry at the Sunak approach to the economy.

The Sunak message will be that, during the pandemic, he had to do things and spend public money in a way that didn’t come naturally to him. He will argue he is a Thatcherite in both his personal work ethic and philosophy – an instinctive tax cutter and small-state Conservative, but is doing the hard work now – growing the economy, halving inflation – to reap the rewards later.

But his detractors are quietly fulminating. As one put it to me this week: “This heir to Thatcher business, it’s concocted vacuous stuff he’s come up with – ‘she grew up in a small shop, I [Sunak] grew up in a pharmacy’. Why didn’t he do that last year in a leadership campaign?”

And if the message is stick to the plan and reap the rewards, there are some who have missed the memo. Divisions will surface on “economy day” as Liz Truss, Dame Priti Patel and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg appear at the Great British Growth rally on Monday.

“The tax burden is now a 70-year high. That is unsustainable. And the people that pay the taxes are hard pressed Brits around the country,” former home secretary Dame Priti Patel told GB News on Friday as she insisted taxes had to come down. “As Conservatives, we believe in lower taxes. As Conservatives, we believe being on the side of hard-working households and families. As Conservatives, we believe in hope and aspiration.”

Poor polling and anxiety over the tax burden make for a tricky backdrop. Team Rishi insist that they can turn it around in the coming months, and the contour of that plan is taking shape.

On net zero, the PM is trying to drill dividing lines between the Conservatives and Labour over environmental policies. He will use conference to position himself on the side of the motorist as he looks to further mine the advantage he gained in the Uxbridge by-election over taxing polluting diesel cars.

The fanning of the immigration flames – with Home Secretary Suella Braverman threatening to withdraw from the ECHR last week – is helpful to a prime minister who is looking to win back lapsed 2019 Conservative voters and regroup on the right.

His team see a narrow path to victory with all pivots on economic recovery, coupled with the message “we’re back on track, don’t risk Labour” and winning back voters over core issues – environment, immigration – to narrow the polls (someone told me that 14% of lapsed Conservative 2019 voters have moved to Reform, get a chunk back and the gap begins to close).

“I wouldn’t bet against us to turn it around in the coming months,” said one No 10 insider. “Rishi genuinely believes he can make it better for the country and get into the best possible position for an election next year. Seeing how politics has changed over the past one, two years, I wouldn’t bet against us being able to turn it around. We have got to be the party of change.”

But the huge problem for Mr Sunak is that voters seem to have tuned out. He has been in No 10 for a year, and still the polls are unchanged. This conference, likely the last before an election, is his final chance to capture attention and start to regain voters’ ears.

But he has a problem too with a party that is in despair. While No 10 were pleased that the net zero announcements didn’t spark at backlash from pro-green One Nation Conservatives, the right of the party is restive over economy and waiting for the prime minister to placate them on spending and tax cuts. One figure suggested to me this weekend that Mr Sunak might use the cancellation of the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2 as a way of finding room for manoeuvre when it comes to promises on tax.

Closing the gap with Labour is the goal for now as speculation grows around whether it will be a May or October election. (If it’s May you can run it with the local elections and not risk a small boats summer crisis or a vote in the autumn after a local election wipeout – but the PM might just want to hold out.)

But away from the No 10 bunker, and even his most ardent backers think the best Mr Sunak can achieve is holding Labour back from an outright majority.

As for some of his more seasoned MPs, they are resigned to what they see is their fate: “Instinctively, I don’t feel that we can win. This feels like a damage limitation project.”

Manchester will be the acid test as to whether Mr Sunak can shift the momentum.

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Premier League clubs at risk of legal action over unlicensed casino sponsors

Published

6 hours ago

May 25, 2025

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Premier League clubs at risk of legal action over unlicensed casino sponsors

Casinos sponsoring two Premier League clubs are accepting UK customers without a licence, putting club officers at risk of prosecution, Sky News has learned.

The gambling websites, BC.Game and DEBET, are the matchday shirt sponsors of Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers, respectively.

But an investigation by anti-gambling advert campaigners, shared with Sky News, suggests the casinos have continued to accept UK customers – despite this becoming unlawful after they lost their licences to operate in the UK.

DEBET lost its licence on 15 May, while BC.Game lost its licence in December 2024.

Neither club has indicated that they intend to end the sponsorships, despite criticism from campaigners and warnings from the Gambling Commission.

With the end of the 2024/25 season this weekend, both clubs are now half-way through two-year sponsorship deals with the casinos – putting them in a difficult position for next season.

The campaign group Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGA) told Sky News it was able to make deposits on both gambling websites, despite the sites having no licence to accept UK customers.

CEGA also successfully deposited cash on Burnley FC sponsor 96.com. Burnley are due to be promoted to the Premier League next season.

The findings come one week after the Gambling Commission warned five football clubs, including Wolverhampton and Burnley, that their officers “may be liable to prosecution and, if convicted, face a fine, imprisonment or both if they promote unlicensed gambling businesses that transact with consumers in Great Britain”.

The Commission had issued a similar warning to Leicester City in February.

It made clear then that the clubs must either cut ties with the casinos or ensure they are not accessible to UK customers “by any means” – including virtual private networks (VPNs) – software used to hide a user’s real location.

Other than the need to use a VPN, CEGA director Will Prochaska says it “really wasn’t very difficult” to access the sites.

The Gambling Commission declined to be interviewed by Sky News, but said that “where we have evidence that meets the standard for criminal prosecution we will take appropriate action”.

Head of enforcement at the Commission John Pierce previously said the body would “conduct ongoing spot checks as necessary to ensure they are not accessible to consumers in Great Britain by any means”.

Mr Prochaska, however, said the Commission was taking “far too long” to take action.

“Far too many children, far too many football fans, are seeing these adverts every day,” he said. “It’s got to stop.”

Leicester City’s sponsor has had no UK licence for almost six months

The three sites that appear on the matchday shirts of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley were previously licensed by TGP Europe, a company based on the Isle of Man.

On 15 May, TGP Europe surrendered its UK gambling licence to avoid a £3.3m fine, leaving DEBET and 96.com unable to legally accept UK customers.

Leicester City sponsor BC.Game has been unlicensed in the UK since it parted ways with TGP Europe in December 2024 – almost six months ago.

Mr Prochaska said he contacted Leicester City on 13 March to alert them that BC.Game was still accepting UK customers.

“In fact, it was one of the easiest for me to gamble on – there were very few checks whatsoever,” he says. “But Leicester don’t seem to have done anything about it, and it’s still on the front of their shirts.”

Leicester City FC did not respond to a request for comment.

Sky News was able to sign up to every single site

Bournemouth, Fulham and Newcastle United are also sponsored by casinos that were formerly licensed by TGP Europe, but have been unlicensed since 15 May.

These casinos (bj88, SBOTOP and FUN88) are no longer able to legally accept UK customers.

However, Sky News was able to use a VPN to sign up to all three casinos, as well as those sponsoring Leicester City, Wolverhampton and Burnley.

On all six websites, Sky was able to access QR codes for making cryptocurrency deposits. Sky News did not attempt to make any deposits.

All six casinos are forbidden by law from accepting UK customers.

Yet Burnley sponsor 96.com allowed Sky News to sign up using a Telegram account registered to a UK phone number.

The other websites all required phone numbers to be entered upon registration, which could be used as an additional layer of security to filter out UK customers.

However, most of the websites did not check whether the phone number provided was genuine.

Only one website, Leicester City sponsor BC.Game, did check.

However, after confirming the phone number’s authenticity, BC.Game allowed registration to proceed – even though Sky News had provided a UK phone number.

Sky News presented these findings to the football clubs concerned, to TGP Europe and to the Gambling Commission, but did not receive any comment.

Anyone concerned about their gambling, or that of a loved one, can visit BeGambleAware.org for free, confidential advice and support, or The National Gambling Helpline is available on 0808 8020 133 and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

UK

Former BBC executive and presenter Alan Yentob dies

Published

6 hours ago

May 25, 2025

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Former BBC executive and presenter Alan Yentob dies

Alan Yentob, the former BBC presenter and executive, has died aged 78.

A statement from his family, shared by the BBC, said Yentob died on Saturday.

His wife Philippa Walker said: “For Jacob, Bella and I, every day with Alan held the promise of something unexpected. Our life was exciting, he was exciting.

“He was curious, funny, annoying, late, and creative in every cell of his body. But more than that, he was the kindest of men and a profoundly moral man. He leaves in his wake a trail of love a mile wide.”

Yentob joined the BBC as a trainee in 1968 and held a number of positions – including controller of BBC One and BBC Two, director of television, and head of music and art.

He was also the director of BBC drama, entertainment, and children’s TV.

Yentob launched CBBC and CBeebies, and his drama commissions included Pride And Prejudice and Middlemarch.

The TV executive was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the King in 2024 for services to the arts and media.

In a tribute, the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie said: “Alan Yentob was a towering figure in British broadcasting and the arts. A creative force and a cultural visionary, he shaped decades of programming at the BBC and beyond, with a passion for storytelling and public service that leave a lasting legacy.

“Above all, Alan was a true original. His passion wasn’t performative – it was personal. He believed in the power of culture to enrich, challenge and connect us.”

BBC Radio 4 presenter Amol Rajan described him on Instagram as “such a unique and kind man: an improbable impresario from unlikely origins who became a towering figure in the culture of post-war Britain.

“I commend his spirit to the living.”

UK

Mother and three children who died in house fire in London named by police

Published

6 hours ago

May 25, 2025

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Mother and three children who died in house fire in London named by police

A mother and three of her children who died in a house fire in northwest London have been named by police.

Warning: This article contains pictures of a fire in which people died

Detectives say Nusrat Usman, 43, Maryam Mikaiel, 15, Musa Usman, eight, and Raees Usman, four, died following the fire in Stonebridge, near Wembley, in the early hours of Saturday.

A woman in her 70s was taken to hospital but has since been released. A 13-year-old girl remains in hospital in a critical condition.

A 41-year-old man was arrested at the scene and has since been bailed. He was subsequently detained under the Mental Health Act.

Flowers and a blue teddy bear have been left near the scene, where crews wearing helmets and respiratory equipment were seen building scaffolding against the burnt-out buildings.

Neighbour Cecilia Marquis, 60, said she was “stunned by the devastation”.

“This will leave a devastating impact,” Ms Marquis, who witnessed the fire, said.

Witness Mohamed Labidi, 38, said he “can’t even look at the house right now”.

“We used to socialise together.

“They’re very good people, no problems on their side at all. It’s really shocking. It’s a really strong community here, we look after each other.”

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s horrible, we saw people running outside.

“It’s hard to process. I only just moved in, so it’s hard to think about it.”

Eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.

Two terrace houses, each with three floors, were severely damaged in the fire, which was under control by around 3.25am, the fire service added.

Superintendent Steve Allen, from the Met’s local policing team in northwest London, said: “Our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.

“Specialist officers are continuing to support the wider family who have asked for privacy at this deeply upsetting time.

“Local officers are working closely with officers from the Specialist Crime Command on what continues to be a very complex investigation.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said in a post on X: “This is devastating news and my thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community of the four people who sadly have lost their lives.

“I remain in close contact with the London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police as they work to establish the cause of the fire and offer support to all those impacted.”

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