BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws resigns UK

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:17 PM

I've been wondering how he and indeed the press would have handled the 'story' if (like plenty of mature professional men of his ilk, with families and reputations etc.) he'd have been providing his long-term mistress with public funds in return for sharing her bed a few times a month? I'm quite certain the press would have been all over a woman like flies, his desire for privacy would have been ridiculed, and she'd have been rendered as some kind of courtesan (gold digging slut) for starters..

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:12 PM

""What happened to the 'up to £950 a month' for renting this supposed room? The figures seem a bit indefinite.""

The up to £950 for central London lettings was mooted as the going market rate, CS, not what Laws was paying.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 29 May 10 - 04:59 PM

He has resigned

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: s&r
Date: 29 May 10 - 02:57 PM

Am I the only one who has any concern that a Minister has a shared and hitherto secret liaison with a lobbyist?

Stu

PS "it means what I want it to mean" is nonsense from the pen of Lewis Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 29 May 10 - 02:44 PM

It would seem that Law does not live with his boyfriend 24/7, but only on occasions when he is in LOndon, serving his country.

I would have thought that was acceptable.


How many of us, if staying at a friends house overnight, wouldn't find some way of compensating them.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 01:58 PM

I still can't see why it makes any difference who the landlord is, aside from the case where there is a shared legal ownership of the property through marriage or civil partnership.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 29 May 10 - 01:52 PM

I assume the Telegraph is giving £950 as the top monthly amount because they've got the specific detail straight from the House of Commons Fees Office information that started all the coverage in the first place.

And ultimately, transparency and fairness IS important when you're dealing with public money. It might be cheaper to appoint a chum to a job because they're a perfectly splendid and capable type and its saves the money for advertising and talking to loads of other people, but it's neither demonstrably fair nor transparent. Renting a room off a chum or family member, needs to pass a market test and allow other potential landlords their chance to quote a lower price and save the public's money.

MPs or Benefit Claimants, they all need to show they're making lawful use of our money.


Georgina

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 May 10 - 01:31 PM

The rent to lover/family member explanation wouldn't work for someone claiming Housing Benefit, so it shouldn't apply to people being paid out of other public funds (i.e. our money) either.

I can't imagine what Housing Benefit has to do with it??

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Royston
Date: 29 May 10 - 01:18 PM

Another one with his finger in the tills.

Or to put it another way: A mendacious, cheating, untrustworthy git.

Or to put it another way: A Liberal Democrat sell-out traitor. What more should we expect?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 01:14 PM

I can't see the logic of it whether it's Housing Benefit or Parliamentary expenses.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 29 May 10 - 12:56 PM

The rent to lover/family member explanation wouldn't work for someone claiming Housing Benefit, so it shouldn't apply to people being paid out of other public funds (i.e. our money) either.

Georgina

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 12:15 PM

So long as the rent is a reasonable one, why should it make any difference who it is paid to? Landlord, lover or council.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 29 May 10 - 11:30 AM

Don
You say Quote
£40,000 over eight years = £5,000 per annum

That is £100 per week

End of quote

I would like to say that surely he didn't stay there 52 weeks of the year, did he?

We would need to know how many days he was in Parliament per annum.

Anybody got any ideas?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 May 10 - 10:47 AM

I wonder what expenses Cristina Kirshner, president of Argentina, draws for her 8 houses!!

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 May 10 - 10:08 AM

"That is £100 per week."

What happened to the 'up to £950 a month' for renting this supposed room? The figures seem a bit indefinite.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 29 May 10 - 09:49 AM

""So, it would appear that he has been living in his partners property and paying him rent of £40000.""

£40,000 over eight years = £5,000 per annum

That is £100 per week.

I pay more than that for my ex council (now housing association) house.

Seems to me he saved the tax payer a considerable amount of money.

And while we're on the subject, has anybody wondered just why the "Telecrap" smothered that revelation until it would do the greatest possible damage, while selling a pile of extra copies?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Stu
Date: 29 May 10 - 09:49 AM

"If he has acted within the rules laid down by Parliament, it's typical of the media to try and string him up."

I disagree. There are moral obligations to be taken into account here and if Laws is basically lining the pockets of his partner that's wrong for a man supposedly practicing the 'new politics'.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 08:50 AM

For all you know the other bloke might have wanted to stay in the closet as well. No point in being judgemental without facts.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Smedley
Date: 29 May 10 - 08:36 AM

I wonder how Laws' partner feels today. You share your life with someone for nine years, you live together, sleep together, but you're not regarded as a ''''partner''''. Lovely to see how Laws' desperation to stay in the closet, allied to his all-consuming political ambition, can lead to him, at least in public, disowning & betraying the person he's been with for nearly a decade.

(If the context helps, I write this as a happy homo, with a long-term mixture of pity and dismay towards those who don't come out.)

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 08:31 AM

So if he says it's not a partnership, he is by definition right?

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: s&r
Date: 29 May 10 - 08:29 AM

Partner means what he wants it to mean Kevin

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Seayaker
Date: 29 May 10 - 07:43 AM

If you want to find out how little things have changed since the expenses scandal and the election go to the BBC Radio 4 Today program website and listen to the weasel words of Jeremy Brown MP trying to justify this.(Laws expenses story "a massive distraction")

Nothing changes; probably never will.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 07:39 AM

What's "partner" mean anyway? I'd take it, in this context as meaning the same kind of total commitment as a marriage/civil partnership, but without having gone through the formal legal procedure.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 May 10 - 07:05 AM

If he has acted within the rules laid down by Parliament, it's typical of the media to try and string him up. But if he has not, then he must accept the consequences. Cameron must decide whether or not it is "in the country's interest", first uttering "issyoooos" 20 times, and act accordingly.

I would certainly like to see a section 9a enquiry into his last 3 or 4 Tax Returns!

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:48 AM

All sounds a bit odd. Evidently, if he'd bought a house or rented a house on expenses, that would have been quite OK, even if it cost more than the rent he actually claimed, and if he'd then rented a room out to his friend/partner, and pocketed it, that would have been OK well.

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: GUEST,Joseph
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:33 AM

While the neo liberals have been demanding cuts in our standards of living Laws has been lining his pockets in a very dodgy way.
Of course he should sacked...we can't have one law for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us.
Imagine if it had been Rosie the barmaid at the 'Duck and Drake' who had been claiming illegaly and had then been caught. She would have been named and shamed on the front page of the local press and punished as a warning to all.
If he doen't go it will remind working class people that the powerful do not practice what they preach.
Joseph

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:28 AM

I THINK it was Al Capone who said that the definition of an Honest Politician was one who STAYED bought !

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 29 May 10 - 06:26 AM

I've never lived in London, so am not familiar with rental costs there, but "up to £950 per month" which is reported to be the amount charged for a single sub-let room, seems incredible to me whatever the other circumstances.

Georgina

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: s&r
Date: 29 May 10 - 04:50 AM

I think on reading the article that I'm more concerned that the man he's living with is described as a lobbyist.

So if you want access to the government...

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: s&r
Date: 29 May 10 - 04:41 AM

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

Spouse Partner Landlord........

Stu

Subject: BS: TreasuryMinister David Laws apologisesUK
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 29 May 10 - 04:26 AM

Blimey, when does all this expense controversy stop?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8712383.stm

Avoidence of the truth seems to be the issue here IMHO

So, it would appear that he has been living in his partners property and paying him rent of £40000.

He has tried to keep his private life from the general public and fair enough, anmd stated that his partner is not his partner.

However, the rules seem to say that he is not allowed to claim expenses whilst living with your partner.

By doing what he has done, was/is cheaper for the country. So should he be excused?

One part of me says "No he shouldn't be excused and should resign" and the other part says "Give him another chance and sort out another loophole."

Open for discussion, but please refrain from flaming and insulting fellow Mudcatters.