Suddenly the British political chatterati are catching up with a fact that’s been known by Lib Dems for years: David Laws is a deeply impressive politician.
David’s pivotal role in the Lib Dem negotiating team, combined with his unshowy economic and intellectual self-confidence, has quickly marked him out as an early star of the cabinet, earning an excellent profile in today’s Guardian by Allegra Stratton. It’s well worth reading in full, but here’s a fascinating snippet:
Laws is one of Ashdown’s friends from “the winter days, not the summer days”. He joined the party at the same time as Nick Clegg and Jeremy Browne under Ashdown’s leadership, when the Tory party was illiberal and even more Eurosceptic than most. Laws has told Tory colleagues recently that he would have been one of them were it not for their party’s policy on section 28, the controversial law banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools. Evan Harris, one of Laws’s former colleagues before he lost his seat at the last election, agrees. He said: “Compared to Vince [Cable] he is fully socially liberal on equality, abortion and faith schools and on religion and the state. Also he’s very sensible on the discrimination issues and sex education. Whereas someone like Vince is more of a social conservative, he’s not at all. He’s probably much more pro-choice than Vince.”
Some Conservatives (indeed, a handful of Lib Dems) appear still to harbour the misapprehension that he’s actually one of them: but just because he can add up doesn’t make him a Tory. However, there’s no doubt the glances of envy in the Lib Dems’ direction that it’s our party which has provided the biggest economic talents sitting at the cabinet table: ConservativeHome admires his talent for culling pot-plant expenditure, while Iain Martin whispers “the words ‘potential future prime minister’ don’t sound entirely silly.”
You can watch David in action in three videos, below …
First up, is his virtuoso performance in the Commons this week which has grabbed the sketchwriters’ headlines:
(Hat-tip: Pretendy Liberal)
Then here’s a clip from BBC Question Time showing David Laws squashing a sheepish-looking Michael Heseltine:
And finally here’s David Laws’ speech to the party conference in 2008, setting out his views on what a liberal education system should look like, which received a warm standing ovation from party members:
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11 Comments
I like him even better in glasses… erm…
But yes it is great to see him getting more of a platform, albeit a bit disconcerting to see the praise on Conservative Home… even more disconcerting having Campbell wave a framed photograph of Laws on BBC Question Time… But hey. we all love David Laws, so I don’t begrudge him the photo…
Yes – David is a true Liberal.
One of the most amusing points about the coalition is the change it makes to the old two party politics – some vistors to Conservative Home will start to realise there’s more than two ways of seeing the world…. I know some who voted Tory and Labour in the pat merely becasue they didn’t take us seriously. Those days are going. The Liberal Democrats are coming of age.
I am the Laws!
Paul, maybe some visitors to Libdem voice will also realise that there are more ways of viewing the world.
Don’t be too sanctimonious, not even the Lib Dems have a monopoly on political wisdom and virture.
The irony that this blog post about David Laws is done on the same night as what the Telegraph is reporting.
Clearly he can’t be a Tory. If he were, then the Telegraph wouldn’t be going after him for troughing to the tune of £40k in tomorrow’s paper…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8712383.stm unfortunate trouble someone has been storing this one up…
As I pointed out above Ive just come back from a LD drinks party so I may regret this tomorrow. This is bad, if its wrong enough for him to pay the money back then its too wrong for that to be enough. The best thing would be for Clegg to sack Laws tonight & the next best for Laws to resign tonight. Please dont leave it to grow overnight.
I am really sorry, I understand the longing for privacy but rules are rules. Theres very little mercy or understanding for people at the bottom of the ladder when they break the rules, there has to be even less for those at the top, especially when they are our people.
Regrettably, Go and go quickly!
What a terrible mess.
His position is now untenable. I hope that Nick Clegg sees that, however much it hurts.
This is almost too funny for words………….