Monday, May 31, 2010

the telegraph claims its first scalp in the honourable David Laws

The hounding of david laws by the telegraph is disgraceful

no.1 - the implications on his sexuality have nothing to do with them. he should be allowed to have a private life,I could not care if he is gay, straight or bi-sexual -white, black, muslim, asian or jew or whatever religion or nationality or indeed no religion, as long as he has the qualities and expertise to be good at his job that he clearly did. Yet the telegraph seemed to make this the crux of his story - clearly David Laws wanted to keep his relationship private he didn't even tell his family, he should have been allowed to do. Also he did not have a conventional relationship like some partners they were not joined by the hip and they had separate bank accounts and there own lives- why again the telegraph made a big deal out of this is beyond me unless of course they want to wreck the coalition and couldn't care about reporting well informed news.

no. 2- he has acknowledged his mistakes, referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner and is already repaying the full amount, showing his humility a degree of class and what a genuine bloke he is. This quality for me shines through, when you compare him to many in the expenses scandal, much worse than him such as for example the odious Elliot Morley or Julie Kirkbride who were not willing to own up to their mistakes or resign until pushed. I'm not saying what David Laws did was right, but he has acknowledged it and his claims were not terrible. Not only this, maybe it will make us realise that Politicians are human beings with all their frailties too, something the expenses scandal -which in my opinion is now being mightily overblown by the telegraph, to try and paint every politician as a crook seem to forget. Yes there were some bad eggs and the telegraph was right to expose them, but the telegraph has gone and hounded to far, acting more like a salacious tabloid, then a quality broadsheet.

no.3- David Laws has started excellently at his job, being honest with the people about the scale of cuts. In the 17 days of the job, he showed up Liam byrne for the fool he was, with his disgusting note to him, and did more than his labour counterpart did in three years. When he spoke to the house of commons, his delivery was masterful and was better i must admit then a lot on the frontbench. you only have to hear his great response to a Labour question, saying that we have a different view to labour and dont believe that the state is always right and should always be involved and we want to devolve power to communities and the localities - to understand that for him this is what held true -just as the coalition thought. He also was ready to take a scalpel to public spending, cutting the neccessary waste, and the plans he set out were credible to do this. As someone who has always been on the right of the liberal democrats as his involvement with the right wing orange book club within the Libdems shown, he was never one of the slippers and sandals brigades on the Liberal Democrats, in fact two years ago we tried to get him to join the Conservatives but he honourably said no. As the Shadow liberal democrat education spokesman, he helped formulate the excellent pupil's premium ideas, as well as supporting the idea of free schools - on the basis of Sweden. Laws was a reformer who thought radically and I truly think the coalition will be worse for losing him. I look forward to his intelligent interventions on the backbenches in support of the coalition,and hope to see him back on the frontbenches soon - the coalition certainly could do a lot worse.

The telegraph on the other hand, once a fine newspaper, is not simply reporting the news anymore it is trying to make it. Not only have they apart from the odd article from Boris Johnson, written nothing but negative dribble about the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, rather than having a nuanced perspective looking at both sides of the argument, they have also in the past offered nothing but negativity about David Cameron. I have no problem with this but for a quality newspaper they have to at least have a semblance of showing both sides of the arguments,as well as not blowing the expenses scandal out of all proportion like they did. From now on in I will not consider buying the telegraph or reading it online until this is sorted out.

so my two messages are good luck to laws, and sort yourself out telegraph.

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