DAVID LAWS EXPENSES HAVE LANDED HIM IN QUEER STREET
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
The new UK coalition government Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws (pictured above) has been forced to resign after he lost the fight for his political life after he agreed to pay back £40,000 in expenses he claimed to pay rent on a room in the home of his long-term (male) partner. In what is a devastating setback for the new coalition Mr Laws, a Liberal Democrat, said he “would immediately pay back” the housing costs – he’s lucky he’s got 40 grand readily available, most of us in the real world haven’t – and refer himself to the parliamentary standards commissioner Mr John Lyons. Mr Laws was widely praised in the House of Commons for his recent speech when he justified £6 billion of spending cuts, but suspicions that he has been (allegedly) abusing the expenses system have ended up damaging him politically. So yet AGAIN we have had a politician telling us to tighten our belts while he has been living high on the hog on expenses. Same old, same old – don’t do as I do, do as I say. And in any case I wonder what his erstwhile allies, right-wing Conservative back-benchers, would have made of Mr Laws using public money to pay rent to his gay “partner” ? Or were they too busy filling out their own expenses claims to notice ?
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And just to illustrate that all our politicians are on the same gravy train, just different compartments, erstwhile class warrior and opponent of the House of Lords, the former New Labour Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott (pictured above) has been elevated to guess where ? You got it, the House of Lords. What a bloody hypocrite. Other new appointments to that anachronistic chamber and affront to democracy include the incompetent, politically correct former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair, Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader, and the Rev Dr Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland’s former First Minister. To complete this dreary line-up of has-beens that never were, Floella Benjamin, the actor and children’s TV presenter, will become a Liberal Democrat peer, as will Sir Ken Macdonald, the libertarian former director of public prosecutions. What a motley crew of publicly subsidised big-mouths and/or politically correct nonentities and a scandalous waste of our money. The only surprise is that Abu Hamza and Osama bin Laden haven’t been elevated to the peerage – but I suppose there’s time yet.
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In the UK a Roman Catholic priest who missed mass after crashing his car while almost 3 times over the drink-drive limit has apologised to his parishioners for his “shameful and wicked” act. Father Bede Rowe (pictured above) failed to make Sunday mass after spending the night in a police cell. He had downed several glasses of wine at a meal with friends earlier this month before reportedly attempting to drive home through Warminster, Wiltshire. Well at least this priest had the good grace to own up and apologise for his “shameful and wicked” act, which is a lot better than many of his priestly colleagues within the Roman Catholic church who seem disinclined to apologise for even more “shameful and wicked” acts perpetrated upon children.
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Apple’s new iPad (pictured above) has hit store shelves around the world, with frantic buyers storming shops in the UK and Japan to be among the first to snap up the long-awaited gadget. Apple has also launched the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch color touchscreen for surfing the web, watching movies, playing games and reading e-books, in Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Canada. Over a million have already been sold in the US, so it’s obviously a desirable piece of gear. But some people seem to go too far. At Apple’s store in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district, about 1,200 people lined up before the store opened at 8 am. ”I wanted to touch it as soon as possible. I felt a true excitement when it was finally in my hands,” said Takechiyo Yamanaka, a 19-year-old who camped out in front of the store from Wednesday evening to be the first in line. You should get out more often, Takechiyo !
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