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Laws Resigns.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
So, David Laws has resigned in an expenses scandal.
Any chance we can stop referring to MPs as "honourable" now?
Any chance we can stop referring to MPs as "honourable" now?
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It looks like Cameron is going to be just as gutless as Brown was when it came to MPs who were cheating taxpayers out of money. New politics, my arse.
I know those who do wrong have to go, but if we have no tolerance for mistakes we will never have those in politics making brave decisions.
Dishonourable... only if he was claiming more in rent than he would have been able to claim for the mortgage had he bought the house.
The way he set things up if he died the other chap would keep the house, without there being any paper trail linking them - other than lodger and landlord.
I can't blame him for wanting to keep his sexuality out of the tabloids.
I should imagine he's relieved it's over - he must have felt under the sword of Damocles ever since the coalition started.
In hindsight it does seem likely...
To be fair, this isn't expenses from the current session of Parliament.
Would it be honourable for me to rent half the house to my wife and for her to claim Housing Benefit for it?
Me neither. Just not at my expense.
Or if he was renting then started a relationship, just move out?
Or just not claim the expenses? It's not like he's on a small salary so if he was so afraid of the relationship becoming public why not avoid claiming?
Seems to me that while he doesn't seem a bad person there are a significant number of alternative choices they both could have made, just none of them involved making a profit.
But yeah, like Katralla says, it feels like a rich politician doing this is seen as honourable, when someone on a council estate does it then they make TV adverts insulting them and talk about how disgraceful and criminal they are.
^ This. It's all been cleverly spun out as some tragic, forcibly closeted gay man trying to hide his sexuality so he can keep his job, family etc. When he's just a thieving shit.
How the fuck do you hide your relationship/sexuallity from people by renting A ROOM at £950/month from the guy your knobbing ?
The rule was put in place to stop MPs making a profit on the expenses by paying more rent than the mortgage actually cost - because, you know, a lot of them were thieving bastards. So while breaking the letter of the rule, he wouldn't have been breaking the spirit of the rule f he only claimed as much as he would have been able to had he claimed it as the mortgage.
A room + shared areas of the house times two, at London rates - doesn't seem too outrageous.
I'm not quite sure how he got away with renting two rooms in two houses though.
Except they are perfectly valid.
He was living with his partner. Paying him rent, as a landlord. Then claiming for it.
Do you know of any other loving relationship where one partner charges the other rent when cohabiting?
Fine, if they'd had joint tenancy or joint mortgage then an expense claim would have been acceptable. This is taxpayers bunging his boyfriend a few quid.
Only if more money was paid this way than would have been the other.
Was a profit made?
About £950 per month was being paid more than should have.
You don't rent a room from the person you are cohabiting with. Expense rules also outlawed it.
I really can understand him trying to hide a relationship because there is still too much stigma attached (although it's worth noting that this is portrayed as a financial scandal and not a sex scandal, so there's progress) but what I cannot accept is that I should pay for that.
He was in a relationship here not a contractual arrangement.
The suggestion you keep making is that he shouldn't have been claiming anything. This isn't the case.
Yes it is, in this instance.
Had he been living alone, been named on a lease or been named on the mortgage then he could claim. He wasn't any of those.
He was living at his boyfriends house. He could still claim food etc, but not rent.
If it wasn't then the rent claim is still false.
You're claiming you paying money you shouldn't have paid - I don't know if that's the case.
Had they been honest, and done it properly, how much would they have claimed?
He lied. That's not honourable, not by any definition.
You talk about the same money (or more) being claimed another way. Fact is that he didn't choose another way, he chose one which isn't allowed whether gay or straight.
He wasn't a tenant and he wasn't the house owner. That means he could not claim so the actual amount he could have claimed per month was £0. He actually claimed £950 per month. I'd say that was a tidy profit for the benefit of his boyfriend. I really can't see how that could even be close to being called "Honourable"
What point? That he could have done this honestly and claimed similar amounts? Of course he could.
But that isn't what he did, is it?
ETA The honourable thing to do, if he wanted to hide his relationship, is not to have claimed.
Undeniably, it would have been dishonourable to have done so in order to claim more - which is why the rule was changed.
To claim the same amount, I don't think so.
He's a dishonest coward, but is he a thief?