Over at the Yeovil Liberal Democrats website, David Laws has posted an article explaining to his constituents his resignation as Chief Secretary, and the reasons behind it. Here’s an excerpt:
… the root cause of my difficulties has been a decision I took long ago, which logic has never succeeded in changing – the decision to cover up my sexuality.
No one person or institution is in any way responsible for my decision to keep my sexuality secret. It is just that when I grew up – just a decade or so after homosexuality was decriminalized in this country – you would have had to be very brave indeed to be “out” in a way that is possible today.
So I found it much easier to be dishonest about my sexuality, and as time went by it seemed to me to become more difficult rather than less difficult to correct the lies and deceptions of earlier years. …
I realized on Friday that 35 years of dishonesty about my sexuality had finally got to end – and that I could only hope to counter the allegations being made by telling more lies or by ending the relationship which has brought most happiness to my life.
The next 36 hours were absolutely ghastly, and I do not think I could have had the guts to get through them without the calm strength of James, and the support of people such as Jane and Paddy Ashdown and my constituency party, family and friends.
I also appreciated the strong support of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne, who all urged me to carry on in my role as Chief Secretary, which is the most important and fulfilling job which I will ever have in my life, other than my role as local MP.
I decided I must resign as Chief Secretary for three reasons – firstly, because that job is so vital that it needs 100% attention and credibility for anyone who is doing it; secondly, because I could not imagine how I could continue in that job, fight off media attacks, and take care of those I love; and finally because I had had to acknowledge that I had made a serious mistake, and it seemed to me that I must pay the price for that mistake.
Losing my privacy and revealing my sexuality has not proven to be as painful as I expected, after the initial trauma. Indeed, it will be wonderful that I can now introduce the person I love and value above all others to my family and friends. I shall always be grateful to the Daily Telegraph for that! I will also be able to set a much better example, as a public figure, to my constituents and to those others struggling with their own identities. …
The greatest honour of my life has been to be the MP for Yeovil Constituency, and I am very sorry to have let you, my constituents, down. I now have to decide how I can best serve the people of Yeovil Constituency in the future.
You can read his post in full here.
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17 Comments
I am still gutted that he felt compelled to resign a job that, frankly, he was made for.
As Yeovil resident, can understand his stance and speaking for myself, and family, can state that we still support him fully and that support also means he should continue as Yeovil M.P!!
NotEvsie, I do think it was suitable for him to resign, because he did not feel able to cope with his personal situation, and because his case is under investigation. I do hope he is back where he belongs soon though!
@Rob Stickland, do you happen to know if that is the general feeling in Yeovil, or if some people would like to see David Laws have to get re-elected if he wants to stay on?
Mr Laws’ one simple act of acknowledgment of responsibility has set the standard of conduct requred of this Parliament. It may turn out to be the most important thing he will ever do. Whatever happens to him, he has proved himself to be head aand shoulders above members of the previous Government. I wish him well.
@RCM From people I talk to, it appears he has support but only indicator I have is… http://www.yeovilpeople.co.uk/polls/David-Laws-stay-Yeovil-MP/poll-4713209-detail/poll.html
I would expect that as early in 2011 or perhaps even earlier Mr.Laws will be back in his Cabinet role. He is needed by the Coalition and from my understanding Mr. Alexander was not precisely all that impressive in his Commons debut.
What is required tends to be what gets done. All they are really waiting for is the Ethics Report which I must assume is being ‘expedited’ as we pontificate here.
I think he has been very dignified throughout the whole sorry business. The sooner he’s back, the better.
Sanctimonous Tosh
Every year he detailed his expenses knowing it was wrong- a systematic and thought out “mistake”.
Then he put on his website materiall slagging off other Somerset MP’s about their expenses and painting himself holier than though.
Last week he lied and tried to weasel out of it by saying “I didn’t think he was my partner because we did not have the same social life” all to try and save his job, A few days later when the humbugs have been tossed ( as evidenced by comments above) he states he was my partner. So he admits his initial statement was a lie too.
Does he know what truth even looks like, or is that New Politics new speak?
Then we have his self sacrificing 3 reasons for his resignation. No, the reason you resigned was because you were caught.
Gramsci’s Eyes,
David Laws didn’t lie about anything, as you well know.
The term, “partner”, as a term of art, and for the purposes of the Expenses Rules, has different meanings, but I wouldn’t expect someone who can’t even spell properly to understand that.
In the United Kingdom, we have something called the rule of law, which means, among other things, that people are judged by independent and impartial tribunals according to legal principle, not by partisan bigots bent on vigilante justice.
Come the revolution, bourgeois legal fetishism will doubtless be swept aside, allowing you and your kind to bathe in the blood of the class enemy. Trouble is (for you, but not the rest of us), the revolution ain’t ever gonna happen outside your dreams.
Back to the Treasury with you!
@Rob Stickland – thanks for that, it looks like Yeovil know who they like as their M.P.
Very moving and very honest. Anyone who has told a lie and then had to lie more and more to cover it up, will understand David Laws situation. A period of silence from him now and getting on with his case work will be best.
Sesenco
“David Laws didn’t lie about anything, as you well know.”
You must be just about the last person on the planet still pushing that line.
In his interview with the Somerset Guardian, Laws himself related how after the Telegraph story was published he considered denying that he had a relationship with Lundie, but concluded that “I felt that telling more lies about these things would just make for a worse situation in the future.”
I agree with the last comment. The best thing now would be a period of silence from David Laws – and his apologists.
@ Anthony Aloysius St and David Pollard
I agree with you on the need for silence and David Laws sentiments of getting back to serving the people of Yeovil in the future.
I guess I may be called one of his apologists, and as stated, agree to the silent period.
However, if the void of silence is filled with a tirade of comments continuing to condemn David Laws, then surely myself and my peers have right to reply?
Hopefully the tirade will die down too, ‘end of’
Sesenco
You have a habit of calling people stupid.
Here is a lesson you should learn, now that you think you are in power. It’s called political reality. That’s it, nothing more.
I don’t have a problem with legalism, but I do have a problem with hypocrisy.
Ohh, and by the way, if you think that tribunals are impartial, absent of structural and hegemonic discourse, then pot and kettle black come to mind in the stupid stakes.
Mind you, someone equating spelling mistakes with stupidity displays little imagination. You would have been a great teacher?
Over to you.
As Marx said: “Dyslexics of the world untie”
David was wrong to claim in the way that he did, and right to resign when found out. It was worrying that the statement he put out out at the time suggested he felt he may have been wrong ‘in some way’ (as if he really just couldn’t put his finger on why lying when claiming £40k of taxpayers money was wrong!). It is also a matter of concern that Nick Clegg appears, from David’s account, to have been willing to defend such dishonesty. But this statement is better, because it at least acknowledges that he made a ‘serious mistake’. I have sympathy with David’s desire to keep his sexuality private, but this was not the key issue – he could have arranged his circumstances to enable him to claim roughly double for a mortgage in his own name, and continued to hide his sexuality. The fact that he could have claimed more if he had reaaranged his circumstances is mitigation, but it is not a defence, because he did not bother to do so. He chose to claim dishonestly. Hardly the most appropriate qualification for dealing with the nation’s finances. this said, it is unfortunate that the rules put him in this position, and they need to be changed. My own view is that MPs should receive a flat rate accomodation allowance (adjusted for the constituency’s proximity to the capital) and keep the change if they chose to live more economically.