Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/627/9752
From The Socialist newspaper, 2 June 2010
One Law for the rich...
CHIEF TREASURY secretary David Laws, described as "a genius" by colleagues, inflicted £6.2 billion of cuts in public spending which will hit millions of people. However, after only two weeks in post the Lib Dem MP resigned from the Cabinet, following the revelation that he had claimed over £40,000 in MPs' expenses to rent rooms in homes owned by his partner.
Laws is on the right of the Lib Dems, more a Conservative neo-liberal than a social-liberal. He is co-author of the Lib Dems' 'Orange Book' - full of vicious anti-working class dogma - and was a high-flying City banker before becoming an MP. Laws was a key member of the Lib Dems' team that negotiated the current coalition with the Tories.
The resignation is a huge embarrassment for PM David Cameron, who has constantly banged on about 'good governance' and his coalition making a 'clean break' from the previous Labour government's sleaze scandals.
Laws said his motivation in this expenses scandal was not personal gain but to keep the relationship with a man private and not to reveal his own sexuality. But surely, if the millionaire "genius" MP wanted to keep his personal affairs private then he shouldn't have had his hand in the till, claiming dodgy expenses that drew attention to his partner. Rottenness and corruption is not solely the preserve of the two main parties it seems. They really are all the same.
In contrast to these scoundrels, "a workers' MP on a worker's wage" was the campaigning slogan of our Socialist Party candidates who stood as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in the general election.
Socialist Party reporters
DAVID LAWS' successor as treasury secretary, Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander, also has an embarrassing political skeleton in his cupboard. Alexander used a legal loophole to avoid paying capital gains tax (CGT) when he sold his publicly-funded second home at a profit. Hypocritically, the Lib Dems in the general election called for the closure of this loophole and for the CGT rate to increase from 18% to 40%.
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In The Socialist 2 June 2010:
British Airways cabin crew strike
British Airways strike: Full support for the cabin crew
Environment and socialism
Oil spill is 'worst environmental disaster' to hit US
Socialist Party news and analysis
No to privatised academies: Defend public education
Millionaire cabinet plans cuts in benefits
Interview with sacked Telegen workers
Youth Fight for Jobs: More trade unions add their support
Anti-racism
Cardiff says 'no' to the racist EDL
Housing crisis
Gateshead tenants demand decent homes
Socialist Party LGBT
Socialists campaign for Pride not profit in Birmingham
Marxist analysis: history
Margaret Thatcher: Why workers cannot forget
Scotland
Minority representation in Scotland for Westminster coalition of cuts
Socialist Party Scotland to be launched
Socialist Party workplace news
Fighting council cuts: Planning for united strikes in Kirklees
PCS conference Defend the public sector
Coventry - time for mass action
Will the councils fight the cuts?
University and Colleges Union: Congress votes to fight
International socialist news and analysis
Jamaican armed forces surround and storm poor neighbourhood
Workers' suicides: The human cost of an iPad
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