Theroguetrooper's Blog

So Mr David Laws has resigned his cabinet post as chief secretary to the treasury on the back of revelations he has been using tax-payers’ money (£40,000) to pay rent to his partner. 

Mr Clegg has backed Mr. Law’s claim that the secrecy over his domestic and financial arrangements was motivated by the desire to “keep his private life private”.  How fitting Mr. Clegg.  Was it not you who  took the moral high ground over the whole expenses scandal and is it not your partner in crime Mr. Cameron who promised us the people a new era of politics?  So now we know what some of us knew all along.  You have nothing but contempt for ordinary people.  You believe it is your divine right to rule this land; you pour out your sanctimonious drivel about us all being in this together.  You sit in your privileged comfort telling us it is time once again to tighten our belts and that just over the hill is the Promised Land.

Let us flip the coin here.  Mr. Duncan-Smith is busy creating welfare reform at a time when many of us face the very real possibility of long periods of unemployment coupled with the added bonus of picking up leaves in the local park to qualify for the measly and humiliating handout.  Let’s create for a minute a hypothetical young family facing their first period of unemployment.  Let’s suppose it is the month of August and little Joe is about to start school.  Under the new “free school” system Joe is not only required to wear a uniform, he also has to have a sport’s kit selected by the school and a school bag.   Young Joe’s dad being a proud young man cannot make the “new couples’ benefit” money stretch to the whole kit Joe needs for school and even though he knows it is wrong he takes a few days work “on the side” decorating his former bosses new extension.  His former boss made him redundant when his bank would not extend the company overdraft.  Anyway Joe’s young dad gets £120 cash in hand for three days work.  He agonises over declaring these “earnings” but decides it is a one-off and Joe needs things for school.

Six weeks pass and Joe’s dad receives a letter from the benefit’s office fraud investigators requesting he attend the local benefit’s office for an interview under caution.  Unable to lie Joe’s dad admits he did a few days work for his former boss but that he had no choice as he needed the money for his son who was starting at the new “free school”.   Joe’s dad is charged with benefit fraud and his name appears in the local paper under the headline “Dole Cheat Caught out in Benefit’s Sting”.

Now let’s return to Mr. David Laws.  Mr. Cameron has described him as a “good and honorable man” whilst Mr. Duncan-Smith describes him as a “thoroughly decent person” Mr.  Clegg believes Mr. Laws is a man of “integrity”.

The truth however is this.  Mr. Laws got caught out and has shown contempt for both the rules and the people who put their trust in him.  It is more than clear that it is one rule for them and another for us.  If these damming revelations had not surfaced Mr. Laws would have no doubt continued in his role as chief secretary to the treasury more than happy to work out ever more insidious ways to slash public spending under the veneer of protecting the economy.  Next time you read about a benefit cheat just remember Mr. Laws and all the other poly-trickers who have quietly been fiddling their expenses.  So much for a new era of politics and regaining the public trust.