Had to happen sooner or later, but today the government coalition is having to weather it’s first sleaze storm. Surprisingly, or not, it’s about expenses.
The Daily Telegraph have today made revelations about David Laws, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and MP for Yeovil, resulting in the Liberal Democrat multi-millionaire pledging to immediately pay back more than £40,000 in expenses that were claimed against parliamentary rules. Laws has now referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commission.
As an MP you are not allowed to lease accommodation from a partner, but for 5 years Mr Laws did just that, to the tune of £950 per month. He pilfered so much expenses that he could have bought over 20 duck islands with it.
Nick Clegg spent a lot of time in the pre-election build up boasting that his MPs had financial integrity following the expenses scandal, yet who can believe him now after his top money man has been exposed as just another greasy, filthy money grabber with their snout in the trough. Clegg will doubtless be livid that his own integrity has been undermined and that his party has been brought into disrepute.
Many times did the Liberal Democrat leader say he wanted to restore trust in politics. It’s fair to say that leaving skeletons in the closet for the media to find is not the best way of going about it.
Should we be surprised about this, though? In recent years banks have been lambasted by politicians for the practises of their investment banking arms, paying out immense bonuses to traders who were gambling the securities of every man, woman and child for their own personal gain. Guess what? Before he became an MP, David Laws was one of these blood-sucking leeches and has amassed incredible wealth from investment banking.
He may have left the city, but if these dodgy expenses are anything to go by he has retained the bloodlust and hunger for personal profits.
Unsurprisingly the Liberal Democrat spin machine has been pumping all kinds of misdirecting garbage intended to cover up the facts. One blogger, Sara Bedford, suggested that it was okay for Laws to rip off the taxpayer because he is gay and has dared to suggest that the reason he stole £950 per calendar month is because he wanted to hide his relationship with his land lord. Oh really. Nothing to do with hiding his relationship with his land lord so that he could claim £950 per month in expenses, then.
Laws said this morning;
“My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.”
If you want to hide your relationship, don’t claim the fucking expenses, David, or rent from someone else. As I said in yesterdays short article about John Prescott, you don’t have to dangle the expenses carrot for long before these ravenous piranhas swallow as much as they can, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has been exposed as one of the worst claimants in the entire expenses scandal.
I wonder how much of it was rent, and how much of it was “rent”? Was any of the £950 per month spent on lovers’ trysts to the Maldives? Was it spent buying PVC gimp suits from a SoHo sex shop? It’s been claimed that no profit was made by Laws, but the big question is whether we believe him.
Was he, for example, paying his boyfriend the money and then receiving some or all of it back in cash as spending money?
Liberal Democrat denier Sara Bedford went on to claim that the story was published in order to put pressure on the government to repeal its proposed hike in Capital Gains Tax, that Laws and his landlord didn’t make a profit, and that it’s all okay because “it didn’t cost the taxpayer an excessive amount”. You’re clutching at straws Sara, you really are. None of those things are relevant: he’s been caught bang to rights, and even if all those things were true, as Ed Balls would say, so what?
“I regret this situation deeply, accept that I should not have claimed my expenses in this way and apologise fully.”
Like all MPs, Laws is lucky enough to reside beneath a teflon shroud. Because parliament is like an old-boys club, and because he was stealing only expenses and not directly from a government agency (such as the benefits agency), he will face no charges of fraud and wont even receive a visit from the Old Bill.
I had not heard of him before, but I thought David Laws was a decent appointment after seeing his initial public outings. His speeches were all good, and he seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to money. You’d expect that from someone with a background in investment banking. But can he now be trusted in a top financial job when he has been exposed for being either unable or unwilling to follow parliamentary rules; rules that are in place to prevent people like him renting accommodation from their partners because it could be a stitched up scheme to profit?
The mettle of the coalition will now be tested. Will Dave come out with an articulated defence of Laws and shield him from an aggressive media witch hunt, or will the Conservatives move to distance themselves from the Liberal Democrats, hanging Laws out to dry and seeing him depart from the job he has held for only a few weeks?
Could David Laws even be the first victim of recall legislation?
loading…
“Could David Laws even be the first victim of recall legislation”.
I hope so,this Laws unto himself scum deserves to be prosecuted.He played the semantics game about being a “partner” (to evade resposibility); a bit like Bill Clinton and the ‘sexual relations’ semantics farce that he played out.
As for playing the PC card,to try and drum up support from Stonewall etc;get fucked David, (by your partner), your sexuality is not relevant,we dont give a fuck about whether you are gay or not. Your integrity (or lack of it) is the REAL issue here and you fiddled, you are bent,double entendre/pun intended, but your bentness is as a lying deceiving crooked cunt, not where you put your cock.
He has to go, and sooner rather than later………………..
How many more are there, one may ask?
loading...
The worst thing for me is that we’ve been sold all of this “clean up politics” stuff by Nick Clegg. He’ll say otherwise, but I can’t even contemplate that Nick Clegg didn’t know about Laws’ boyfriend, I really can’t.
And if he did know, then he is complicit in it and should suffer the same fate as Laws, whatever that may be.
loading...
What a stupid rubbish article, your credibilty has gone down a lot.
loading...
That’s the trouble with politics, once you’re indoctrinated there’s no turning back. It’s the Lib Dems’ credibility that is plummeting and will continue to do so if all the things Nick Clegg promised pre-election end up slapping him in the face like this is doing.
Laws has admitted it himself that he was wrong, he’s paying the money back without a fight, I didn’t make the quotes up and they’re on just about every news media source you can think of right now.
He says himself that his “motivation throughout all of this” (i.e. his claiming of £950 per month and keeping it a secret that he’s sleeping with the landlord) was “to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.”
Based on that, how can you disagree with what I have said? Just because he is gay does not mean there are special rules for him. Being gay is no longer taboo, and if he thinks it is then he needs to get over it. Or did he just use this as an excuse to claim these expenses to which he was not entitled?
It may well be the likelihood that it’s all very innocent and he was not aware of this rule, but on the other hand he could have been ripping off this money: suspicions arise because he actively concealed something that was against parliamentary rules.
I accept he could have claimed more by renting elsewhere – but it’s not about the volume of the expenses, it’s the volume of expenses that could potentially have been kept by Laws and his boyfriend as spending money, or just given straight back to Laws by his boyfriend in cash.
loading...
Well said Phil your article was spot on,Laws palyed the PC card and failed;hes a crooked cunt,period.
loading...
“What a stupid rubbish article, your credibilty has gone down a lot”
Phils credibility is fine but yours FCR, I expected better, you are a disappointment.
You have lost credibility; big time.
loading...
You are not allowed to criticise anyone who is not White, middle class and heterosexual, mainly all three. I wondered why Paddy Pantsdown was so rapid on the Defence when I realised the constituency. Is there a hint of nepotism here?
It adds another meaning to the expression -’going bent’. Luckily, the alleged miscreant is not a single mother who tries to earn a couple of coppers on the side in the local Chippie, then the DWP would have her in the slammer in no time flat.
Anyway, according to http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/05/david-laws-has-resigned.html he has resigned.
One question, what took him so long?
loading...
SPOT ON, THE CUNT HAS GONE,HES CROOKED: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10191524.stm
tell you what fucks me off, is the fact that the slag played the PC card, “oh I am gay that makes me a victim”, to get him off the hook,hes scum, good fuckin riddance to a piece of shit without integrity.
I am sick of this PC culture, THAT MUST GO.
Prosecute him.
loading...
This is Trueblackpudlians much favoured NEW, STRAIGHT, HONEST, FORWARD THINKING NON SLEEZE CON/DEM GOVERNMENT.
Oh Dear, Same old Tories same old sleeze ( I know he`s Dem but he`s in bed with the experts on sleeze)
Mind you, I think they did well to go 20 days before the sleeze came out. Won`t be long before more comes to the publics attention.
The coalition are already showing splits on several policies, won`t last in Government for more than a year.
loading...
No it is not ‘same old Tories’. This country has suffered after 13 years of Labour lies, sleaze and incompetence yet Liebour supporters conveniently forget everything in the last 13 years and rewind to 1979-1997 with their selective memories. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition would have been a disaster. The coalition will last and they are already repairing the damage done by Labour like scrapping ID cards and tackling the deficit.
loading...
I actually agree. The snouts are out in force.
Not sure about the coalition splitting just yet. That might be the Daily Mirror’s angle but I can’t see anything to suggest that.. yet!
loading...
Same old politicians always on the take more like. Most of the sleaze was Labour I seem to recall when the original scandal broke but no one party could have bragging rights as they were all at it.
David Laws needed to go and I’m glad he resigned. Are we really to believe that his lover would have even rented a room to anyone else in his own home? Why did he even need to rent when he has millions himself anyway? Expenses were supposed to provide accomodation for a second home for those MPs who couldn’t afford to do the job otherwise. It’s been taken as a perk instead. A chance to do up a second home whereby the mortgage is paid by the taxpayer and the MP takes all the gain without even paying capital gains tax or rents from someone he knows as a way of getting them taxpayer funded cash.
It was quite clear when the rules were drafted that you could not pay rent to a long-term partner. David Laws claimed anyway and didn’t confess when the expenses scandal came to light (and it would have been buried in a lot of other naming and shaming). He’s been with this bloke for 9 years – how can anyone say he wasn’t clearly breaking the rules? And anyone else know somewhere that costs £950 a month and you get another person living there already? When I’ve rented rooms in someone else’s house it’s never been anywhere near that cost.
loading...
David Laws claimed the minimum amount. Had his sexuality not been an issue then he he may well have been in a “partnership” with him and claimed more than double the amount that he did claim.
The facts are that his constituency is in Yeovil and that he needs to live in London to carry out his job.
He is entitled, nay, encouraged!, to claim expenses for this.
He claimed the minimum amount.
When he started, he was within the rules, then the rules appeared to change although David Laws still believed his situation was still unclear. Had he “come out” he would then have been entitled to claim much. much more money. He chose not to do that, he chose to stay in the closet.
If David Laws had only been interested in money he would have stayed out of politics and made a few more million in the City. If he had only been interested in Power he would have joined the Tory Party and would now have been Chancellor.
loading...
He claimed the minimum amount, but by parliamentary rules was entitled to claim none of it in his circumstances.
Maybe he claimed the minimum to stay under the radar?
He could have claimed what, double, for a genuine second home claim, and I’d have had no problem with that other than general issues with the second home allowance.
loading...
I don’t know why his sexuality is being touted as an issue when to the vast majority of people we couldn’t give a toss. The rules changed so that he shouldn’t have been claiming. They were quite clear. That he could have arranged his affairs differently to claim more off the taxpayer is irrelevant, though I don’t see how he could have done so by admitting he was gay. Is the man in charge of sorting out drastically reducing our debt not intelligent enough to understand the rules? If there was doubt, why take the money when he didn’t need it? This is not a man in financial hardship by a long chalk. You can’t expect people struggling to make ends meet to have sympathy for these political leeches.
I’m sorry for the man that he was publically outed in this way – but that’s a consequence of his financial shennagins and nothing else. If this had been an MP from another party would you still be arguing everything was above board?
loading...
That’s exactly my view!
He’s either used his “privacy” excuse to conceal the expenses in the first place or to absolve himself of the blame for it after he was caught.
Either way, in his circumstances he was entitled to none of it and has duly paid it back.
loading...
Seems he fell foul of the law(s), lol.
I await more scandals in due course.
loading...
Wait until we are Spelmanbound by a hubby who receive £230m for a £17M CONTRACT!!! Makes the Kensington Clanger look impecunious.
Lib Con MP’s have just come up with a new definition for ‘bent bastards’. And don’t take anything from the lying fans of the Prince of Darkness and Teflon Tony. Gay Gordon Marsden would not respond to my “It is illegal” letter before the invasion of Iraq. For thirteen year he could not challenge the thieves and liars in his own party, now everything is the Governments fault. Yupeee.
loading...
The husband of the MP Caroline Spelman? sounds fascinating!
loading...
Taken from Guido Fawkes on blog http://fylde-bootnecks.blogspot.com/2010/05/farmyard-politics-being-revived-by-our.html
loading...
There was a story about her in the Daily Fail I think yesterday showing that she used a chauffeur driven limousine to travel 500 yards from her home to her Westminster HQ.
In fact here it is.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282602/Ministers-Andrew-Robathan-Caroline-Spelman-caught-using-drivers-cars-crackdown.html
loading...
Sorry to stray off-topic but this is just yet more proof as if we needed it of the Gazette’s Labour bias http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Blackpool-MP-in-shadow-cabinet.6329989.jp At first I misread the article and I thought Paul Maynard had secured a Cabinet post but when I read it I thought what a load of pro-Labour tripe. Marsden has done nothing in 13 years to fight Blackpool’s corner and I don’t believe for a second he will start now. A Shadow Cabinet job just gives him evenmore reason to avoid Blackpool.
loading...
He stayed in Brighton
P
loading...
Spot on Notareargunner. A wiseguy Labour supporter once tried to play it down saying ‘Of course he doesn’t live in Blackpool, he has to attend Parliament’ I bloody know that I was saying he lives in Brighton even when he is not in Parliament. It has been rumoured for years that he lives in Brighton but until the expenses scandal it has been near impossible to prove because he avoids the issue very carefully. However thanks to the expenses scandal it was revealed his Blackpool ‘home’ is his designated ‘second home’ while his ‘constituency home’ is in Brighton.
loading...
and another reason to vote him out in 12 months!
loading...
I would love to be so optmistic Harold but after the disaster of 2010 I am not confident. I really thought 2010 was our chance to dump him once and for all but the Labour sheep kept him in and I am furious. I really do care about Blackpool and I want the best for Blackpool, I don’t feel Marsden is up to the job as he has proven over the last 13 years.
loading...
Hes not up to anything, except his Brighton escapades,still theres time yet TB.
loading...
To be fair, Ron Bell wasn’t up to the job either.
loading...
Stop mincing your words (sic). Kensington Clanger isn’t up to wiping your arse. He might lick it, kiss it but he won’t covet it like the Lieber thing.
loading...
True enough, but we have been stuck with Marsden for the last 13 years and I really thought this was our chance to get Labour out of the Fylde Coast for good. MARSDEN OUT NEXT ELECTION BLACKPOOL DESERVES BETTER
loading...
Ye it does, having NO MP is better than GM!
loading...
It’s about the same thing is it not?
loading...