Coming out of the closet no longer means coming out of the Cabinet. Unless your closet was bought on expenses.
I feel very let down by David Laws. Not because he claimed rent – but because he seemed to think he was living in the 1950s. We’ve lost one of the most talented politicians from the fledgling Coalition, from a job at the Treasury that seemed made for him, and at a time when we need the brightest brains of Britain to solve a devastating financial crisis. And all because he didn’t want people to know that he’s gay. I thought we’d made more progress than that.
Equality depends on public figures saying: “Yes, I’m gay – so what?” A Lib Dem MP, of all people, should surely lead by example – isn’t it the second gayest party in the world after Sydney Mardi Gras? Lib Dem principles of liberty, individual freedom and equality argue for a world in which people are free to be themselves without fear of persecution. Instead of being the change he wants to see in the world, Mr Laws seems to have been living in a bygone age of constant fear of exposure. Now that his “shameful secret” has been exposed, perhaps he will realise that no one is interested or cares.
I don’t buy the Brokeback Mountain argument that “it’s nobody’s business but ours.” Public figures can’t expect a private life in today’s media culture of rolling news and social media status incontinence. More importantly, we simply don’t have equality until gay people don’t feel the need to behave like this. It’s hard to imagine a straight couple going to such extreme lengths to hide a 10-year relationship even from friends and family.
The fact that Laws claimed rent for living in his partner’s flat seems less of an offence than, say, Jacqui Smith claiming for not living in a cupboard-under-the-stairs at her sister’s house, and was not aimed at making a profit. Nevertheless, it has been against the rules since 2006. His confusion over the word ‘partner’ seems disingenuous, but reflects the strange double-think that must have been going on in his head. If he’d just been open about his relationship, a joint mortgage would have been perfectly allowable under the system. This seems to be what he means by using his expenses arrangement to protect his privacy. But isn’t he a millionaire? Couldn’t he afford his own rent if a secret life was so important to him? Perhaps it is time to consider means-tested Parliamentary allowances.
It all seems such an unnecessary waste.
The one positive aspect to this story is that it reveals how far society has moved on – even if not all its members have. The days when coming out of the closet also meant coming out of the Cabinet are fortunately long gone. Now the scandal is that you would even bother to try to cover up your sexuality – and do it at tax payers’ expense – when no one would raise an eyebrow if you were open about it. That’s a world Liberals have campaigned for for decades. Now that it’s finally here, it is disappointing to see a Lib Dem MP living in such unnecessary shadows. Once this little drama calms down, I hope he can enjoy life in the open and, as David Cameron suggests, have a chance to serve in the Government again.
I am very sad that at present he is lost to the govt & hope that with the support he has already got & will get that he can return quickly!
He’s apparently been living in the closet for some time and as regards friends and probably relatives; it’s bound to be a very emotional and difficult time for him right now and it probably would be distracting him from his job. With any luck it’s only going to be temporary.
Jon – how do you square your apparent belief in individual freedom with your arrogant view that “we simply don’t have equality until gay people don’t feel the need to behave like this”?
Or is individual freedom only for straights?
David Laws grew up in a previous generation, his parents are (I believe) Catholic and he went to a Catholic School. I think you display a serious lack of imagination and empathy in failing to see why he might have preferred not to make his sexuality public.
As you rightly say, “we simply don’t have equality until gay people don’t feel the need to behave like this”. Since Laws clearly did feel the need, we plainly do not have complete equality yet. I must say, your chosen solution of brow-beating people who are still in the closet strikes me as bizarre to say the least.
In any case, the tyranny of enforced “out and proud” -ism is just as bad as the tyranny of the closet. Yes, it’s sad if people don’t feel able to tell even their closest friends and family, but equally, I don’t think there is any obligation at all on gay and bisexual figures in public life to make some sort of example of themselves. They are real, three-dimensional people, not single issue entities, and if they would rather their public profile were not largely defined by their sexuality, fair enough.
As for your suggestion that he was covering up “at the taxpayer’s expense”, I think that’s a little misleading. He wasn’t costing the taxpayer anything more than he might have done had his arrangements been different and within the letter of the rules. If he had claimed for a flat nearby, for instance, it would in all probability have cost the taxpayer more, not less.
You also ask why he didn’t simply not claim rent at all. Apart from finding the logic of “he’s rich enough, he could pay himself” rather unfair (either MPs are entitled to be compensated for the extra expenses involved in their job or they aren’t, their personal wealth has nothing to do with it), had he stopped claiming in 2006 when the rules changed, he might have attracted attention to himself. Why, people would ask, is he the only MP who doesn’t claim for an allowance he is entitled to? What prompted him to stop? Might it be a change in the rules? Does that mean he’s living with his partner? But who’s he living with? etc.
Even if you don’t think it likely that such questions would be asked, I rather suspect that this is what was going through his head.
It may not be the 1950s but someone’s private life (including their sexuality) is just that, private unless they decide to reveal it.
The relationship is not the business of parliament or you and I.
YOU may not buy that, but perhaps you should. I have no need to know he ins and outs of everyone’s relationships. There is no need to be nosy!
You don’t know what his family are like. They may be openly homophobic.
The issue is the public money used.
If he were to stop claiming but still live at the same address, then he may have revealed the relationship.
His other option was to dead let (rent but not live in) another property and pay his rent to his partner from his own pocket.
But then we would have had another scandal.
MP Rents flat, claims it on expenses and doesn’t live there. Instead he lives with his lover.
He was on a hiding to nothing either way. The only thing that would have afforded him privacy was means tested expenses, because he wouldn’t have qualified for any.
I’ve campaigned for gay rights since long before it was fashionable, and I agree that when people in the public eye choose to come out it’s generally a progressive step that benefits many still in the closet.
But equality and freedom mean that individuals should still be allowed to choose how much of their private life to make public. David Laws was having an innocent, legal, no-one’s getting hurt love affair (of whatever flavour) that he didn’t want to share with friends and families.
It was an open secret at Westminster that he was gay, and it’s unfortunate his closet doors have been blown off in such a violent way by the perfidious Daily Telegraph over the observance of what’s really a technicality in the complex expenses rules, not deliberate fraud.
And I don’t think Alistair Campbell’s role in this is fully explained yet. Just a hunch.
I would never want to forcibly ‘out’ someone – unlike the Telegraph, which seems to open its skeleton cupboard whenever it needs a circulation boost (and the AC theory is an interesting one). But I agree that it helps when public figures are open about their sexuality.
Clearly we live in an unequal society where very many people feel they have to live in fear and secrecy. To point this out seems to me self-evident rather than arrogant. Nor would I define freedom as the freedom to live in the closet. To me, that seems a contradiction, and to miss the bigger picture. Real freedom is surely living in a society where sexuality is a pedestrian demographic fact, not something that needs to be hidden. And it is going to extreme lengths to hide a 10-year relationship that makes it a single-issue in someone’s life – not living life in the open. There’s a difference between a private life and a secret life.
While being gay no longer raises an eyebrow in public life, it is of course more controversial in many people’s personal/family lives. These things are not easy. They could be made easier by politicians setting an example. I don’t want to brow-beat them into doing so – but I’m disappointed when they don’t.
I want equality in all things for both gay and straight people. No, gay people don’t have less right to a private life. Politicians do. Their domestic arrangements, particularly when taxpayer funded, are rightly subject to public scrutiny, especially after the expenses scandal. The expenses system, as it now stands, does seem predicated on an assumption that no one would want to keep their partner a secret – so he does seem to have been caught in an insoluble conundrum, whoever paid the rent in this case.
The irony is that, had he declared his partner, he would not only have stayed within the rules but could have claimed more in expenses. Thinking you can maintain a secret life in public life seems naive, and protecting privacy is not an appropriate use of public money. Especially since that right to privacy doesn’t extend to benefit claimants, who are thoroughly snooped on and would lose their benefits and possibly face prosecution if they didn’t declare a cohabitee.
I do hope this is temporary, though, and Laws can return to Cabinet soon. I think he’s a very talented politician – the Government needs him.