Wait until Leveson has concluded his report, Hunt may well find any government post untenable

Hope so. I also hope Laws' position becomes untenable before he takes it up.

He is standing up for civil liberties. The right to be a bigot.

Think Grayling will now have civil partnership legislation in his new remit as well.

Its clear Cameron is now on a wind up.
I can think of no other explanation.

Apparently Warsi refused point blank, the post of Eric Pickles personal curry chef, claiming there weren't sufficient hours in a day to keep him topped up

When the Torygraph come up with [url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100179322/ten-observations-on-a-middling-to-shambolic-reshuffle/THIS[/url, Camoron should know he's in trouble

It's fun (as always) reading the comment – such as the one that claims that Osborne is reliant on the "socialist inclined mandarins at the treasury". Those will presumably be the ones pushing policies such as cuts to public services and cuts to the tax rate for the highest earners. Good socialist policies like those.

Some people really are imbeciles.

Have we mentioned the climate change-denialist credentials of the new environment secretary? Greenest government ever, y'know

www.newsbiscuit.com/2012/09/04/r ... contracts/

www.newsbiscuit.com/2012/09/04/r ... contracts/

I reckon someone left a window open and the Post-it notes with the names on got blown around when the interns went out for a Starbucks.
Everyone knows Dave can't be bothered with detail.

Another comment I heard yesterday was: "this is like a reshuffle and more like a game of pass the ar[is[/iehole"

I am amazed that Laws (or anyone else that was involved with the expenses scandal) can seriously be back in the frame for ministerial office.

I have friends in the armed forces. If you make the slightest mistake and accidentally claim a few quid that you are not entitled to, the Royal Military Police knock on your door and you are investigated for fraud.

It is amazing that MPs can claim thousands in expenses that they are not entitled to, and when they are discovered they simply pay it back und alles ist gut.

New libraries minister says "[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/05/library-closures-ed-vaizeyso what[/url" to closures

[url=http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/05/laws-unto-themselves.htmlA Laws unto themselves[/url

That is a very good write up that completely demolishes Laws defense and Clegg's excuses for him.

It really does beg the question why didn't Laws end up in the clink rather than on an enforced seven day vacation form Westminster

And many, many others.

Why not sign the 38 degrees open letter to Hunt about the NHS? If they get 100,000 signatures (well on course) they'll take a one page advert in the Times. To make it easy for you: Breaking news: Jeremy Hunt has just been given the job of Health Secretary, replacing Andrew Lansley as the government minister responsible for the NHS. [1 From day one, let’s make sure he knows how important our NHS is. Let's deliver him a huge open letter, signed by thousands of us, telling him that we’ll stand strong to protect our NHS. Let's make it clear we'll challenge him every step of the way if we need to. Can you add your name today? https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/Hunt-letter When we reach 100,000 signatures, we'll take out a full page ad in The Times - Hunt's favourite newspaper - reprinting the letter in full: "Our NHS is precious, and worth protecting. We want Britain to always have a public health service we can all rely on. As you begin your new job as Health Secretary, we want you to know that we’re watching you. We’ll challenge you every step of the way if you try to do our NHS any further harm." Add your name here: https Please click here to sign the open letter: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/Hunt-letter Thanks for being involved, Becky, Belinda, David and the 38 Degrees team

Why not sign the 38 degrees open letter to Hunt about the NHS? If they get 100,000 signatures (well on course) they'll take a one page advert in the Times. To make it easy for you: Breaking news: Jeremy Hunt has just been given the job of Health Secretary, replacing Andrew Lansley as the government minister responsible for the NHS. [1 From day one, let’s make sure he knows how important our NHS is. Let's deliver him a huge open letter, signed by thousands of us, telling him that we’ll stand strong to protect our NHS. Let's make it clear we'll challenge him every step of the way if we need to. Can you add your name today? https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/Hunt-letter When we reach 100,000 signatures, we'll take out a full page ad in The Times - Hunt's favourite newspaper - reprinting the letter in full: "Our NHS is precious, and worth protecting. We want Britain to always have a public health service we can all rely on. As you begin your new job as Health Secretary, we want you to know that we’re watching you. We’ll challenge you every step of the way if you try to do our NHS any further harm." Add your name here: https Please click here to sign the open letter: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/Hunt-letter Thanks for being involved, Becky, Belinda, David and the 38 Degrees team

All you need to know

What really irks me about this is that LibDem bigwigs say he only did it because he did not anyone to know he was gay. Since when have daft excuses like that been excuses for what IMO is criminality? Compare the single mum who steals a piece of meat for her kids dinner and feels the full force of the law. Politicians utterly sicken me.

Someone mentioned the fact that Cameron hasn't appointed a gay person to the cabinet. I then pointed out that he did but no one knew he was gay until he was caught fiddling his expenses. Laws's excuse of trying to protect his mother from the revelation may have held water 50 years ago but as fleetstreetfox points out in her excellent dissemination, he is simply a lying, cheating, fiddling 2@, who should never have been retained in public office in any shape or form.

Cameron & Clegg are now banking on "getting the message across" for the next couple of years. Unless we have suddenly morphed into a similar state of our colonial cousins, I doubt the majority of the British public will fall for them again. Clegg & the LimpDems are dead in the water in all but a handfull of constituencies. Cameron's heamorrhaged support to UKIP and is making a last lurch to the right, in the hope of getting them back. His kowtowing the the right over Lords reform has ensured that he'll get no support from the LimpDems on boundary changes, many LimpDem MPs would see the end of their seats anyway, so "turkeys voting for christmas"?

Cameron's lurch to the right will now show the public face of the nasty bastads that the tories really are and if every gay, disabled and disadvantaged person voted against them, they wouldn't get a look in again.

What does worry me though is the relative silence, apart from "you don't wanna do it like that", coming from Labour. I'm really hoping that they're keeping their powder dry but the longer they remain silent on alternative policies, the more difficult it will be to re-engage with the voters.

I'm thinking the coaltion will not go to term. it may suit both struggling parties to break it to please their respective parties. The reshiufle could just be deliberately the start of that. The Tories might judge if they go to the polls early they can still get away with blaming Labour for the mess and may catch Labour on the hop both financially and policy wise. Don't underestimate just how little confidence the electorate will have in Milliband. I maintain he is unelectable.

Under the new fiexed-term rules don't they require a majority of 75% to dissolve parliament? If so they're gonna need the support of Labour to get that




They thought that about Attlee too

If the Lib Dems walked away the Tories wouldn't be able to get anything through Parliament and they'd have to call an election, surely? The country would be ungovernable.

David Laws criminality over his expenses probably robbed the Coalition of their best asset.

Had he not done that and been sacked as Chief Secretary in 2010, I reckon he would be Chancellor now. It would have been the perfect solution for Cameron to keep the Coalition together - offer a plum job to a Lib Dem who many of the Tories view with fawning admiration because of his economic views (even if they can't stomach his social liberalism and pro Europeanism).

Laws could potentially have been a very dangerous politician, because unlike Osborne he is not a bumbling fool, he's an intelligent and articulate debater with a background in economics and had a successful career becoming a millionaire before he entered politics. There is no way with him as Chancellor that we would be having these U-turns and the rabbit in a headlight approach that is making the Tories a laughing stock. Also (even more dangerously), whereas Osborne and his chums come over as obnoxious idiots that put the public off, Laws comes across as a decent bloke, when he's been on Newsnight or politics programmes he has always come across well.

But in terms of his economics, Laws is an old school Liberal party liberal, free market as the most free market of the Thatcherites. Small state, minimalist government, free trade free markets. (Actually some Tory vested interests don't really want this, because free markets and perfect competition mean all firms break even, nobody makes profits unless they have 'market power', which is really what a lot of the 'free market' supporters want, market power for themselves). The only reason he's not in the Conservative party is because he is too much of a social liberal.

But really you are basically looking at a Daniel Hannan character, without being an obnoxious fool.

Laws could have been a massive player in government but he got caught with his hands in the till. For the sake of the anti-Coalition majority, its a good thing, because it has kept an inept fool in place as an easy target whereas Laws would have been a much more dangerous opponent.

As he was basically corrupt he never was an asset.

He might be intelligent and an intellectual giant compared to Osborne but politics is littered with bright people who ruin their own careers because they divorce themselves from reality and go and do something so outrageous that is the end of them.



No chance. There is no way a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition with a Tory majority will ever give the no 11 job to a member of their partners whether his economic views are close to theirs or not.



He is as decent as any benefit fraudster however he comes across. The fact he will no doubt now get another platform on TV to come across as a "decent bloke" is part of the problem and what Clegg and Co are banking on - that his misdemeanour's can be forgotten . However politically astute he is his judgement is flawed to the extent he stole from the state.

As to if he had been in no. 11 we wouldn't be having U turns that would not automatically make him more popular than Osborne. If his polices were unpopular and we got a double dip recession he would get as much flak for sticking with them as Osborne gets for his U turns.



He would only ever be a massive player if he crossed the floor to the Tories as they have asked him to do in the past.