I am profoundly shocked this morning. Yet again a thoroughly decent man has been hounded from office by the paranoia and narrow minded venality of the media and the electorate.
I find it hard to credit that in the 21st century we can show no more compassion towards David Laws than we displayed with the witches of yore.
We are so fixated on our narrow definition of morality, drawn from the mystical books of our Gods, that we lose sight of the very human requirements for warmth and comfort in our life. In our insistence that those human needs are acquired in one way and one way only, we have denounced possibly the most able Treasury Secretary we could have had.
The media are at their sly best this morning, pretending that Law’s downfall was due to a gay witch hunt that belongs to a bygone era.
When the stark truth is that the ‘avarice that dare not bare its name’ was to blame.
Can we not accept in the 21st century that the mere fiddling of expenses is not sufficient reason to part with a Treasury Secretary? That having the keys to the nation’s handbag is not good enough reason to deny a man the right to the warmth and comfort of dipping his hand in the till occasionally?
The laws that condemned a man to hide his love for another man were changed 30 odd years ago and yet the media crusade for us to condemn another love.
Nick Clegg has said that David Law’s privacy has been ‘cruelly shattered’ – and it is true. The love for a few shekels of the tax payer’s hard work has been exposed to view; it should have been allowed to remain in the privacy of his accountant’s office.
What goes on between a human being and his expenses sheet, should, in these enlightened times, be private, and remain between those sheets.
James Forsyth has described the events as a ‘disaster for our public life, the coalition and the nation’s finances’ – he says it was ‘hard not to well up’ on reading Law’s resignation statement. Scarcely an overstatement of the disgrace the nation must feel this morning – a man forced to hide his true love in life behind the perfectly legal activity of homosexuality.
Iain Dale writes in the Daily Mail ‘it just goes to show that if you go into politics nowadays and are not open’ about your private predilections they ‘may come back to haunt you in a big way’.
Of course, the millionaire Mr Laws could have chosen financial celibacy as a way of dealing with his proclivities. He could have denied himself the stolen pleasure of that £40,000. As Iain Dale point out ‘what his critics are saying is that in 2006 he should have moved out of the flat he shared with his partner when the parliamentary rules changed to ban financial relationships between spouses and partners’ – I think not Mr Dale. What the critics are saying is that he should have stopped claiming the money actually. Then he wouldn’t have been forced to invoke the pink tafia to put up a smokescreen to hide his illegal proclivities.
Dale goes on to say:
“Are we really insisting that if all our politicians aren’t whiter than white, they should quit? It’s a very strange logic. If that rule had applied in the 20th Century we would certainly have been deprived of the services of both Lloyd George and Churchill.”
Quite right Mr Dale, the British are inherently troughophobic. It must be stamped out. Troughophilia should hold its head up high, and not hide its shame and shelter behind the beard of homosexuality.
It is a sad fact that without the ‘gay’ element, this story would not be so big.
Who introduced the gay element Mr Dale? Up until now, only Law’s constiuents, friends and familes knew he was gay – someone decided that everyone should know – why? Could it be that the person caught with their fingers in the till decided that it was a reasonable excuse? They could have stopped claiming when the rules changed, could have decided that their privacy must be preserved.
Men in powerful positions have succumbed to the pleasures of ‘helping themselves’ for thousands of years, deceitfully so, without being able to tell their Mothers. They have been forced to take gainful employment as a cover for their secret vice. They have agonised over the fear of exposure, been afraid to take annual holidays for fear that the company accountant might unravel their sordid secret. It has to stop.
Surely the British public is big enough to cope with a trougher at the heart of the Treasury?
We must outlaw troughophobia; and the practice of shouting ‘thief’ at those who practice a totally natural desire to have more than they are entitled to. Children must receive education at a tender age to stamp out the abhorrent bullying they endure when they filch Johnson minor’s pocket money. No longer will we stand for thieves being excluded from positions of trust and fidelity.
Poor David Laws – from Closet to Cabinet and back to Closet again – via the Till. Now forced to wish his Lundie’s in public.
Ronnie Biggs for Chancellor say I.
{ 40 comments }
I am one of the few commentors around the blogoshere who has been defending David Laws because I believe he did the wrong thing for the right reason. The worst he is guilty of is poor judgement he let his heart rule his head instead of the other way round. Who amongst us has not done that on occasion particularly when the matter is of the heart and especially when it is not to protect oneself but others. No this baying for blood by the mob is not pretty, understandable given the so recent expenses scandal but all the same in this particular case misdirected. My suspicion that this outing was orchestrated by the creeps in the Labour party it has the smell of Campbell or Mandelson all over it. If this is subsequently proved to be true then I will be happy to join the mob, whose anger should rightly be redirected to Labour, for a lynching or two.
If Mr Laws wanted to keep private his sexuality, for whatever reason, he could and should have done so by using his own, abundant, private money, not ours! Having been caught, he disgraces himself further by trotting out the tired old “Sorry, I didn’t realise I was doing anything wrong,” (a feeble excuse denied the peasantry in law) and following that up by playing the persecuted minority card.
Perfect Reply.
This has got nothing to do with him being Gay. Would you be writing your hand wringing libtard diatribe if he had been caught paying money to his heterosexual partner? No. You would be like all the rest of us, demanding his resignation. Simply because he is gay is no excuse. He was caught abusing public money. End of story.
Anna yours is a knee jerk reaction ,your looking for an excuse to play the compassionate liberal holding out against the lynch mob.
This was fraud.
Seems like this piece has wizzed across a few heads at Mach one.
Anyway he was just paying his boy the rent.
Quite Saul – fascinating!
I must admit that after the first couple of sentences I thought you’d been got at, but luckily I read to the end before commenting.
There’s a novel new approach! Read the whole piece before commenting, wonder if it will catch on.
A Brave New World,
Got at? Moi? Hell will freeze over first…….
Yes I was confused at first (at the comments being left).
It took me a while to realise that certain “others” hadn’t realised – like Saul and myself (ahem) that this post is NOT defending Laws.
Well done Anna, I feel all smug and self satisfied that I immediately “got it”!!!
PS: Or have I?
I expect it makes you wonder why you bother. You could just have a foul mouthed rant, get the “usual suspects” from across the blogosphere leaving the usual foul mouthed replies, sell some advertising space and bask in the notoriety.
Or as I suspect, just sigh as you would with an incalcitrant child and carry on. At least that way some of us will still get our daily amusement.
Despite all the fiddling MPs exposed by the Telegraph, Mr Dale still fails to recognise the electorate’s contempt is for Troughers, irrespective of their sexuality.
Troughophobia! You are an angel.
How about ‘second home-a-phobia’?
Anna – this is a brilliant piece of satire.
To some of the commenters (you know who you are) – how on earth did you read Anna’s piece literally?
Thanks Ms Raccoon for your usual trenchant piece. And what a brilliant heading!
Re some early comments: such a same we don’t seem to teach irony these days.
I find myself in limited company – I too defend David Laws.
I think he allowed the fear of exposure to over-rule his common sense. If he’d declared the relationship – he could have claimed properly and fully.
Instead he appears to have used this ruse to ‘legitimise’ sharing a house with another bloke. Very silly but clearly he had a real complex about it.
He said the only person he’d had a relationship with was Lundie and his parents/friends did not know. For a chap to get to his mid-40s and still want to not let his parents etc know shows how much he was worried about their reaction/disappointment.
I’m not one for letting troughers off, but I think the fact that he’s been publicly outed/had his reputation trashed/lost his job and repaid the money is quite enough penance for me.
I hope to see him back in HMG doing what needs to be done about our trashed economy.
So many of these crooks have stolen so much of our cash, that you have merely become accustomed to it. You appear to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
Plato,
The man is a millionaire! The very simple solution was not to claim the money. No need to move out of the apartment, no need to fear his Mummy finding out – merely don’t claim the £40,000……..
too true, so simple…………. i might well come to you for a reading………….
Anna Raccoon’s article was brilliant as usual, however as much as it was good in style, wit and substance and would have agreed with tenor of it under normal circumstances on this occasion I felt Laws was getting an unwarranted bad press. To my mind Laws is a special case and put forward my reasons why and why his behaviour had mitigating circumstances and his action should therefore be forgiven.
I thought the article was very funny. Nearly as funny as the thought of David Law not claiming the money.
But I always did have a weird sense of humour.
I cannot believe believe that you are coming out with this crap. This is nothing to do with him being a ‘friend of Dorothy’.
This is about integrity, hypocrisy and hubris………..and Laws has the good sense to acknowledge this and take it on the chin.
He broke the rules – in procuring a benefit paid for by tax-payers’ money for “yourself or someone close to you”.
Not only that, but in his personal literature he was proclaiming how he was one of the lowest ‘allowance claimers’ in the whole Commons, therefore seeking to paint himself as a person of complete integrity.
It is a great shame, he seems very able……..but he must go, and Parliament will benefit from having it moral standards reinforced after 13 yrs of Labour and the last 3yrs of Tory administration
Plato, you’re very, very wrong.
I really couldn’t give a ticker’s cuss what this guy does between the sheets. In the same way I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss what you do either. But Laws made a decision – a decision to keep his sexuality a secret. That trumped any other decision that he made with regard STEALING, yes, Mr Laws, stealing public funds.
When a man or woman decides, in his walk of life, that his personal circumstance is more important than that of his job or, heaven forbid, the country, he or she has reneged on the right to hold ANY public office. Pray tell, what would have happened if a state enemy had got wind of his self-made situation and decided black mail would be in order? What then for Mr Laws? His country or his sexulaity?
He got his priorities very, very wrong. Period.
The Brits are funny people….. nothing like seeing another man’s life smashed to pieces by th media over a good sunday breakfast….. ah, such pleasures…….. our version of the Colosseum……….. I should know… it happened to me……
Terry – did you take £40k of tax-payers’ money based on a fraud?
This is what David Laws has done – and also sought to build himself up as a model of financial probity and morals.
In 2010 nobody gives a stuff if public figures are homo-sexuals.
Am I alone in thinking that there is a proportion of gays on here defending Laws out of a sense of solidarity?
Surely 13yrs of Labour has taught us that wrong is wrong – doesn’t matter what the individual’s gender, race, religion, sexuality or hobbies.
Laws has nicked £40k of tax-payer’s money……..end of.
He’s a very competent minister………..but he took a bad decision over 4yrs, probably because he never though he’d be in government.
Spiral said…
“Terry – did you take £40k of tax-payers’ money based on a fraud?”
Mmmm moot point. Isn’t Terry that shamanic messenger and tarot card reader from the telly ?
Iain Dale said: “It is a sad fact that without the ‘gay’ element, this story would not be so big.”
Course it would. The man was at the Treasury. It was big enough when Jacqui Spliff and Tony McNulty were in the mire. It was big enough when the Wintertons were splashed across the papers.
It is simple enough: The rules since 2006 prohibit claiming rent to pay yourself, your partner or your family. Laws did precisely this. He was given a clean bill of health by Sir Thomas Legg too. I wonder what probing questions Legg asked of the rental agreement.
He does get one piece of praise (I was going to say ‘thumbs up’ but thought better of it…) from me – as ministers used to before Labour, a scandal has been met with a resignation.
The man is a THIEF. It is right that he should resign, not only from the front bench but from being an MP. Where are the Police and CPS, what are they going to do?
Say it clear, say it loud,
Troughophobic and I’m proud!
très amusant!
Porcophobic?
On second thoughts, suisphobic may be more apt. Easily confused with suiphobic. Is that why we despise the sins of others so readily?
I haven’t read all the other comments, someone may have pointed this out already – did they think we were ‘over’ the expenses scandal ? why hadn’t those now in the cabinet already sorted and paid our money back ?
He seemed so bloody over qualified and perfect for this job, what a disappointment that he was also like all the rest . . . .
So sorry anna ,on reading the whole article ,I see that my responce was knee jerk.
Mr Laws’s resignation from cabinet was appropriate, but resigning from parliament altogether would not be smart. He has gained some ground by his swift departure from power, but will gain still more by serving in the back benches winning back respect rather than appearing to be throwing his toys out of the pram. It is in everyone’s interest to see a gay man pick himself up after such a cosmic disaster, dust himself down, and rehabilitate. To do otherwise would play still further to the negative stereotype.
And for some perspective:
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/eveningnews24/norwich-news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=xNews&itemid=NOED26+May+2010+16%3A20%3A20%3A057
“A Norfolk mother who falsely claimed more than £76,000 in benefits after failing to declare she was living with a partner, was last night starting a 20-week jail sentence.”
If she had been an MP there would have been no particular problem as long as she paid it back. No jail time for her. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
Katabasis, those in the ‘house’ all too often end up complete hypocits.
One rule for us, one for them . . .
Anna,
That was a brilliant piece of writing.
(Some of the comments were pretty funny, too, in their own way, but that’s beside the point.) Many thanks.
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