The Tories keep “shooting ourselves in the foot” during the general election campaign, a former minister warned as a gambling row continues to engulf the Conservative Party.

Paul Scully said the Tories were facing a “punishment election” anyway on July 4 but problems and gaffes during the campaign were “making it easy for [voters] to punish us even further”.

It was suggested to Mr Scully during an interview on GB News that things seemed to have gone from “bad to worse” for the Tories ever since Rishi Sunak triggered the election.

The former Tory MP said: “It feels like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot and we’re not millipedes. We’ve only got two feet.

“There’s only so much capacity. When you have got effectively what is a punishment election, when you’ve got people that are wanting to punish the Conservatives and so they’re going to be looking under the microscope at absolutely everything that we do and then we’re making it easy for them to punish us even further on that basis.”

Several senior Conservatives are facing official investigations by the gambling watchdog over allegations that they placed bets on the July date before it was public.

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