Sunday 30th May 2010

The new government is less than three weeks old, but has already been hit by scandal after David Laws was last night forced to step down as Chief Secretray to the Treasury last night over expenses. It emerged that the prominent Liberal Democrat had used £40,000 to tax payer's money to pay rent to his male long term partner, having previously kept this relationship secret from the public.
The whole episode has undeniably weakened the position of the coalition and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg; Laws was part of the negotiating team which came to an agreement over power sharing in the wake of the inconclusive result of the general election earlier this month and one of his first jobs as a Cabinet minister was to present the £6 billion spending cuts to us earlier this week. But the real tragedy here is that he felt the need to fiddle his expenses to hide his sexuality. I like to think we now live in a Liberal Britain where sexual orientation is irrevelant to career prospects. I don't think anyone who matters would think any less of Laws if he had openly declared he was a homosexual. Over the last 15 years or so we have seen a rise in the number of openly gay politicians, Peter Mandelson, Ben Bradshaw and Alan Duncan to name but a few and they have all managed to get on with their jobs without any prejudice being held against them. I was only made aware a couple of weeks ago that Bradshaw was openly gay and the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport appears to be offended that Laws felt the need to hide his sexuality, yesterday asking his followers on Twitter "when is "protecting your privacy" a euphamism (sic) for feeling shameful about who you are?".
Under article eight of the Human Rights Act David Laws is entitled to privacy (just putting recent NCTJ Law revision into practice), but public interest has to be taken into consideration here as he did use tax payers money to help hide his sexuality.
By resigning within hours of the scandal breaking Laws has probably done himself a favour and many, including Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, expect him to return to government in only a matter of time. David Cameron will be relieved that Laws stepped down so swiftly before he could be sent his marching orders. During last year's expenses scandal the then Leader of the Opposition talked tough about sleaze and this would have been the first opportunity as Prime Minister for him to show he wasn't all talk, no action. However, the quick reaction of Laws has made things easier for the government and sparred there perhaps being potential fraction between Cameron and his Deputy Nick Clegg. Now the seal has been broken I wonder who will be the next Cabinet minister to go; if we have constant resignations at this rate they will all be gone by the end of next year!