The former Liberal Democrat MP David Laws is publishing his memoirs about his time as a minister in the Conservative government from 2010 to 2015. “So what?” you might say. “I’ve never heard of him.” Unless you are really interested in politics you probably haven’t heard of him but the reason I remember him oh so well has nothing to do with his politics: it’s because he was one of the biggest expenses abusers of all. Laws claimed up to £950 a month for eight years to rent rooms in two properties owned by his partner, one James Lundie.
All the old excuses were rolled out at the time. Laws did not benefit personally from the arrangement, but better still read his own words: At no point did I consider myself to be in breach of the rules which in 2009 defined partner as “one of a couple … who although not married to each-other or civil partners are living together and treat each-other as spouses. Although we were living together we did not treat each other as spouses. For example we do not share bank accounts and indeed have separate social lives.” To which I say, bullshit.
As a former benefit fraud investigator with the DWP, I have heard this one so many times before, people who lied through their teeth, claiming vast sums in benefits, pretending their relationship was purely that of landlord and tenant. Some have even gone to prison for their fraudulent activities. David Laws resigned from one cabinet job and then, a year later, he was restored to it when all the fuss had died down. One rule for MPs, another for everyone else.
He continued: “My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.” I am not remotely interested in his sexuality and had he not fiddled his expenses, we might never have known about it, so the breach of privacy was his own fault, not the media which rightly exposed his dishonesty.
A benefit fraudster who did the same thing would now have a criminal record and be semi-unemployable. A former MP, a millionaire at that, has no such concerns. Mr Laws will never be sending off endless applications for minimum wage, zero hour contracts.
Now Mr Laws is making even more money from his memoirs – nice work if you can get it. The book titled “I claimed £40,000 I wasn’t entitled to but I got away with it” – whoops, sorry, I meant ‘Coalition’ – will be in all good bookshops soon and soon after copies will be piled up in charity shops.
I come from an environment and background where you never claim a single penny more than you are entitled to and usually claim less than you are entitled to. But then, I’ve never been an MP where it’s perfectly proper to scam £40k you shouldn’t have had and you don’t even get a slap on the wrist.
Is it any wonder people hate politicians?
