benefits cheat quits

He had to resign, but the country is worse off as a result. There are so many tough decisions to be made over the nation's economy, and in the short time that he was in charge, Laws seemed to be making the right ones.

It's also sad that his personal circumstances led him to commit such a huge error of judgement.

So I can't agree with your triumphalist sentiment, Bob.

Graham

Could not agree more with you, Graham. Quite right.

Bob, I fail to see why you should seem so delighted. In a very short time Mr. Laws seems to have been made significant steps in the right direction to clear up the mess left by a previous contemptible administration - summed up so neatly by Mr. Liam Byrne as he left a note for his successor.

"There is no money. Good luck."

No, there is no need for triumphalism over Mr. Laws' predicament. The country is poorer for the outcome of loosing a very talented man. One might examine the motivations carefully. If one is reasonable then one may see that though he may have breached the rules this was not for personal gain as much as to preserve his privacy. I believe clemency may well be the correct action and let us hope that he may soon return to the administration. Unlike Mr. Mendelssohn’s many returns Mr. Laws is welcome back as soon as possible as far as I am concerned.

George

"I stole 40k because I wanted to keep it a secret that I'm gay"
A bit of an insult to his partner as well.

You do not need to be nice in politics to be fantastic at the job. Churchill was not nice either ...

Chaps

The man did the decent thing and resigned but ultimately Cameron and Clegg would have had to have sacked him, there just was no alternative.

Unfortunately the coalition has lost a very able man so there is no reason to gloat over this.

The one thing that worries me was that this information must have been known by the Daily Telegraph months ago when they did their investigations but chose not to publish it when Laws was a non entity. They chose to hold back and save it for a rainy day.

The question is .... how much more dirt have they got and when are they going to release it. They could sit on the information for months, even years and release it when someone gets promoted. It almost borders on blackmail material and this is just not healthy.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

The Telegraph have got files on the expenses claims of every single MP from the last parliament to drip-feed as and when.

I think Bob's a hard-core Labour man hence his reaction.

I agree with the majority sentiment in this thread, though - his position was untenable but the coalition has lost a very able minister.

George
THe there is no money is a standard joke by the administration is leaving. TYou may care to research Reggie Maudling's note when he vacated the job to prove this.
Further 'Dave' had as a pre election mantra that he was going to clean up politics and there would be no room for trough in snout politicians anymore. It was bad enough that he broke this pledge by giving a senior job to Caroline Spelman, who's troughing was legendary.
Finally, I think it outrageous that anyone could even countenance accepting announcements of massive cuts affecting all of us from the mouth of someone who systematically defrauded the taxpayer.
By the way George Mendelssohn was a musician.

I would, to some extent, query the "able man" and loss to the country angle. One speech backing up a pile of proposals hammered out elsewhere is, IMHO, no basis for judgement.

On the other hand, putting aside the intrusion to his private life, why should ordinary voting citizens gloat? Mick Parry makes the point thar the Telegraph have sat on this until an apposite moment arose. I'm not so sure it counts as blackmail. Is there really an MP out there who has failed to notice that the Telegraph have had this info for a long time? What level of arrogance is required to believe thar the arrangement described and especially the amazing drop in the amount claimed once receipts were required?

The phrase "had it coming" seems appropriate. His level of competence at his specific task ceases to be relevant in light of other actions. This has nothing to do with my particular political preferences. These people are on a gravy train and the level of arrogance here is such that even now many of them will not twig that hhe Telegraph awaits them. Personally I demand more from elected representatives. The concept of "big society" (empty rhetoric if I ever heard some anyway) looks laughable in this context.

Gloat? Absolutely. Step forward the next buffoon please!!!

The thing that interests me is that no one seems to be concerned that he was gay, although it was clearly an issue for David Laws, but that he was seen to be fiddling his expenses.

I suspect that the money he claimed for accommodation was probably considerably less than others and that the amount he claimed overall was on the low side.

Seems that an error of judgement has claimed a very able individual.

To echo an earlier point, I am sure he was not on the Telegraph's list on "sinners" until he was elevated to his recent post.

Nic

Clearly the issue isn't homophobia.

It is much more second-homeophobia.

Very good Bob

My point was that society has moved on, homophobia is not the issue, but claiming the wrong expenses is now the hanging crime. Seems a long time since the days of Jeremy Thorpe eh!

Nic

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..

This makes me pretty angry actually - especially the pompous opening smart-arse line of this thread.

It smacks of a right-wing plot to destabilise the coalition and pick off the Lib Dems.

The Tories should remember that they're only there because the LDs committed to support them. Otherwise they would have had to call another election, with no more guaranteed outcome than the last.

David Laws is not only one of the cleverest and most able people in the cabinet (I agree with Mick!), but also evidently a complex individual from the sort of background which made it difficult for him to sort out his private life. Yes, he made a stupid mistake, but as Mick said, you've just lost the best man for the job.

And well done for this to the Barclay Brothers, owners of the Telegraph and a pair of non-doms who don't pay us ANY tax...
If I were Clegg, I'd be looking very closely into their affairs now.

Well said, and I think this goes to the nub of the issue. Who's next on the DT's hit-list?

Very well put Salmon Dave. For me this isn't about David Laws at all, it's the Telegraph.

To explain, when we are given any information by the media I think we should ask ourselves a couple of questions: who is telling me this? and why are they telling me this?

We've been given the David Laws story by the Maggie-cheerleading Telegraph, a paper that IMO is still deeply traumatised by the events of november 1990.

And for the second question, though the Telegraph hates Cameron for being warm, being likeable, for not being Thatcherite enough, there is one thing that it hates more - the coalition.

Regards, Chris

quote:

Originally posted by Salmon Dave:
This makes me pretty angry actually - especially the pompous opening smart-arse line of this thread.

It smacks of a right-wing plot to destabilise the coalition and pick off the Lib Dems.

The Tories should remember that they're only there because the LDs committed to support them. Otherwise they would have had to call another election, with no more guaranteed outcome than the last.

David Laws is not only one of the cleverest and most able people in the cabinet (I agree with Mick!), but also evidently a complex individual from the sort of background which made it difficult for him to sort out his private life. Yes, he made a stupid mistake, but as Mick said, you've just lost the best man for the job.

And well done for this to the Barclay Brothers, owners of the Telegraph and a pair of non-doms who don't pay us ANY tax...
If I were Clegg, I'd be looking very closely into their affairs now.

David Laws is a thief.
Theft isn't 'a mistake'. It is a crime.
He would be currently standing down as an MP if he had any integrity.

Who is telling us and why are absolutely critical points but are they the most critical? I think not. Are you seriously telling us that when the Lib Dems agreed this coalition that they either didn't complete due diligence on their nominated ministers or were so naive as to believe they were in the clear and not liable to be on the end of this sort of stuff.

As for this, you've lost the best mam for the job argument, it barely stands scrutiny.

1) the best man for the job generally isn't so naive or stupid.

2) one tends to judge whether someone truly is the best man for the job in hindsight. Hindsight is kinda pointing in one direction right now.

3) he'd made one speech, presenting the ideas of others. On what are we basing the assertion of "best" again?

4) Laws voting record makes for pretty sobering reading. Liberal? Really?

Still, give it six months and as members find their upgraditis ill served by redundancy one can't help but wonder how "best" may come to be redefined.

Mike

I'm no fan of the LDs but I think I'm correct in saying that he could legitimately have extracted more money from the system by structuring his affairs in another way. This would tend to lend support to the 'hiding his relationship' motive and argue against the 'nose in the trough' accusation.

quote:

Originally posted by Christopher_M:
Very well put Salmon Dave. For me this isn't about David Laws at all, it's the Telegraph.

To explain, when we are given any information by the media I think we should ask ourselves a couple of questions: who is telling me this? and why are they telling me this?

We've been given the David Laws story by the Maggie-cheerleading Telegraph, a paper that IMO is still deeply traumatised by the events of november 1990.

And for the second question, though the Telegraph hates Cameron for being warm, being likeable, for not being Thatcherite enough, there is one thing that it hates more - the coalition.

Regards, Chris

The Telegraph started their exposés of MPs at a time when the headlines were full of outrage about the excesses of bankers.

It always looked to me like they saw some easy targets in MPs fiddling small expense accounts, a few thousand here or there, in order to distract from what their real friends in the city were doing, hiving off millions. That after we the public had given far more to them than the salaries of all the MPs combined.

I used to like the Telegraph, I grew up with it, and felt it had some great writing, now I wouldn't was a penny on it (well except for its cricket coverage).

Firstly I have to say that I have no real political bias, and consider myself to be a relatively ordinary citizen.

I think that we need to look at things from the point of view of the many people in the UK struggling to make ends meet.

I find it incredible to believe that an 'employee' who, by their own admission, wrongly claims say £40,000 of expenses simply because of an error of judgement, should remain in post.

I certainly wouldn't expect my employer to turn a blind eye to such an act! So why should a politician, regardless of how able they are to do their (albeit extremely important) job, expect different treatment?

There is something being missed here, with emotive phrases calling him a thief etc.

Laws was perfectly entitled to claim rent payments on his London residence. What he was not allowed to do was involve a partner or relative as the rules changed in 2006 or so.

This is where his judgement was clouded and at fault, because he was trying to hide his sexuality.

It would make an interesting value for money comparison to see how his overall expense claims stood in respect to others who stuck strictly to the rules, but may have claimed considerably more.

Regards

Nic

Nic,

I'm not so sure we dud miss that point. It's been done to death to some extent but the fact that many many MPs were operating within the rules as they stood rather begs the questions

a) should we trust these people at all given their moral compass was so off that they thought such rules to be absolutely acceptable?

b) given their resistance to reform of same and their willingness to blame the system whilst somehow presenting that they personally were nothing to do with the existence of the system is Laws any less morally corrupt than the rest of them? Noble intention is an interesting defence but one that, yet again, doesn't survive scrutiny when you look at the advice MPs took and their willingness to accept such advice in the face of all morality or logic.

Let's not forget here that whilst it is easy to feel some sympathy for his partner, said partner was a Commons researcher. The sexuality of Laws was known to both other members and the media so... from whom exactly was his partner being protected?

Add it up and you come back to the same conclusion. Public money misused (whether or not for private gain) by people for whom the starting assumption is that they have sone sense of proportion and appropriateness.

Mike

Mike,

All perfectly valid and well made points. The expenses system was wide open to abuse and many clearly took advantage of it, so your concern about individuals moral compass is particularly pertinent. Clearly the public thought so too and voted out many of the offenders that had not already chosen to retire/step down prior to the election.

Do not get me wrong, Laws made a bad judgement call, but I do wonder if we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.

Laws looked like he was set to cut out considerable amounts of waste that would dwarf the money involved.

From tit-bits being fed to me by friends I know who are involved in the medical IT balls up, there are bigger fish to fry. Whoever wrote the specifications and contracts for these systems has cost the country huge sums of money, with very little in return.

Regards

Nic

Ah, now you've taken me into territory I know rather too much about and best not comment beyond saying that I find the debate about "waste" lacking in rigour also. Whilst there is undoubtedly waste I think it fair to say that it isn't going to amount to a tin of beans.

Plenty of us who work in these sectors or who know someone who does have many anecdotes. In truth, the "waste" debate is really more an ideological debate about what you believe government should do.

As I work in local government and my wife is at the heart of much which you allude to I'd best leave it there.

mike

quote:

From tit-bits being fed to me by friends I know who are involved in the medical IT balls up, there are bigger fish to fry. Whoever wrote the specifications and contracts for these systems has cost the country huge sums of money, with very little in return

Nic,
Have a look at the regionalisation of fire controls, £1Bn over budget and still not fit for purpose! Scotland walked away from this costly folly years ago and using the system that was in place created resilience within this system for a fraction of the cost.
Pity help us all if a major terrorist attack were to happen on these isles and remember that the Olympic games are just around the corner
Even now it is not too late to remove the money trough away from the army of IT consultants who have overseen this farce and build resilience into the underfunded (because the money has been heaved off to pay for the regional control projects) fire controls that already exist.