Dear Prime Minister,
The last 24 hours have been very difficult and distressing for me, and I have been thinking carefully about what action I should take in the interests of the Government, my constituents and - most important of all - those whom I love. I am grateful for the strong support which I have received from my friends, family, and from you, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor. This support has been incredibly important, but nonetheless, I have decided that it is right to tender my resignation as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I have done so for three reasons.
Firstly, I do not see how I can carry on my crucial work on the Budget and Spending Review while I have to deal with the private and public implications of recent revelations.
At this important time the Chancellor needs, in my own view, a Chief Secretary who is not distracted by personal troubles. I hardly need say how much I regret having to leave such vital work, which I feel all my life has prepared me for.
Secondly, while my recent problems were caused by my desire to keep my sexuality secret, the public is entitled to expect politicians to act with a sense of responsibility. I cannot now escape the conclusion that what I have done was in some way wrong [in some way?!], even though I did not gain any financial benefit from keeping my relationship secret in this way.
Finally, and most importantly, I have an overriding responsibility to those I love most, and who I feel I have exposed to scrutiny in this way. I have pursued a political career because of my sense of public duty, but I have too often put this before the interests of those I love most. It is time to redress the balance. I want to apologise to my constituents for falling below the standards that they are entitled to expect from me. The job of being a constituency MP is no less important to me than my Cabinet responsibilities. I shall ensure that I co-operate fully with the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner in the review that I have requested. I intend to consider carefully over the period ahead how I can best serve the interests of my Yeovil constituency, which I care so passionately about.
It has been a great honour to serve however briefly in your Government and I will remain its strong supporter lol.
Yours sincerely,
David Laws
to which David Cameron replied:
Dear David,
Thank you for your letter tendering your resignation from the Government, which I accept with sadness.
The last 24 hours must have been extraordinarily difficult and painful for you.
You are a good and honourable man [WTF?!]. I am sure that, throughout, you have been motivated by wanting to protect your privacy rather than anything else. Your decision to resign from the Government demonstrates the importance you attach to your integrity.
In your short time at the Treasury, you have made a real difference, setting the Government on the right path to tackle the deficit which poses such a risk to our economy.
I hope that, in time, you will be able to serve again [I don't fucking think so!] as I think it is absolutely clear that you have a huge amount to offer our country lol.
Yours,
David
The Observer editorial
David Laws cannot reasonably have expected to keep secret for ever the arrangement by which his parliamentary allowance for accommodation was paid over several years, in breach of the rules, to a man with whom he had a gay relationship.
Even if he thought he had escaped discovery last year, when hundreds of MPs' expenses were coming under scrutiny in the midst of a massive scandal, he might have considered it wise to go public. Then at least blame could have been shared with colleagues. Then, too, he was the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, a position of some standing, but not a senior post in the Westminster hierarchy.
His role as chief secretary to the Treasury cast matters in a different light entirely. Mr Laws, perhaps more than any figure in the government apart from the chancellor, would have been associated in the public eye with the implementation of harsh austerity measures. He would have been called upon to explain why cuts were necessary and why some people would suffer more than others.
His credibility in delivering that message was irrevocably sabotaged by reports that he took £40,000 of taxpayers' money and gave it to a lover. The fact that Mr Laws tried to keep the secret when its eventual disclosure seemed inevitable suggests he was not acting rationally. That, in effect, was his defence – that deceiving the parliamentary allowances office was not part of a plot to defraud the nation, but the extension of profound self-deception.
He was not known to be gay, even by family and friends. Acknowledging the man with whom he shared a flat as his "partner" on official forms would have amounted to a kind of announcement. It would have crystallised, too, in his own mind something about which he may well have been in denial, or at least felt unhappy.
A generous interpretation is that enduring taboos about homosexuality forced him into an impossible position and that awkwardness and embarrassment, not greed, were his undoing.
To an extent that is surely true. But private torment does not necessarily excuse wrongdoing. Mr Laws might have been motivated by complex psychological processes, but he cannot have been ignorant of the rules. Perhaps he felt sufficiently ambivalent about the status of the relationship to feel he could not meaningfully identify his lover as a "partner" under the expenses guidelines. But given the length of their cohabitation, that was a tenuous excuse.
If Mr Laws had really wanted complete secrecy, he could not have claimed at all, or found other accommodation. He is a very wealthy man. It seems unlikely, given the relative modesty of his other expense claims, that he was motivated by money. But his judgment in allowing such a situation to develop has surely been proven faulty.
It is in the public interest that such a failing be exposed. But there is something disquieting in the way the examination of Mr Laws's housing arrangement has hauled into the glare of public scrutiny a matter that is for him so intensely private. It is a peculiar, and not entirely healthy consequence of the expenses scandal that every detail of an MP's life is now considered legitimate subject for a forensic audit, with the assumption being that crooked intent lurks in every receipt.
If we are to attract good candidates to the job, and not just those of independent means, we must trust them to spend money on second homes and offices without assuming the worst.
Mr Laws's transgression was by no means the most serious offence committed under the old allowance regime. Had he been just another MP, his position would surely have been secure. Sympathy for the awkwardness he clearly felt about his sexuality would have overridden anger at the technical breach of the rules. But he was a cabinet minister in a coalition government that has advertised its benefits to the country as representing "new politics". That claim includes the expectation of integrity in general, and honesty over expenses in particular.
Mr Laws's job also demanded that he axe services and impose severe financial constraints on public sector workers. He could not, given the revelations about his expenses, credibly fulfil the function of an ambassador of austerity, as he honourably recognised in his statement last night. He is right to resign. His personal position deserves much sympathy, but his cabinet position was untenable lol.
