Former Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury David Laws was asked about his future career prospects on the BBC’s Daily Politics this week. Here’s what he said:
When LibDemVoice asked party members in February if they wanted to see David return to a government post at the next re-shuffle, 72% were in favour.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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12 Comments
I can’t find the original quotation from Jim Hacker. Something like “I have no ambitions whatsoever to be prime minister. However if friends and colleagues persuade me that this might be in the national interest, then I may be forced to reconsider …”.
I can see why he had to stand down for a while, but the reality of David Laws’s plight is that he claimed LESS money than he could have done, rather than maximising his claims as many now on the Conservative front bench did, for instance flipping their homes like Osborne and Gove did. That, in my book, is a far worse sin than anything Laws did. We need someone with the weight of Laws back fighting the Lib Dem corner now that Huhne is on the back benches.
@RC Agreed. In his brief period as Chief Secretary, he was seriously impressive. It’d be great to have him back.
No, no, no. This “he could have claimed more” argument won’t wash. Just telling the truth wouldn’t have enabled him to claim more. He would have needed to tell the truth and agree a change of his status with his partner. You can’t just assume that his partner would have been happy to put his name on the mortgage. The rules may be dumb in some ways, and Laws’s reasons for not disclosing the nature of his relationship are quite understandable; but he still lied and it was still fraud.
Perhaps people should consider the difference in treatment of Mike Hancock MP who hadn’t broken the rules of the house and wasn’t guilty of fraud and David Laws for whom great sympathy was bestowed by the Leader. Clegg hasn’t uttered a word of support for Mike. But then Mike does 2 sugeries a week and votes against the coalition as a Liberal Democrat.
RC and George Kendall
I suggest you read the Parliamentary investigation findings. They are damning and should prevent this ‘fraudster’ ever being near the levers of power again.
It also does not explain how his claims for property maintenance etc dramatically dropped when he had to submit receipts.
Another example of how far this party has fallen
RC It is doubtful that David Laws does fight any corner remotely anywhere near the Lib Dem mainstream. This view that he is particularly clever leaves me cold, I’m afraid.
Tim13
It is doubtful that David Laws does fight any corner remotely anywhere near the Lib Dem mainstream. This view that he is particularly clever leaves me cold, I’m afraid.
There was once a trend which confused “cleverness” with “ability and willingness to spout Marxist claptrap”. That has long gone. The trend now is to confuse “cleverness” with “ability and willingness to spout extreme free market claptrap”. In fact if you look back in history you can find a whole host of people who were at their time deemed very clever but are now almost forgotten, their “clevernesss” amounting to a dogmatic adhernence to an extreme form what then was the most popular ideology, generally at a time when its flaws were becoming obvious. Real clever people are those who spot the flaws first and have the guts not to go along with current fashion however much praise it gains you to do so.
Matthew Huntbach
Like that last post – made me smile at how accurate it is!
i hope laws returns to the front benches.
Laws out. Fox out. Hunt on his way out. Cameron couldn’t do anything about Fox Hunt-ing Laws.
alistair
that is pretty good