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Can Laws be back in government soon?

Michael Crick | 19:38 UK time, Wednesday, 24 November 2010

David Cameron told a lunch today that he wants the former Lib Dem Chief Secretary David Laws back in government "soon".

Mr Laws was in office for just 16 days before resigning over his expenses, and is currently being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.

David Cameron may want him back "soon", but the difficult issue is how.

First, I forecast that ministerial reshuffles under David Cameron will be rather less frequent and extensive than under his predecessors.

First, because he has already shown he values continuity rather than the ridiculous chopping and changing of Blair and Brown years (which saw 12 Europe ministers in 13 years, for example).

The second impediment to Laws' quick return may be the structure of the coalition itself.

The Lib Dems are limited to five Cabinet jobs, and any increase would upset lots of Conservatives.

And it is hard to see how he could move any of the existing Lib Dems in Cabinet - Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne, Danny Alexander, or Michael Moore.

Alexander is a key player in the spending cuts programme and Laws, an Englishman, could hardly replace Moore at the Scottish Office.

A lower job for Laws would be seen as a demotion, and might also be unfair on the existing Lib Dem who was pushed aside.

So Mr Laws may have to bide his time. Unless Cameron and Clegg can come up with some prestigious government job outside the ministerial structure.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    OF COURSE LAWS CAN COME BACK

    Westminster is cavalier about the example set to the people they effect to lead. At PM level, I doubt he even realises the truth of it.

    We are held in de facto contempt - pawns in the game-playing of strangely motivated, disconnected individuals.

    Remember the words of Comeback Kid Mandelson?

    SPOILPARTYGAMES

  • Comment number 2.

    But how could he come back without a man date?

  • Comment number 3.

    NICE (#2)

    Little bit of humour there. Helps moral. (:o)

  • Comment number 4.

    Oh let him back in,seems a sensible sort of cove to me,and what he did
    which caused his banishment was pretty small beer compared to some.

    If we are looking for paragons of virtues to be in Parliament,they wont be found,there but for the.........

  • Comment number 5.

    Laws back in government? He fiddled his expenses, he betrayed the elctorate, he lied along with others over VAT, he will be wiped out at the next election......of course he can come back..at least he will have protection....

  • Comment number 6.

    I'm with post five. I don't buy into the, he didn't want to upset his parents by having them find out he was gay, hypothesis that I heard mention of at the time.

    Perhaps every government needs a Mandy from now on!

  • Comment number 7.

    Its essential that Laws is taken back so that when the LibDems get hammered @ the local elections he will be in the Clegg cabal that crosses the floor to become full blown Tory MPs when the LibDems split - we don't want people like Laws on the backbenches - the PLDP needs to split as far as possible on payroll vote/backbenchers as cleanly as possible - the coming vote on student fees will open the first major cracks.

    That way the libertarian / Progressive divide in the LibDems can be the fracture line and we can be sure that Clegg et al go down with the Cameron ship when the economic collapse comes in 12-18 months' time.

    This will enable the realignment of British politics, as the europhobe wing of the Conservatives joins UKIP leaving the Tories an out and out libertarian party in the new era of failed free market philosophy, post EuroZone crisis.

    Ed Milliband will take Labour to the left, leaving the rump of LibDems as piggy in the middle, inhabiting the ground that Tony Blair targeted with "New" Labour, but left in the shadow of its failure.

    The centre of gravity will then lie a good deal further left than it has for decades, with the additional dimension of the rise in green politics.

    The LibDems will also have ended the electoral reform debate by demanding the referendum which they will lose on current trends, so there is a high probability that tactical voting will become more firmly bedded, with the same phenomenon that happened in Brighton with Caroline Lucas the Green MP spreading particularly into LibDem/Tory marginals - the west country in particular is horrified @ the ConDems, but won't vote Labour - expect a tidal wave of Greens from Bristol to Cornwall.

    The only really unmentioned but important issue is the ScotsNats - will Alex Salmond manage to time his independence campaign to maximise the chances of a YES vote by pitching it just at the lowest ebb in the economic meltdown? The implications of losing Scotland from the UK are VERY profound - there would be a heavy run on the pound as the Scots would take their oil/gas with them, plus all those Labour MPs seats lost - a whole new ballgame....

    When the wheels come off Cameron's economic experiment of cutting £1 Tn of aggregate demand in the teeth of major banking, credit and trade crises, the libertarian religious belief in the supernatural power of the free market will be a joke for a generation. Let all who worship at the altar of mammon be gathered together whn the temple comes crashing down!

  • Comment number 8.

    richard @ no7

    Well done for one of the very few sensible Scotland comments on a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ blog that I have ever seen. Very refreshing change from the normally brainless "Scotland gets subsidised" mantra.

    Scotland splitting from UK would have profound impacts that very very few people could begin to understand without a lot more education and facts about funding and resources. It is a key dimension to the UK political scene independent of the Scottish parliament.

  • Comment number 9.

    8

    thanks for this - I have to say if I were a Scot, I'd want my country back...

    I remember the 1979 election, when Scottish devolution was scuppered by Labour rebels in the dying days of Labour before Mrs Thatcher took power - if there had been a devolved government in Scotland then, I think there would have been a majority for independence by 1982.

    The Tories and LibDems are now deeply unpopular north of the border and the gulf that now exists between Westminster and Holyrood makes the odds of the SNP winning an independence referendum appreciably higher - indeed, who can blame them?

    As with economic policy, Cameron is playing a high risk game with the future of the UK - history's verdict on him may well be as the man who destroyed the United Kingdom and in doing so drove the English and Welsh economy over the cliff, consigning a whole generation to penury.

    But maybe the incomplete English Revolution requires Cameron's class to be comprehensively swept away - and all he is doing is to fulfill his destiny.

    So what would happen if Salmond won? Overnight the UK would lose its status as a major oil & gas producer - the implications for the balance of payments are profound - a run on the pound would be certain and we'd not be able to sustain our balance of payments deficit.

    English & Welsh standards of living would plummet - the underlying reality of an economy living well beyond our means would come home to roost and there would be a full scale meltdown in the banking system, regardless of how much we cut our public spending or propped up the banks.

    Cameron's complete contempt for the Scots is symptomatic of his arrogance and over confidence in his Eton brand of libertarian ideology - will it last another 12-18 months? The answer lies in Irish banks, LibDem back benchers and the ScotNats.

    The little englander, laissez faire anarchism of the Tories has be comprehensively broken by the financial system going down and taking the Tories with it - then and only then will it be possible to start again.

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