David Laws and Fair Expenses

Billothewisp offers his humble apologies to the Great and Good, the divine leaders and reporters of the truth who preside over the us, the Plebeian riff-raff that pollute this poisoned and betrayed little England.

But Billothewisp wishes to go against the grain on the current outrage against David Laws.

In recent history we have all been confronted by the crimes of the corrupt members of our ruling elite .

You may remember, within the ranks of the cognoscenti there have been “accidental” claims for non existent mortgages, claims for the rental of porno movies (no doubt for educational reasons) and the flip-flopping of houses for considerable gain..

If I remember correctly some of our Great and Good are facing criminal charges over these travesties.

Now David Laws has been forced to resign over paying £40,000 in rent to his boyfriend.

Admittedly, on the surface that looks pretty bad. Especially when we have all been conditioned to provide a knee jerk reaction to such claims by the crooked goings on in the last parliament.

But look a little deeper. This claim for £40,000 spans eight years. So that is about £400 (ish) a month.

Try renting a bedsit in London for £400 a month. You will probably fail .

So, David laws is homosexual (who cares?). He pays his lover a fair rent for staying in London. What is wrong with that?

You know. Seriously!

I don't even really like the Liberal Democrats.

But we supposedly live in a (wishful thinking here) libertarian Democracy.

If David laws chooses to be homosexual that is his decision and none of our business. If he chooses to pay his lover a fair market rate rent rather than living in a crummy bedsit, then that is his decision and not yours or mine.

Further more, by sacking David Laws for a non-crime we lose a capable administrator, all be it a Liberal-Democrat one (but then again, we all have our faults)

We need to make sure that our justified outrage at criminals lining their pockets does not turn into a witch hunt against everyone who simply does not fit the mould.

Arrogance and Parliamentary Privilege.

So the troffers that have been charged with false accounting are looking to use Parliamentary Privilege as a defence. We have Cameron declaring himself “disgusted” while Thingy, the leader of the Liberal Doo-Dahs reckons the public will be “appalled”. (See Here)

Actually, I have to inform our mighty and benign leaders that the poor old plebeian English riff-raff are pretty appalled and disgusted already.

It is all strangely quiet from the divine leader Gordon “The Abyss” Brown. Then again, the three MPs so far charged are (or were) members of his party.

Besides, I do not think Uncle Gordo really considers the concerns of the grubby and unwashed of England worthy of his time. He has much more important world-wide grandstanding to do.

Parliamentary Privilege is one of those concepts that make many people very uneasy (including yours truly). Arguably, it is necessary to protect the rights of elected representatives to speak freely. It ensures they are unfettered of the risk of being sued by the rich and powerful. But it is also vitally important no-one is considered above the law.

Unless it is kept under close control, Parliamentary Privilege can take us down a very dark and ugly path.

If these troffers get away with this, and use Parliamentary Privilege as their defence, then we become little better than Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

No one should be above the law.