Redefining the Liberal Democrats

In case anyone hadn't noticed, the Liberal Democrats have a problem. A problem growing in size and importance. The coalition with the Tories has created divisions within the party - divisions that will, at some point, damage or potentially destroy the party. There are some who favour the arrangement made with the Tories, while others would have been happier jumping into bed with Labour. The reason is simple; the Lib Dems have, from their inception as the Liberal/SDP Alliance right up until the moment their leader became Deputy Prime Minister, been the party of apparent perpetual opposition. Therefore, its MPs tend to define themselves through opposition to the government of the day.

Don't believe me? Look at when the leading lights, for want of a better phrase, came into the Commons and what their positions are on the coalition. Those who are left-leaning - those who would have preferred a union with Labour - all came to power when the main focus for the Lib Dems was opposing the Tories. Simon Hughes, Paddy Pantsdown Ashdown and Charles Kennedy were all elected to the Commons in 1983, Menzies Campbell in 1987, Cable (who initially stood as a Labour candidate during his long bid to get into the Commons) in 1997. For these people, the Tories were the enemy - they would have cut their political teeth opposing the Conservative party. Of course the sudden union with the Tories in May upsets and unsettles them; to those of that pedigree, the Tories are the enemy.

Whereas for David Laws (elected to Parliament in 2001), Clegg, Huhne and Danny Alexander (all elected 2005) the enemy would be Labour - particularly since they will have endured first hand the rump end of Blairism and the absolute, abject failure that was the Brown administration. Of course, for this lot their natural coalition partners were their fellow opponents against Nu Labour: the Tories.

This, then, is the challenge for the Liberal Democrats - they need to work out what they do now they are in power, and have had to make a choice as to which party they ally themselves with. They can either work to amend their identity in line with the choice they made in May, or they can let their growing schizophrenia tear the party apart. Because they can no longer simply define themselves in opposition to the incumbent government; they now have to define themselves against what they have achieved as part of that incumbent government.

On David Laws

There's something faintly tragic about the resignation of David Laws. It has that inevitable air to it - he must have known that the controversy about his expenses would go public at some point after he moved to a senior government position, but the fact that it has come so early in the history of the coalition and after what has been a meteoric rise for and a pretty strong performance from Laws since the General Election makes it somehow worse than had it broken in 6 to 12 months time.

And the feeling of tragedy is further enhanced by the reasoning behind his alleged expenses fiddle. He wanted to keep his private life private, and I'd imagine I'm not alone in empathising with that. In fact, I think that our political class would be much improved if it didn't attract the sort of people who were happy to have every aspect of their lives paraded through the papers.

Furthermore, the sums claimed by Laws that appear to have fallen foul of the rules are nothing compared to the vast sums claimed by other MPs - including the ever odious Ed Balls and the obsequious little turd John Bercow. Yet those two - and others - get to strut around with relative impunity, whereas Laws gets less than a month in his job. If there was justice, others would have had their careers ended before Laws.

Yet we shouldn't overlook the fact that David Laws took taxpayer money and used it for his own benefit. And let's be clear on this point - it was for his benefit, even if (as has been claimed) it was for his personal profit. I have a lot of sympathy for someone who wants to keep their private life private; but much of that sympathy evaporates when the expect the taxpayer to fund them as they do so.

It may not be particularly fair that Laws falls while others escape retribution, but that doesn't change the fact that I think Laws was right to resign, and also that he had to go. And if Laws deserves any sort of credit, it is for the fact that he went quickly, without any of the desperate and unseemly clinging to power that was so typical of ministers during the Nu Labour years.

Baroness Scotland

So, she broke a law that she helped to draft. And she has been fined for it. Yet, according to Gordon Brown, she doesn't have to resign. It really does beg the question of what the fuck someone has to in order to have to resign in the world of Gordon Brown. Unless, of course, the law she broke doesn't need to be adhered to. In which case is this law strictly speaking necessary? And if not, then surely the person who helped to bring it onto the statute books should resign?

Either way, Baroness Scotland really needs to go.