Exactly. Things are not always black & white. Yes, he cocked up, yes he appears to have broken the rules, but he did not do it out of a desire to defraud, he did it out of a desire to keep a certain aspect of his private life private. And he claimed far less than he could have legitimately claimed if he had been open about his relationship...
Regarding Derek Conway... I don't get the comparison.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7224538.stm
Mr Conway used £40,000 of taxpayers' money to pay his son as a "researcher", yet the standards committee said there was no record of Mr Conway's son actually doing any work at Westminster.
Mr Laws did not use taxpayers money to employ Mr Lundie for something he did not actually do, he used it to pay rent to Mr Lundie. It is not as if he was paying rent to Mr Lundie yet not actually living in the property in question.
Yes, Mr Lundie & Mr Laws became involved in a relationship with each other, but Mr Lundie was still Mr Laws' landlord & so Mr Laws would still have had to pay rent & contribute to the cost of his accommodation, regardless of his status with Mr Lundie.
Yes, the rules changed so that it became prohibited to claim for rent paid to a partner, so yes he should have done something about it when that rule change occurred. But it does not look remotely like it was done as a way of lining his or Mr Lundie's pockets. He just wanted to keep his sexuality & his relationship private.
My opinion would be the same if Mr Laws was a Labour MP or a Tory MP.