1208 Hrs GMT
London
'Bank Holiday' Monday
31 May 2010.
Editor © Muhammad Haque.
DAILY MAIL article by ANDREW PIERCE on David Laws and other Lib Dem serial hypocrites over the past 40 years.
“It's about being a hypocrite, not about being gay By ANDREW PIERCE Last updated at 11:34 AM on 31st May 2010 ..............." David Laws has resigned from the Cabinet not because of any private battle with his demons to keep his homosexuality secret. He has gone because he is guilty of rank hypocrisy over his parliamentary expenses. He was the minister charged with slashing public expenditure who had already drawn up tough rules limiting the pay and perks of hundreds of thousands of public sector workers. Tens of thousands more would lose their jobs because of the decisions he would take. Yet the same minister, hailed as one of the brightest stars in the Coalition firmament, gave £40,000 of taxpayers' money to his landlord James Lundie - who was also his lover. Predictably, friends of Mr Laws trot out the same old excuse deployed by dozens of other MP expenses cheats. They say Mr Laws fell foul of rules that were too vague or were in a 'grey area'. Sorry, but in this case, the rules could not be clearer - especially after July 2006, when the authorities decreed: 'Second-home allowances must not be used to meet the costs of a mortgage or for leasing accommodation from a partner or family member.' David Laws arrives in Downing Street for a cabinet meeting before the state opening of Parliament last Tuesday Mr Laws, one of the cleverest men at Westminster with a double first in Economics from Cambridge University, ignored the new diktat. He continued to charge the taxpayer £950 a month rent for two rooms in Mr Lundie's London property. A multi-millionaire as a result of his former career in the City, he certainly did not need the cash. Indeed, his friends insist that he was not motivated by money, more by a desire to maintain his privacy. But he still abused the system to bolster the income of his secret boyfriend to the tune of £40,000 tax free. Yet David Cameron, the Prime Minister, was one of the first to hail Mr Laws as a 'moral' politician who could soon be back in the Cabinet - presumably only after he has repaid the £40,000. More... MELANIE PHILLIPS: What a reminder that when politicians talk about changing the world, it's time to start counting the spoons! MAIL COMMENT: A serious loss... but Mr Laws had to go IAIN DALE: We're not Americans. We don't like baring our souls. And most of all we don't like hurting our families. I know. I've been there JONATHAN AITKEN: If he'd come completely clean to the House it might just have saved him - I wish I'd tried it Lord Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, went further by anointing Mr Laws, his successor as MP for Yeovil, as 'Mr Integrity'. Lord Ashdown should tell that to the low-paid local authority gardeners, street cleaners and home helps, who will lose their jobs in their thousands because of the spending squeeze which Mr Laws was preparing. A succession of other politicians, including Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, toured the radio and television studios at the weekend to try to engender a climate of sympathy for Mr Laws. This, presumably, was to facilitate his swift return to the Cabinet. They all repeated the mantra that the mistake came about only because Mr Laws, a Roman Catholic, was tortured about his sexuality. It was, they said, a ' personal tragedy'. But in fact Mr Laws resigned because he made dubious parliamentary expenses claims over at least three years. He then took the most sensitive post in the Cabinet knowing that his abuse of the system was not the only secret he was keeping in his closet. When the great expenses scandal engulfed Westminster, with even the famously parsimonious Gordon Brown forced to repay £12,000, it was Nick Clegg, now Deputy Prime Minister, and Mr Laws who adopted a lofty tone of superiority. In a press release issued by his constituency office in the run-up to the election, Mr Laws actually boasted about his expenses record. It said: 'The report by Sir Thomas Legg into MPs' expenses has been published today, and this confirms that David Laws has not been asked to repay any of his expenses, as Sir Thomas found all his claims for London living costs to be in order.' The chutzpah of the man! As if that were not bad enough, Mr Laws then tried to score points at the expense of his political opponents. 'However, over half of MPs (390 out of 650) have been ordered to repay expenses, including many from the Somerset and Dorset area.' The statement then listed several MPs and how much they had to repay. It named Oliver Letwin, a Tory facing a fierce Lib Dem challenge, who now sits around the same Cabinet table as Mr Laws did. The £3,000 Mr Letwin had to repay will be dwarfed by the scale of what Mr Integrity will have to give back to the taxpayer. But the press release was fully in tune with the carefully- crafted, goody two shoes image of Mr Laws. Only hours before his spectacular fall from grace, he was at it again when he refused the offer of a pot plant for his office at the Treasury. He then demanded to see the budget for all pot plants in the department - and promptly abolished it. Naturally, this commendable act of thrift was leaked to the media. TODAY'S POLL Should David Laws have resigned? Yes No VOTE All polls Now, as a result of the weekend's revelations, Mr Laws has had to break the news to his aged parents, who are devout Roman Catholics, that he is gay and has been in a same-sex relationship for nine years. Mr and Mrs Laws probably thought their son was married to his work and had no time for affairs of the heart. As a gay Roman Catholic, I feel desperately sorry that it was only as a media firestorm was about to engulf him that Mr Laws finally decided to tell his family and close friends about the guilt which has given him sleepless nights for years. I told my parents when I was 22. It's not easy. I understand the demons that haunt him. He probably feared his parents would be devastated, expecting him one day to settle down with a nice girl and have a family. I hope, like my parents, they will love Mr Laws just as much gay or straight. If we are honest, the Lib Dems do not have a good record here. While running for the party leadership, Simon Hughes was outed by a tabloid after he had told an interviewer that he was not homosexual. It was the same Simon Hughes who was the Liberal candidate in Bermondsey in one of the most notorious by-elections of the last 30 years, when the tabloids turned with savage fury on the Labour candidate Peter Tatchell. His supposed sin was being gay. Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader in the last hung parliament in 1974, was charged at the Old Bailey with attempting to murder Norman Scott, who claimed to be his former lover. Mr Thorpe, who denied he was involved with Mr Scott, was acquitted but his career was ruined. Mr Laws has not, as his friends insist, paid a high price for his error of judgment. He has paid the right price. Some of his constituents who are caught fiddling their welfare benefits would face prosecution. He will merely apologise to the Commons, repay the money - not difficult for a millionaire - and wait for a recall to the Cabinet. It's hardly rough justice. Supporters of Mr Laws will continue to fan the flames of the smokescreen which they have created over his sexuality. But let's be clear. Most people don't care if their MP is gay or straight. It's fiddling expenses which is the vice that dare not speak its name....
