[Closed] David Laws resigns - what a load of ****

Interestingly, it appears that if he had simply declared the money and for what it was to be used in the first place, nothing would have happened as it would have been completely legit (apparently).

I hear on this morning's Marr show thingy that the reason he tried to cover it up was because he didn't want his religious parents finding out he was gay.

So there we have it - one more thing Religion has managed to f*ck up to add to the long and sorry list.

I hear on this morning's Marr show thingy that the reason he tried to cover it up was because he didn't want his religious parents finding out he was gay.

Call me old fashioned if you like, but if you've been chucking your man fat up someone on a regular basis

he tried to cover it up was because he didn't want his religious parents finding out he was gay.

😈

I live in his constituency, will be interesting to see what the local paper says about all this when it's out on Thursday!

To put it in perspective, his claims go back to something like 2002 or 2003 I believe. The regulations changed in 2006, but the shit only hit the fan re claims generally in the last 6 months or so - if he was still claiming (I'm not clear if he was or not) then he was being a bit stupid for not taking the opportunity to stop earlier.

I find it curious that the Torygraph was 'til *now* to release this, they must have known for a long time - I can't help thinking that they're trying to stir up trouble since the coalition isn't as right-wing as many tories would like.

This guy's obviously a bandit but it's less about homophobia than it is about second home-ophobia.

He got a double first in economics at King's College, Cambridge - bright chap!

He messed up but he cost us less than many legitimate expenses claimed by MPs so it is a shame. It really was a stupid system.

so if i nicked 40k off my boss or YOU i would have the old bill kicking in the doors having my pc away and my bank details and would also be looking a 2-5 in the showers with some large inmate in my loacal prison.Na boy gets away with it and a pocket full of tax payers money for his gay lover 😐

£900 per month? For one room?

jond - Member

I find it curious that the Torygraph was 'til *now* to release this, they must have known for a long time - I can't help thinking that they're trying to stir up trouble since the coalition isn't as right-wing as many tories would like.

I was willing to believe that this expense abuse was limited to a small number of MPs - all of whom had now been outed. Now I'm more inclined to believe that they're all at it and will only admit it once they've been found out. Surely the party managers should be going over all claims for the past few years and getting all the skeletons out of the cupboard?

And he'll be welcomed back according to Iain Duncan Smith.

Corrupt liar forced to resign shock!

so if i nicked 40k off my boss or YOU i would have the old bill kicking in the doors having my pc away and my bank details

It's not really 'nicking' it as a lot of the other MP's did. He was renting the room and so has not actually made any material gain from the expenses. If he had been renting somewhere else, then no-one would have any problems at all. It's at the other end of the scale completely from the duck-pond castle/moat cleaning/etc.

But also, at the end of the day it was against the rules and so he's got to take the rap and I think did so in a genune and appropriate way.

Huge shame though as he has done brilliant things for the Yeovil constituency, especially with keeping jobs at Westlands when there could have been a LOT of redundancies. Hopefully the Telegraph haven't completely killed his career as an MP just to sell papers.

He defrauded the system while an MP, and also in whatever job he did have, being an MP allowed him to make a personal gain and so sadly he should resign a san Mp and go allowing somebody else to try,preferably one who knows the rules.

Pity for his relegious biggoted parents, how will they dare show their faces in Waitrose, now they and everyone else knows their son is gay,the horror of it.

Perhaps somebody should send them a copy of Brokeback Mountain,and hopefuly they will watch it to the end,and see what being gay used to mean to biggoted ignorant people, a sad and cruel death by the biggoted people.

Pity for his religious bigoted parents

I haven't really been following this story that closely - has he really been trying to shift all the blame onto his
parents ? ...... how pathetic and immature 😐

How did he managed to keep his set-up with his gay partner secret from his parents - did they never go round to visit him ?

And why did he think that if he [i]didn't[/i] claim the £40k in expenses, his parents would find out that he was gay ?
Do his parents check their son's parliamentary expenses claims then ? Would they have asked, "why didn't you claim for your rent son ?"

The only thing which has brought it to the attention of everyone that David Laws is gay, is his claim for the £40k in expenses. Which all goes to prove that you can be a Vice President of JP Morgan, and still be a tw4t.

He was not "renting a room" - he was sharing a house with his partner. He claimed for rental that he wasn't paying so of course he has made a material gain - he and his partners house has been partly paid for by fraudulent expenses claims.

I see it now looks like the new LibDem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, has been avoiding Capital Gains Tax by flipping his second home.

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/liberal-democrat-mps-expenses/7787519/Danny-Alexander-new-Treasury-chief-avoided-capital-gains-tax-on-house.html ]Danny Alexander, new Treasury chief, avoided capital gains tax on house[/url]

A practice which the LibDem leader Nick Clegg has said is quite unacceptable.

He also, quote : "claimed more than £37,000 in expenses for the flat, and carried out some work to the property at the taxpayers’ expense shortly before selling in June 2007."

Again, a practice which Nick Clegg claimed was unacceptable :

[url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8517337.stm ]MPs' second home profits 'should be surrendered'[/url]

Quote : [i]Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has repeatedly criticised the practice, saying it amounted to some MPs becoming "spivvy property speculators, trading up from one home to the next for personal profit". [/i]

So it's nice to know that the LibDem herbert who has the responsibility to identify where there should be "savage" cuts, not only knows how to find tax loopholes to enrich himself, but is also a complete hypocrite.

Is this the new [b]"kind of"[/b] politics which Nick Clegg promised us ?

........didn't last long ........... did it ?

He was renting the room and so has not actually made any material gain from the expenses.

"I'm gay, does that get me out of trouble?"

Throw away the key...

Just cheapens the one or two MPs who may well be honest, playing the orientation card is the lowest of the low.

"If I write a 900 quid cheque to your spouse/de facto every month, that's really a cheque to you as well."

But as he says, they don't live as man and, er, husband- they have seperate lives, seperate bank accounts.

We have a code of conduct at work that might help PMs at this point.

It says at one point, Even though something may be legal and not in breach of company procedures you should ask yourself "How would my family react if I told them what I was doing?" "How would this look on the front page of a national newspaper?"

Seems sound advice for MPs. Just because it breaks no rules doesn't mean you should be doing it. Ignorance and stupidity is not an excuse. These people are expected to be running the country so if they slip up in this way what hope do they have on the bigger issues.

Is it ironic that if he'd simply not bothered trying to claim rent that none of this would have happened and he could have stayed in the closet?

they have seperate lives, seperate bank accounts.

Isn't there a HUGE amount of spin going on here. The goverment seem to want us to feel sorry for him as though he was just a victim of societies homophobia not another greedy politician playing the system.

I think we're beyond the point, certainly for an MP, where coming out as gay is really likely to have any great impact on his career or life. For that reason I think the "hiding he was gay 'cause he was ashamed of it" argument doesn't hold much weight. It just appears to be a convenient excuse.

The "living together for the best part of a decade but not really partners" has even less weight. I wonder if the cash even got paid directly to the partner - I suspect that might be the deciding factor in whether this ends up in court or not i.e. if he claimed it but didn't pass the cash on he's possibly going to jail.

I think very little to do with expenses or peoples sexuality, thats just old news.

IMO this is a backlash from the the 'Tory right',the backbenchers digging around to find the muck on the new coalition.
Going head to head with the Tory leadership will have been a no no, but a strike on a Liberal Cabinet member will have been seen by them as fair game. Its the first demonstration of the divide in the Tory party, probably a back lash when Dave Cameron tried to muscle the 1922 commitee, I imagine he's spitting feathers - but many will be elated.

There's a massive ideological divide between the followers of the more liberal 'One Nation Conservatism' coined by Benjamin Disraeli and the traditionalist 'right' of the tory old guard.

konabunny - Member

they have seperate lives, seperate bank accounts.

"lolzers - are you single, by any chance? I'd love to hear you explain to your husband/wife/gf/bf that even though you're shagging and living together, you're still living "separate lives"!"

That's exactly the point 🙄 Throughout he's said they don't live as a permanent couple (and they didn't live together permanently as you seem to think), he didn't- still doesn't- consider that they were counted as "spouses" under the rules, which are vague as hell anyway.

And yep, I've been in a (straight) relationship exactly the same. We weren't spouses or even much of a couple, our lives were pretty seperate, but it lasted longer than some marriages. And I'd have said the same as he does, we weren't "spouses", we were friends who happened to f*** a lot, and that went on for a long time, but it didn't suddenly mean we were man and wife.

Like I say, I still think he's an idiot and I think half the criticisms are completely true, but when you consider this wasn't the route of most profit for him, and he had legitimate ways that would have made him more money, then the simple "pure greed" explanation just doesn't fit, to me. If it was pure greed, he'd have done what everyone else was doing. Very little in life's that simple anyway tbh.

IMO this is a backlash from the the 'Tory right',the backbenchers digging around to find the muck on the new coalition.

Yup.

Honestly - in this time of financial crisis - do people really care more about some fiddling of expenses than they do about having a guy who was apparently very capable at his job? Would we rather have instability and someone less able, as long as they are squeaky clean?

We're not talking about overclaiming for a meal or the like though - the guy stole £40K FFS.

Northwind - take it back to basics. The 40 grand of expenses was supposedly for renting the spare room of a man he was shagging over eight years. Do you believe that throughout the time they were shagging he was actually living in the spare room?

a guy who was apparently very capable at his job

How would anyone know ? He was only "at his job" for less than 3 weeks.

Or is there an assumption that he would have been very good at the job of implementing "savage cuts" because he was a former banker ?

Personally, I would prefer [i]less[/i] rather than [i]more[/i] bankers in the Cabinet, as I remain unconvinced that bankers can be trusted to act responsibly.

I along with millions of others, have and will, pay a heavy price for the fukups caused by the irresponsible behaviour of bankers.

And certainly drawing attention to himself by making an unnecessary expense claims doesn't appear to have been the smartest move. Nor is it one which particularly inspires confidence in David Laws judgement.

konabunny - Member

"Northwind - take it back to basics. The 40 grand of expenses was supposedly for renting the spare room of a man he was shagging over eight years. Do you believe that throughout the time they were shagging he was actually living in the spare room?"

Maybe some of the time, aye. Obviously not the whole time (he's said that himself). Nor was he required to in order to claim. But the thing is, he'd have been entitled to claim a mortgage if he'd bought a place there even if he never stayed in it, so I don't really see that as all that relevant. That's what I keep saying about greed- he had the option to legitimately make a huge profit at our expense, loads of other MPs did the exact same within the rules, he chose not to. Whether his own claim was reasonable or not's a different question but it wasn't the greedy option, and it wasn't the expensive option for us either.

tbh that's one of the reasons I think his judgement's so awful, he went for an option that incriminated him but didn't really benefit him. It's a bit like, oh, not bothering to claim your overtime and just taking money from the til instead.

If he's really as talented as everyone says... 'Call me Dave' should have demoted him and made him carry on his duties on a junior ministers wages - but the fact that he did nothing to help (one noncommital statement is a bit shitty bth) makes me think that this could be a clear steer that the PM won't be doing anything to help the libdems if it starts getting sticky.
Which would make the coalition less likely to last the distance... which would be the greatest shame of all, it has real potential

Northwind, if your partner magically had an extra £900 a month coming in, are you saying you wouldn't be benefiting? £900 extra allowed them together either to live a more expensive lifestyle, or simply to line their pockets.

"Northwind, if your partner magically had an extra £900 a month coming in, are you saying you wouldn't be benefiting?"

No, I'm saying nothing of the sort. What I AM saying (and I've said it about 3 times) is that he had other options available which would have made him more money, at our expense, which would have been legit under the rules. Instead he went for a less profitable option, and one which cost us less. So the greed argument doesn't stack up, because if the motivation was greed his actions make no sense.

And also, I'm saying (as Laws says) that they don't really live as conventional partners, their lives are very seperate, so your example "my partner" doesn't neccesarily apply. I think people are making wrong assumptions and judgements based on more conventional relationships and how they work.

And I know from personal experience that unconventional relationships do bother people, I think if he'd been living in a conventional "married" relationship with a man that'd bother a lot of people less than living in an unconventional, extremely loose, relationship with either a man or a woman.

Telegraph have stuck the doc martens into his successor for flipping homes....

Tory old boys at play

Not honest about his sexuality...
Not honest about his expenses claims...
Scared of his parents thoughts about his life, well that's a strong principled man that you'd want in cabinet or to represent you in parliament?
He won't resign as an MP in fact he's considered it but the party are begging him to stay as the coalition won't weather a by election at this point!

Scared of his parents thoughts about his life, well that's a strong principled man that you'd want in cabinet or to represent you in parliament?

Except that apparently he was actually good at his job.

Unconventional 😯
Unconventional my ****ing a r se! What not having a joint bank account makes their lives seperate and "unconventional" do me a favour. This is just utter nonesense and spin to draw away from the fact he was fiddling his expenses.

No, I'm saying nothing of the sort. What I AM saying (and I've said it about 3 times) is that he had other options available which would have made him more money, at our expense, which would have been legit under the rules. Instead he went for a less profitable option, and one which cost us less. So the greed argument doesn't stack up, because if the motivation was greed his actions make no sense

oh, and maybe this is all a prelude to big Dave calling an end to the coalition - "they're all too sleazy..." and calling a new election 😕

Good at his job, that's interesting, aren't MP's elected to represent their constituents, so I presume he's from gayintheclosetrobbington then?

How can someone be considered a good employee if they're involved in fraud?

Good at his job, that's interesting

Apparently his supposed prowess as Chief Sec to HMT comes from his city experience, ie, he made a multi-million £ punt on the value of the dollar as a 28 year old and it came off meaning he never had to work again and could pursue his interest in politics.

Now he may have been a good CST or may not but I'm not sure how this kind of gamble equates to the role of cutting billions out the economy that he was in.