When the coalition government was formed in May 2010 Liberal Democrat David Laws was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He was described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has having been 'put on earth to do that job'. Within days he had resigned due to a Daily Telegraph expose of his false (and illegal) expense claims. This week a parliamentary committee found him guilty and suspended him from the House for 7 days.
For me two issues emerge from this case. First why has David Laws not faced a court trial in the same way that other 'offenders' have done; he claims to have personal reasons for the offence, but don't all criminals? In the same vein, why has this case been treated so lightly by those in power. At a press conference earlier this week the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister seemed to treat it as if a minor misdemeanour in school; at one stage they broke down laughing. But thousands of pounds of public money were involved and I'm sure other cases of equal seriousness are not dismissed so readily. Laws is a very wealthy man already. I only ask.
The second point is that Laws took on the job with huge enthusiasm; he seemed to relish the task of slicing the public finances back as far as possible. Laws and Clegg appeared to be the most comfortable Lib Dem members of the coalition. This enthusiasm has now backfired; even Clegg is talking about exerting Lib Dem views more vociferously. So why the enthusiasm to get this enthusiastic deficit reducer back in cabinet? Clearly the pasting the Lib Dems received in the recent local and devolved elections has not brought about a new found humilty.
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