Why be so angry with David Laws?

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Some seem surprised I am so angry with David Laws. These letter writers to the Guardian would not be; especially the last who hits the nail on the head with remarkable succinctness:

Even in Yeovil there are people who claim housing benefit, and local MP David Laws must have constituents who have been refused HB because South Somerset district council believed they have a "contrived tenancy" in which "their liability to pay rent has been created to take advantage of the HB scheme". You can't get HB if your landlord is a relative or a partner. Some of Mr Laws's constituents may even have faced prosecution for fraud because they tried to do so. What's the moral or legal difference?

Pete Ruhemann

Reading, Berkshire

• I for one wouldn't care if he was in a relationship with a green Martian, but object with rage at the idea that yet another of our great and good politicians turns out to be a cheat.

Kathleen Hines

Some may have noticed I am not a great fan of cheats.

Nor, I am pleased to say is Polly Toynbee who deals with another dimension of the issue quite adroitly:

On resigning, David Laws said: "How much I regret having to leave such vital work, which I feel all my life has prepared me for." How odd that his relished life goal was to cast people out of work.

I regret the manner of his fall, but not the departure of one who expressed little sympathy for the lives of others being damaged by a too harsh interpretation of economic necessity.

Quite so.

And in glossing over his cheating (for that is what it was) I note the Tories willingly apply one rule to their own and another to those whose lives they are seeking to destroy: those on benefit in this country.

And yes, that does sicken me.

And I’m happy to say it.


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