The Queen and democracy

David Laws, lest we forget, fiddled £40,000 from the taxpayer which he paid to his homosexual lover presenting it as rent for a room in his house. Laws resigned, but apparently will get a senior government post soon. Just the sort of chap we want running the country.


Anyway, Laws has used his six months off to write a memoir of the events surrounding the formation of the coalition between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. In it he is reported to have said that The Queen connived with Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg at keeping Gordon Brown in office while they stitched a deal together.

And stitched is the appropriate word. The electorate was stitched up, as the two men decided on policies which were not present in their manifestos, without deigning to consult the voters. Her Majesty appears to have been fully informed as to what was going on, favouring undemocratic rule by the political class above the traditional system of the people deciding how they are governed.

There is something quite, quite rotten here. Buckingham Palace has some explaining to do.

David Laws

There was a strange story going around yesterday that the Conservative / LibDems had refused to put up a panel member on Question Time where Alistair Campbell was representing Labour. The chosen one had been going to be David Laws, the Coalition Chief Secretary to the Treasury.


This morning’s Telegraph ‘outed’ Mr Laws as having paid rent to a live-in lover (male), one James Lundle, that rent coming from the public purse. I suppose the two stories are connected.

Mr Laws has offered to pay back the money and said that he kept the arrangement secret because he didn’t want his sexuality to come out, nor his relationship to Mr Lundle.

Now it seems to me that this is somewhat odd. Laws was born in 1965 and so for all but 2 years of his life homosexuality has been legal. Several MPs from all parties have declared themselves gay and he wouldn’t be the only gay man in the cabinet.

And if he really wanted to keep all this secret, why pay rent to his lover, inviting scrutiny? I’m afraid it looks as if he was simply on the fiddle.

This is a serious problem for Mr Cameron because Laws holds a pivotal position. He is in charge of the spending cuts and is probably the only senior LibDem who is sensible on this issue. If Laws goes, there will be a movement to have Vince Cable as Chief Secretary, which Osborne and the Treasury don’t want.

Cameron will try to keep him on. But he can’t, not in the present climate. You can’t say ‘An end to the old politics, we’re whiter than white’ and then have as Third Lord of the Treasury someone who has had his hands in the till.

Phillip Hammond, Transport Minister, had been an able Shadow Chief Secretary and should be put quickly into the job. The LibDems could supply a replacement at Transport, preferably someone not barking green.

The axeman cometh

In what I think will be regarded as a brilliant stroke by Chancellor George Osborne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury - the man who actually has to implement the public expenditure cuts - is a LibDem, David Laws.

Here is what Matthew d'Ancona had to say about him:

'Mr Laws has the slightly stooped but twinkle-eyed countenance* of a mortician who likes to have fun at the weekend.'

He it is who will have to decide what is a 'front line service' (a phrase which seems to have been accepted without challenge during this election but which to my mind is indefinable and therefore meaningless) and is ring-fenced and what is not and therefore cuttable.

What about.... no, thought not.

This is the toughest job in the government and I wish him well.

*this use of 'countenance' to mean demeanour rather than facial expression is archaic, but we can forgive d'Ancona because he is a fellow of All Souls.