BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 30 May 10 - 09:59 AM

Thanks very much Lox, that's very helpful. You're right, London prices are way beyond what we might expect in other parts of the country, which is why I asked in the first place.
But the MP wasn't renting a whole flat, but sub-letting a single room and apparently also paying contributions to running costs. As a rent for sharing, when you're providing additional help with outgoings, I still think £950 a month seems over the top.
Obviously, the whole system of Parliamentary Expenses needs sorting out properly and the same standards that apply in life outside cosy world of Westminster introduced as soon as possible - and administered by a strong, neutral body. I think lots of people will judge not just the current Govt but MPs in general on the success of achieving this.
Georgina

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 10 - 11:17 AM

A "spouse" means someone with whom you have or at least intend to have a permanent relationship, and who has an equal share in everything you own, even if you split up. A great deal more than the closest of friendships.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Rog Peek
Date: 30 May 10 - 11:54 AM

With politicians from all major parties rallying to praise and commiserate with Mr. Laws I'm wondering just what this 'new politics' is actually all about. Sounds like an even more entrenched version of the 'old politics' to me.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 10 - 12:56 PM

So what is the difference between paying rent to a stranger or to a friend?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Jim McLean
Date: 30 May 10 - 05:09 PM

It's in the Green Book, McGrath. 3.3.3.
ACA (Additional Costs Allowance)must not be used to meet the costs of a mortgage or for leasing accommodation from:
yourself;
a close business associate or any organisation or
company in which you - or a partner or family
member - have an interest; or
a partner or family member.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 10 - 07:01 PM

The term "partner" can mean all kinds of thing. Bridge, for example. There has to be some more specific definition here to narrow it down, surely.

Regardless of the rules, the question still applies - what is the justification in making any distinction between paying rent to a stranger and paying rent to a friend?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: GUEST,Allan
Date: 31 May 10 - 02:29 AM

"Regardless of the rules, the question still applies - what is the justification in making any distinction between paying rent to a stranger and paying rent to a friend?"

Presumably the only reason one should obtain expenses is if there is an actual expense occurred. The reason that you are not allowed to claim if living with a partner is because there is no expense occurred as you'd be living there anyway. In other words the claimant is making the claim for his, or his partner's, personal gain rather than costs incurred. Laws seems to be admitting this but with the excuse that he didn't claim because he didn't want to bring his sexuality and his relationship into the open. He isn't claiming this man isn't his partner! Rules are rules and this seems to be a pretty reasonable one.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: s&r
Date: 31 May 10 - 02:44 AM

David Laws is intelligent and well educated. He has learned how to play with words and manipulate them I fancy.

I think he understands the meaning of partner and spouse and expenses as well as anyone.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 31 May 10 - 03:22 AM

You can be sure of one thing, if he had to pay £40,000 out of his own pocket he would very quickly have found somewhere cheaper.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 May 10 - 05:44 AM

...somewhere cheaper In Central London?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: s&r
Date: 31 May 10 - 06:59 AM

"Mr Laws was also facing questions over whether he should have declared an interest when hosting an event in the Palace of Westminster for the lobbying firm that employed Mr Lundie"

Why am I not surprised?

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 May 10 - 07:21 AM

"Regardless of the rules, the question still applies - what is the justification in making any distinction between paying rent to a stranger and paying rent to a friend?"


There are no strangers, just friends you don't recognise!!

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Arnie
Date: 31 May 10 - 09:58 AM

Yesterday a Sunday Times journo reported that the matter of Laws being a homosexual was well-known in Westminster and that he had frequently appeared with his partner at parliamentary functions. None of the journalists or parliamentarians ever thought this worth commenting on, and why should they? And yet Laws, in his defence, says that he carried on claiming expenses so as not to be 'outed'. What a strange world politics is......

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 31 May 10 - 11:04 AM

""You can be sure of one thing, if he had to pay £40,000 out of his own pocket he would very quickly have found somewhere cheaper.""

If you can find me accomodation in London which costs me £40,000 for EIGHT YEARS I'll take it.

My current housing association rent for a property thirty miles from London will cost me £48,000 over the next eight years IF I can persuade them to freeze my rent at its current level. In fact it will increase by inflation plus two percent minimum. You do the math, then tell me where you think he can find cheaper accomodation in London.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: MikeL2
Date: 31 May 10 - 12:00 PM

Hi

All the correspondence here about the costs of accommodation etc etc are meaningless in this issue.

Laws knew the rules and broke them. So he is guilty.

So in his position he had to resign.

Nothing honourable about that - he was caught with his hands in the till.

His excuses were just that ....excuses.

Good Riddance

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jun 10 - 09:14 AM

My current housing association rent for a property thirty miles from London will cost me £48,000 over the next eight years

Why rent, it's money down the drain. I worked long hours to save my deposit in the early 1970s in order to get on the house ladder - likewise my parents.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Jun 10 - 11:03 AM

I too worked long hours for a pittance to put three meals a day on the table for my family.

Some of us never have the opportunity to get on that ladder mate, especially when the bottom rung gets higher and higher off the bloody ground.

I remember the seventies only too well. The value of our money went down and down, prices went up and up, and our industries were decimated by wildcat strikes about whether the same worker could turn both bolt and nut.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jun 10 - 03:28 PM

Funny, I thought most jobs were lost when small businesses went bang under the milk-snatcher, and many many homeowners lost their houses.

The gender of Laws' "partner" is immaterial. Someone you shag for many years is a "partner". MPs can't claim rent paid to a partner. He did. He did it knowingly. End of story. The end does not justify the means.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 06:46 AM

I would never refer to my wife as a partner - she's my wife, and I her husband.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Rog Peek
Date: 02 Jun 10 - 01:49 PM

Me too bonzo3legs. I suppose we would be seen in some circles as old fashioned?

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 02:51 AM

Not at all, it's all part of the trendy buzz word generation, made 1000 times worse by 13 years of labour, gender neuter nonsense - like chair for instance which should be chairman, chairwoman or chairlady, and countless others.

The USAians refer to "server" instead of waiter or waitress. What is the masculine of maid I wonder? I'll ask ours when she returns from holiday.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 03:13 AM

Bonzo, you are an idiot. "Partner" includes spouse (ie husband/wife) civil partner pursuant to the Civil Parntership Act, and person with whom one shares life/emotional existence/bed/sex/whatever whether or not in one of the previous categories. It's a meaning that has evolved to replace "mistress" or whatever the male equivalent was, partly because that expression conveyed the concept that the master paid for the mistress (or gender reverse) which is not necessarily the case since women can and do earn as much as men (although they do not always get treated fairly in the earnings market). Grow up.

There is much to be said for a gender neutral vocabulary, but it takes time to create a suitable set of terms that are not ungainly.

If by "maid" you mean "cleaner" then "cleaner" is a good choice of word. Is there any reason you prefer a female cleaner? You give many indications of sociopathy, and I would not put it past you.

Nonetheless, I should concede that my cleaner, my gardener, and my painter and decorator are all female, athough when I last had a specific office cleaner he was male. Nowadays I am my own typist and filing clerk, but when I used secretaries they were often female, but occasionally male, as is often true of nurses and primary teachers. I see no reason why any such person needs ot be of a specific gender. I know one young woman (nobody who is anybody says "lady") who has recently qualified as a fireman (I eschew "firefighter" because the word has been corrupted by the inelegant use of "firefight" for "gun battle") and if you are worried about her upper body strength when fighting fires, I suggest you go and armwrestle with her - I value my guitar playing arm too much to do so.

Gender stereotyping is a lot of nonsense. We are more creatures of the mind than of the body, and minds, like angels, are (mostly) sexless.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 04:59 AM

Really?? Well, you are allowed to have your point of view which is equally valid.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 05:12 AM

I would take care lad as to whom you call an idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 05:42 AM

Bonzo, since you have identified yourself as a Tory, as did I, certain members of this forum take the attitude that you are a non person, with no right to any opinion.

They further seem to feel that in dealing with us, normal standards of good manners and tolerance do not apply.

This is their problem, not ours.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 06:08 AM

Thankyou Don, I couldn't agree more.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 06:08 AM

I agree with Bonzo - a chair is something made, usually, of wood and/or metal upon which a person sits - it's an inanimate object. Calling the chairman/woman/lady - a human being - 'The Chair' is ridiculous - about as ridiculous as calling a dog a table.

If anyone referred to me as 'The Chair', I'd want to brain them with the nearest one, although I'd probably just ignore them until they started referring to me as a human being - The Chairman.

And I refer to women as 'ladies'. I may not be somebody who is anybody, but I was brought up by my father to behave with good manners, at least where ladies are concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 03:44 PM

And on that, BW, I heartily concur.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Rog Peek
Date: 03 Jun 10 - 05:27 PM

Bonzo
I didn't mean to suggest that we were old fashioned, only that we might be perceived as being so by some. The type of person for example that might go round calling people with whom they disagree, idiots.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Jun 10 - 05:07 AM

Yes of course, they seem to have moved on to different quarrels now!!

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Jun 10 - 06:38 AM

"And on that, BW, I heartily concur."

I knew you would, Don. I may have strong disagreemnts with your political allegiances, but I know you to be an honourable, thinking man. I think we'd probably agree about a lot of things, just not about the Tory Party!

And on that note............!!   :-) :-)