David Laws - the sheer hypocrisy....

.....of those Labour activists and mouth pieces on twitter and in the blogosphere for the turning on, of the anti machine.

It is sheer hypocrisy though, because when their MPs were being pictured walking into court for actual fraud the same bloggers/tweeters were all strangely silent.

I have long admired David Laws (not like that) politics and how he has handled himself within the Party and on the economics stage in the real world.

Has today's story in The Daily Telegraph also explained the reason why Alistair Campbell produced a framed photo of David Laws at the end of Thursday's BBC Question Time, is it he who tipped the Daily Telegraph off, who knows?

Or was Campbell going to put the framed photo of David in the seat where David had been due to sit, again who knows?

The Daily Telegraph's story claims that David Laws:

• Claimed between £700 and £950 a month between 2004 and 2007 to sub-let a room in a flat in Kennington, south London, owned by his partner who was also registered as living at the property;
• From 2007, David then began claiming £920 a month to rent the second bedroom from a new house bought by his partner, who also lived there.

David Laws has issued a statement, published in full by The Daily telegraph, as follows:

I’ve been involved in a relationship with James Lundie since around 2001 — about two years after first moving in with him. Our relationship has been unknown to both family and friends throughout that time. James and I are intensely private people. We made the decision to keep our relationship private and believed that was our right. Clearly that cannot now remain the case.

“My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.

“I claimed back the costs of sharing a home in Kennington with James from 2001 to June 2007. In June 2007, James bought a new home in London and I continued to claim back my share of the costs. I extended the mortgage on my Somerset property, for which I do not claim any allowances or expenses, to help James purchase the new property.

“In 2006 the Green Book rules were changed to prohibit payments to partners. At no point did I consider myself to be in breach of the rules which in 2009 defined partner as ‘one of a couple … who although not married to each-other or civil partners are living together and treat each-other as spouses’.

“Although we were living together we did not treat each other as spouses. For example we do not share bank accounts and indeed have separate social lives. However, I now accept that this was open to interpretation and will immediately pay back the costs of the rent and other housing costs I claimed from the time the rules changed until August 2009.”

There are many people with different opinions on this out there, I have selected four that you can go and read directly for yourselves and my opinion follows.

Liberal Democrat Voice;

I think many people will have a fair amount of sympathy for David’s position. Clearly in an effort to maintain his privacy, he has kept secret his domestic arrangements; and any form of secrecy will lead some to place the worst possible interpretation on it.

Sara Bedford's blog, Always win when you're singing;

I’m not from the same wing of the Lib Dems as David Laws. I’m not a likely cheerleader for him. But his performance since his appointment to the cabinet has been astounding, with a mastery and articulation of his new brief which has delighted most of the political world. Don’t resign and give the Telegraph their pound of flesh David. Your party, the coalition and, the country’s economy need you.

Jerry Hayes on Think Politics website;

Has David Laws behaved corruptly? The answer was simply put in a tweet by the Financial Times journalist and serious thinker, Christopher Cook, last night. If Laws had declared his relationship he could have charged the taxpayer for the whole mortgage. So when banner headlines demand a scalp, I hope that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have the compassion and common sense to ride out the storm.

Tony Grew is parliamentary editor of ePolitix.com and writes in defence of David Laws.

It is an intense sadness to me that David Laws never felt able to step out into that new sunshine created by Tony Blair and New Labour. He was never able to learn that the vast majority of his colleagues and friends do not give a damn about who he shares his life with, as long as it made him happy.  Instead one of the richest MPs in parliament found himself in a ridiculous position - claiming rent from the taxpayer to refund his boyfriend, so that no-one would find out he was his boyfriend.

Now, my opinion for what it's worth is this, David Laws has tried to keep a difficult private life just that, private and has today paid the price for that because The Daily Telegraph don't respect that view, who ever it is.
 
Given David could have claimed the whole mortgage under the rules the taxpayers have not been shortchanged so David Laws should not resign, he is doing a great job and should be allowed to continue.
 
For me, it is really sad that here we are in May 2010 and a person's sexuality is front page news.
 
When will The Daily Telegraph grow up?

David Laws, Mike Smithson and reading polls

David Laws on the BBC Daily Politics yesterday was making the point that Cameron's Conservative Party's lead in the opinion polls is not as good compared with Labour's in the run up to the 1997 'wipeout election'.

Mike Smithson was quick to attack on his blog - "Why's the LD schools spokesman getting it so wrong?'

"You’ll have to indulge me if you think I’ve banged on about this too much - but I have a real “bee in my bonnet” about the phoney invalid polling comparisons that journos, pundits and politicians are rushing to make when they compare the polling position at the moment with what went on in 1996/97… "

Mike went on to point out how most pollsters over-estimated Labour’s support before polling day in 1997, adding that:

One pollster was totally out of line - ICM. Then, as now, it mostly had higher ratings for the Lib Dems and much smaller shares for Labour. And guess what happened on election day? Its approach was proved right.

My good friend Mark Pack said "I’d agree with that praise for ICM. But David Laws’s comments are fully justified by the ICM figures.

Since last summer (i.e. August 2008-March 2009), the Conservative lead in the ICM polls has varied between 5% and 15%.

If you look back at August 1995-March 1996*, the Labour lead in the ICM polls varied between 14% and 22%. There is a small overlap between these two ranges, but overall the Labour lead in 1995/6 was much higher than the Conservative lead in 2008/9, averaging 18% for Labour compared to 12% for the Conservatives.

Moreover, due to the way their respective vote shares are distributed across the country, the Conservatives need a larger lead to have an overall majority than Labour - so in fact the relative position for them is even worse than the 18% vs 12% figure suggests.

Sorry Mike, but on this one I think you’ve got it wrong: the Conservative lead is consistently significantly lower than the comparable Labour lead was.

* This is the comparable period for a 2010 election. But the point also stands for a 2009 general election, for example if you take the period August 1996-March 1997 instead. "

It appears that on this occasion Mike Smithson may just be wrong!