David Laws speaks at the launch party for his critically acclaimed book #Coalition. pic.twitter.com/hmDe1v4TmH
— Biteback Publishing (@BitebackPub) April 12, 2016
Last night, Biteback Publishing held a party to celebrate the launch of David Laws’ book, Coalition.
The Times (£) has an amusing anecdote from the event:
David Laws, a former minister in the coalition government, has written an entertaining political memoir. However, his civil servants feel that it didn’t quite tell the full truth. At the book’s launch yesterday, one of them noted that there weren’t many embarrassing stories about the author. “I’ve got a whole list I’ve been keeping if you’d like them for the paperback edition,” the civil servant added. As Laws protested, the official added: “Remember when Prince George was born? You had absolutely no idea who Kate Middleton was and had to ask me.”
If you haven’t got your copy yet, you can buy it here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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15 Comments
Hilarious, not. He had no idea about expense rules or Lib policy on tuition fees. I see Clegg is getting his book “Politics, the art of the possible in the age of unreason” – a clear indication that anybody unhappy with him doing the ‘possible’ was unreasonable.
I would have thought all the people who constantly backed Clegg and Laws on this site ought to read the book, to see how stitched up they were. In 2014 Laws was told by Ryan C that all the seats in Scotland were toast and private polling in Danny Alexander’s seat should he had no chance. Funnily enough some of us were saying that after the Ashcroft polls, the national polls and lost deposits in by-elections, and we just got abuse for our troubles. Still even when he had the information, Laws did nothing with it. Even when Laws was told the Conservatives had added Yeovil to their target lists despite its 13,000+ majority, he was oblivious, now that is funny.
Another hugely amusing anecdote from the book was when in 2014 Nick Clegg and David Laws decide they prefer George Osborne because they know he is a right-wing Tory with no regard for the poor where-as David Cameron is simply interested in keeping the Conservatives in power.
Who is this Kete Middleton?
Awful. Each time I read about Laws Alexander etc I feel ashamed that I voted Lib Dem in 2010. The party has a deep deep problem in that even though it reminds EX voters like me are reminded of putting people like ‘Bedroom Blocker’ Danny into Government you still persist in promoting their ‘story’. Maybe Lib Dems are proud of the Coalition and see the destruction of the Party as a price worth paying. Good luck in the May Elections.
@Silvio; Perhaps you’d like to tell us who you did vote for in 2015. I would have thought that the events since May 2015 rather suggest that voting for the Tories has allowed their worst instincts to come to the fore; that voting for Labour has all but guaranteed another Tory victory in 2020; that voting for the Greens has not changed Government policies one iota and has merely strengthened them in their position as the most left wing Green Party in western Europe, well to the left of much of the Labour Party and other western European Green Parties, including the Scottish Greens; and that if you voted for UKIP in 2015 then you should have voted for them in 2010. While I don’t share their separatist instincts I can at least understand if you voted for the SNP, but of course unless you live in Scotland voting SNP would be impossible.
I haven’t got to David Laws’ book yet. (There’s an election and a referendum campaign going on.) It did read Norman Baker’s though. I found it a good read and enlightening about getting things done both in local government and Westminster. Why hasn’t it been the subject of an article in LDV?
This is not unusual. I was agent for a parliamentary candidate in one of the 1974 elections who was blissfully unaware for several days that Nixon had flown to China. I also recall Margaret Thatcher when she was Secretary of State for Education in the Heath Government being questioned by a reporter that her running of the department was more like a Carry on film. She looked at him blankly and said she was unaware of the film!
The moral is, stay in the thick of it but still pay attention to the rest of the world and especially popular culture. BTW did anyone seriously believe Brown’s express liking for the Arctic Monkeys?
The Liberal Democrats will not make any substantial new progress until they come to terms with the Coalition and all its faults, and stop claiming credit for all the “good things it did” and for “stopping the Tories doing all the nasty things they are now doing”. Otherwise we are just seen as John the Baptist.
In fact we will not make any more progress until we repudiate the Coalition and promise it will not happen again.
Tony Greaves
@Tony Greaves.
Thank you for that.
Who can forget the alacrity with which the Liberal Democrat leader supported Cameron’s proposals for the NHS? Not those experiencing the consequences of the biggest top- down reorganisation of the NHS.
@ Tony Dawson,
‘Who is this Kete Middleton’.
Lots of Indian children may be thinking the same. Given the flurry around her, they may think she is a Bollywood actress who has OD’d on the ‘Fair and Lovely’.
@Tony – I’d agree in part with that – but at the same time there has to be some acknowledgement of what positives there may have been, otherwise the simple question people will ask is “what’s the point of voting for you if, when you get in to government, you don’t do anything positive?”
Keith – but you already have the answer in the collapse of the party’s representation at every level of Govt except the House of Lords, oh the irony. By trying to justify what the electorate has so comprehensively judged and rejected is at best futile or worse acts as a continuing source of annoyance and irritation to those of us feel so badly let down by the Coailtion. Tony is 100% right.
OK – so no coalition ever again.
So, short of a Lib Dem majority at some future GE, what is our purpose?
Incidentally, isn’t ‘Kate’ Middleton a media creation?
And who is living in cloud cuckoo land now ?