Thread: David Laws has resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
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Old 30-05-2010, 21:11   #71
Flyboy
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Re: David Laws has resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien View Post
Yes but I think we can understand his intentions where not corrupt. He did not want to scam the taxpayer and make a profit out of them. He wanted to cover up his relationship, and when the rules changed it would have meant revealing that so he carried on his agrement knowing it was now wrong. Yes, that's bad but honestly, it's not corrupt or sinister it's a human struggling with their personal issues.
What did he do with the money?

This argument might well have been made, if he could have proved that he did something socially worthwhile with the money.

---------- Post added at 22:11 ---------- Previous post was at 22:07 ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt D View Post
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.
I can see some relevance to parallels here. Laws paid his partner for a room he neither used, nor intended to use. Therefore paying someone for services never received.
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