Laws

A couple of thoughts on this morning's David Laws revelation. He's been claiming, completely against the rules, about £40,000 of second home allowance when he was renting a room from his partner.

Now, he says he claimed because he didn't want to come out as gay. Directly, this seems fair enough. But you do wonder how someone who made millions in the city needs to claim £40,000 in the first place. Particularly if he wants to maintain discretion. Clearly he's not being cynical about his claiming - there's no flipping, no dodginess of the level of Gove or Osbourne if we want to pick other members of the coalition: if Laws steps down, surely those two have to, too - he's been claiming less than an equivalent one bed flat would cost to rent; and if he was really dodgy he'd have had his constituency mansion as his "secondary" residence.

That said, he's clearly on very, very shaky ground, and it's pretty hard to defend. If he was genuinely poor and needed the money, that would be another thing; but he's not. Why break the rules to take money you don't need?

The other thought is that this revelation comes from the Telegraph, who must have had the info for months. Why now? I suspect it's a deliberate attempt to undermine the Lib Dem parts of the coalition because of the CGT thing. The Telegraph are spitting nails now they know they will be taxed on the huge massive unearned profits on their multiple homes. And they know that the Lib Dem in the treasury is the one most likely to make headway on the issue, particularly as his stock has risen dramatically in Tory circles with the way he's handled budget cuts.

So, I'm torn. I think Laws probably should go, but then so should Osbourne and Gove. But I'll be happy if he doesn't for tactical reasons. I suspect Cameron will keep him, anyway - it's too useful to have a Lib Dem take the flak for the cuts; and there's the just-out gay thing, which Cameron may also decide to defend because he wants to be seen a liberal, and not as an old school nasty Tory.