Statement by David Laws MP

Statement from David Laws

David Laws, MP for Yeovil, today commented on the conclusion of the Inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and the Standards and Privileges Committee.

The Inquiry identified a number of breaches of rules, in particular it found that Mr. Laws was in breach of the partner rule, and should have designated his constituency home as his main home from 2004/05, on the basis of the nights spent test.

However, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards accepted that Mr. Laws' motivation was privacy and not financial benefit, and both the Commissioner and the Committee accept that his claims would have been "considerably more" if he had claimed in accordance with the rules.

The Inquiry received evidence from Mr. Laws that his claims would have been almost £30,000 higher over 2004-2010 if he had made these against his Somerset home, as the Commissioner has ruled that he should. There was therefore no loss to the taxpayer from the breach in rules.

On the issue of rental levels, the Commissioner has concluded that the amounts charged by Mr Laws were "broadly similar" to the levels of Assured Shorthold Tenancy rent estimated by his advisers.  Although the Commissioner's advisers suggested that the rent should be lower because Mr Laws had a lodging agreement with less legal security, the Committee and Commissioner have agreed that Mr Laws' living arrangements were in fact more advantageous than the agreements documented.

Last June as the Commissioner stated "to his personal credit" Mr. Laws paid back all of his claims from July 2006 to July 2009, even though Mr Lyons has now concluded that he would have been entitled to more money if he had claimed correctly over this period.

David Laws MP said: "I accept the conclusions of the Inquiry and take full responsibility for the mistakes which I have made. I apologise to my constituents and to Parliament. Each of us should be our own sternest critic, and I recognise that my attempts to keep my personal life private were in conflict with my duty as an MP to ensure that my claims were in every sense above reproach. I should have resolved this dilemma in the public interest and not in the interests of my privacy.

 "However, from the moment these matters became public, I have made clear that my motivation was to protect my privacy, rather than to benefit from the system of parliamentary expenses, and I am pleased that the Commissioner has upheld that view.

 "I have also, from the very beginning, made clear that I believed that my secrecy about my private life led me to make lower overall claims than would otherwise be the case, and this has been confirmed by the Parliamentary Commissioner and by the Committee. The taxpayer gained, rather than lost out, from my desire for secrecy, though I fully accept that this is not an adequate reason for breaking the rules.

 "This last year has been a difficult one, and I am grateful to family, friends, constituents and colleagues for their support and understanding."
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Less than 72 hours to stop the Ugandan “Kill The Gays” Bill

I have just signed an online petition demanding that the Ugandan President Musevini veto the “kill the gays” bill should it be passed in Parliament.  We have just learned the “kill the gays” bill – a death sentence for all LGBT people in Uganda – could come up for a vote in the next 72 hours if we don’t act now.

The Ugandan Parliament may vote as early as May 11 (Wednesday) on the “kill the gays” bill previously reported as shelved.  Religious extremists presented a petition to the Speaker of the Parliament, Edward Ssekandi, shortly after the bill was shelved in March.  Claiming 2 million signatures, the petition demanded passage of the bill.  Using the riots currently roiling the nation as a distraction, supporters of the bill may try to pass it before this legislature expires on May 18, 2011.

Conservative leaders are trying hard to push the bill forward before the millions like us who oppose it have a chance to speak out. If we can create a massive international outcry, theres a chance to stop this bill from becoming law.

This hateful bill appears to be a political diversion, a way to distract from the legitimate grievances of pro-democracy activists, who have been beaten, teargassed, jailed, and even killed in recent weeks.

There are only hours left to make sure your voice is heard.

Will you join me in demanding the Ugandan President Musevini veto the “Kill The Gays” bill should it be passed in Parliament?

Sign and share this urgent petition: http://www.allout.org/en/petition/uganda

Tavish Scott resigns as the Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats - my view

Thursday night and Friday was hard for me to take as many candidates (and friends) across Scotland were losing seats and deposits as the domino effect of the SNP majority was happening before our very eyes.

The whole team had worked so incredibly hard, some candidates and their teams doing the volumes of door knocking and leafleting they hadn't seen since the early 1980's.

We had deliberately reduced the team in Clifton Terrace, our Edinburgh HQ from the levels of the 2007 campaign because we knew we had to get our teams out in the constituencies.

Despite some criticism from people we did not take our voters for granted in any area, in fact more resources went into some of these areas than originally intended.

When I left the office on Friday I had been awake and out of bed for 35 hours, when the final result came in from Mid Scotland & Fife regional list, announcing Willie Rennie as our 5th MSP, I was exhausted and needed sleep, badly - I'm not as young as some of my team.

I had actually left the office at 7.30am to go to the hotel to get some kip, unfortunately as I fell asleep Sir Robert Smith MP telephoned, closely followed by Elspeth Finlay. So much for that idea.

I awoke on Saturday morning around 8am, as Loco, my cat was scratching the door and miaowing - she wanted breakfast, and wasn't letting my lack of sleep or the SNP get in the way.

I then fell asleep in the chair and awoke just in time to head into town for a staff meeting with Tavish and the new parliamentary party ahead of a meeting of the Scottish Party Executive.

It was at this meeting that Tavish dropped his bombshell, he was resigning with immediate effect!

If my emotions weren't all screwed up already, then this news gave them another bash.

In his resignation statement he said:

“I want to announce that I am resigning the leadership of the Scottish Liberal Democrats with immediate effect.

“Thursday’s Scottish General Election result was disastrous and I must and do take responsibility for the verdict of the electorate.

“The party needs a new direction, new thinking and new leadership to win back the trust of the Scottish people.

“I am honoured to serve as Shetland’s MSP in this Parliament.”

I have only been in Scotland since the end of May 2008.  Tavish became Leader in August of the same year and we had enjoyed a good relationship since, we didn't always see eye to eye, but we always had the debate.

I will certainly miss working with Tavish and look forward to working with the new leader - whoever that should be.
Since the General Election, Tavish had known that this election was never going to be just about Scotland, firstly we thought the AV referendum would divert attention but then as time went on we knew the coalition would be the focus.

I will also say I have continued to be disappointed by some strands of the Scottish media for not being fair on Tavish.  Glenn Campbell for one in the Leaders debate often cut Tavish off mid sentence and got his own personal digs in on the coalition, but never did the same to Annabel Goldie.
 
I'm not playing cry baby about this, but Scottish journalists need to learn to be consistent across all parties, not behave like Premiership referees and respond to behaviour from some angles favouring one party or another.
 
Tavish didn't need to resign yesterday, he could have made the announcement and then set a date in the future, but he stood up and took full responsibility for the result.
 
In the short term, Jo Swinson MP, currently the Deputy Leader becomes acting leader. The timetable for the election of the new leader will be announced in due course.

The April 2011 stat porn for my little blog

Continuing my regular monthly stat porn figures for anyone who is remotely interested in who reads my little blog, what stories they read and from where they read it, the monthly summary of my visitor stats according to google analytics is as below for April 2011.

The busiest day on my blog last month was Sunday 17th April, the day I blogged about John Lamont's short term memory loss, as he attacks an opponent for wanting to be an MP - as he did just twelve months ago!

Last month I had 1,182 absolute unique visitors, a slight dent on last month. They made 1,458 visits and 1,792 page views.

13.99% of the visitors were through direct traffic, 34.22% from referring sites and 51.78% via search engines.

So, my top 10 referring sites for the last month were;

1. Facebook (1)
2. Blogger (7)
3. Google.co.uk (5)
4. Twitter (2)
5. Better Nation (12)
6. Lib Dem Voice (4)
7. Mungiuns Republic (9)
8. Lib Dem Blogs (6)
9. Planet Politics (14)
10. Google.com (11)
During April I wrote just 7 blog posts, another poor month.

The top 10 stories by direct page views that you've read most were;

1. Police Federation go for scaremongering advert
2. Conservative candidate John Lamont has short term memory
3. Labour leader Iain Gray: "I want a zero tolerance approach on literacy"
4. Supporting the NUS Scotland LGBT mental health campaign is important - DO IT!
5. Jack Frew - murdered in cold blood for being gay?
6. The biggest story in Scotland today
7. Adam Levine gets naked
8. Who reads which newspaper?
9. Angela Constance MSP is new Scottish Minister for Skills & Lifelong Learning
10. Save our Scottish Police from the SNP, Conservatives and Labour plans

Once again a real mixed bag this month and as I only wrote 7 blog posts, the top 10 was always going to include stuff from previous months - so this month a naked Adam Levine returns as does the tragic death last year of Jack Frew, in addition we have the NUS LGBT campaign and the single police force issue.

The visitors to my little blog came from 48 countries this month, the top ten were as follows;

1. United Kingdom (1)
2. United States (2)
3. France (3)
4. Australia (=8)
5. Canada (4)
6. India (12)
7. New Zealand (47)
=8. Brazil (21)
=8. Netherlands (11)
10. Italy (10)

Enjoy the porn because, that's all folks!

Labour leader Iain Gray: "I want a zero tolerance approach on literacy"

The Scottish Labour Party have distributed their regional election addresses across many parts of Scotland and in many editions there is an interview with their leader, Iain Gray.

Iain Gray is quoted within this interview as saying;

"I want a zero tolerance approach on literacy,"

A very odd line to take.

Does he mean he will stamp out literacy in our schools?

That is certainly what he implies, did he mean to say he wanted a zero tolerance to illiteracy?

According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, the definition of literacy is;

• the ability to read and write
Far more resources are needed to improve adult literacy.

• knowledge of a particular subject, or a particular type of knowledge
Computer literacy is becoming as essential as the ability to drive a car. 

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of illiteracy is;

• a lack of ability to read and write.

 

• the state of being illiterate; lack of any or enough education. 

• a mistake in writing or speaking, felt to be characteristic of an illiterate or semi literate person: a letter that was full of illiteracies.

I think that Iain Gray and Scottish Labour may have made a mistake here....why would you want a zero tolerance approach to the ability to read and write?

Conservative candidate John Lamont has short term memory

I noticed in John Lamonts latest leaflet ironically titled "Common sense with John Lamont" a moment of short term memory loss.

In the leaflet, John Lamont has criticised Euan Robson, his Scottish Liberal Democrats challenger (SNP and Labour are over 4,000 votes behind Euan), for wanting to become an MP.

Is this the same Conservative John Lamont who spent tens of thousands of pounds trying to beat Michael Moore to become an MP only last year?

It certainly is.

Maybe John Lamont and the local Conservatives have got some short term memory loss?