Worth remembering it is Clegg who would do the firing

Amazing story from the Telegraph today on David Laws paying £40,000 to his partner, with much of the furore focussing on the fact he has been “outed” as gay.

Certainly the “revelation” of Mr Laws’ sexuality is not much of a revelation to his Yeovil constituents, many of whom thought they’d “known” about it for years.

The question will be which way the argument falls on privacy vs expenses. Paul Waugh suggested this morning that, rather like the Ecclestone F1 affair early in New Labour’s honeymoon, Cameron and Clegg should be able to ride this one out.

But it is worth remembering that during the early days of the coalition, it was stressed that the hiring and firing of Lib Dem ministers was the job of the DPM aka Nick Clegg. Will the Orange Bookers rally round?

Here is what some Westcountry politicians (past and present) have been saying this morning:

Julia Goldsworthy on Twitter:

“Judge politicians on how good they are, and allow them personal privacy. David Laws has intellect and integrity - this country needs him.”

Foreign office minister and Taunton MP Jeremy Browne on the Today programme:

"I've known David for about 15 years and can tell you categorically that this is a human story, it is not a financial story. He is a deeply private man and he has a personal wish not to have his life put up in lights.

"This is not about David being motivated by money. He gave up a very lucrative job to go into politics. He could have earned a lot more money that this.

"What it is about is him wanted to be a private person and I think he should be able to be that."

He referred to the row as "a massive distraction, motivated possibly by politics, to try and tear David down."

Hat tip Politics Home 

Lord Ashdown said:

"The central question is, what does a partnership actually mean...I don't believe you should be making a judgement about that.

"David has referred this to the parliamentary commissioner as he, as a man of integrity, would, and we must now wait for his judgement.

"His moral authority has only been damaged if what he has done is an act of wrongdoing. You and I do not know whether that is the case at the moment."

Hat tip Politics Home 

Kevin Davis, the Tory candidate in Yeovil, said:

“I actually think Mr Laws was doing a good job as Chief Secretary but I fear that he can only come to the conclusion that he must step down. I say this reluctantly because the coalition needs good people to work for it but the fact is that he has now undermined that coalition by raising again the problem of sleaze and expenses, just when we thought that matters had been cleared up and we could move on.”

Ashdown asked for Miliband to rescue Lib-Lab pact

I spoke to Paddy Ashdown yesterday for our first Saturday Interview after the election.
As always he was on great form, quoting the politician's prayer - Lord make my words sweet and reasonable for I may have to eat them - he knows he has said one or two things about the Tories.
But he revealed a lot about his personal role in trying to rescue a deal with Labour, including making an indirect plea to one D Miliband.
Here is an extract:

It is clear Lord Ashdown would have preferred to have seen the Lib Dems enter government with the Labour party – something he came tantalisingly close to doing with Tony Blair in 1997, a deal scuppered by senior Labour ministers.

For three decades the Lib Dems have aimed to be a party of government in their own right by trying to “create a realignment of the left around broadly moderate and liberal values”.

That was the vision of former leaders including former one-time North Devon MP Jeremy Thorpe, David Steel and Jo Grimond.

He insists it was “very important” that the Lib Dem negotiators pursued talks with Labour, even in “pretty fragile circumstances”.

“My job in this process was to keep the Labour option alive because if we hadn’t we would have had no bargaining power with the Tories. So of course many of us, the whole party, would have preferred to do that.”

He insists Mr Clegg simply “kept his promise” that whichever party had the most votes and seats had the right to try to form the government first.

“Did I think it would end up precisely as it ended? No. Did I think there would be a serious attempt to do this? Yes I did.”

Two factors caused the Labour talks to fail. “The first was the old Neanderthals, the old knuckle draggers, stopping it happening for tribal reasons.”

In particular he blames former Deputy PM John Prescott, outgoing justice secretary Jack Straw, and former home secretaries David Blunkett and John Reid. “These were the old tribalists who stopped things happening in ‘97.”

He admits that Mr Brown was also a key roadblock to doing a deal in 1997. The outgoing Labour leader has “many, many personal gifts – one of them is not the personal gift required to run the country”.

But he is also critical of the would-be future Labour leaders who failed to see the potential of doing a deal with the Lib Dems this week.

“I think there was a failure of action by those who could have staked out very clearly this is where they wanted to go.

“By this I mean David Miliband. There was a point, and I will say to you that, not directly but indirectly, I know that this point was made to him: that he ought to come out clearly and say if he was leader of the Labour party he would back this.

“But I fear greatly that he decided that for reasons of a leadership election, he wouldn’t. I think that’s true of others too.”

UPDATE: The Independent on Sunday has picked up the story today. However Jane Merrick reports that:

The accusation that Mr Miliband, the frontrunner in the race to succeed Gordon Brown, could have denied the Conservatives power was rejected by sources close to the former foreign secretary last night.

Which Westcountry Lib Dems are heading for ministerial office?

Some might say it's early days, but we are hurtling towards the endgame so why not play at fantasy reshuffle.

Rumours are the Lib Dems will get six seats in a Cameron Cabinet, and according to some notes photographed on Nick Clegg's lap, they'll have a minister in every department.

So, who from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset could get a red box? This is my take (with their current job - at least at the time of writing) including their chances as I see it.

And crucially, as far as I am aware Lord Ashdown has not ruled out taking a government job. Brown famously offered him Northern Ireland after becoming PM. Could Paddy achieve what he set out to do 13 years ago, and get a seat at the top table?

Certain
Schools spokesman and negotiator David Laws (Yeovil)

LikelyDefence spokesman Nick Harvey (North Devon)
Treasury spokesman Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane)
Commons spokesman David Heath (Somerton and Frome)

Possible
Deputy chief whip Adrian Sanders (Torbay)
Communities spokesman Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall)
Andrew George (St Ives)
Paddy Ashdown???

Only just elected
Steve Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay)
Tessa Munt (Wells)

*Julia Goldsworthy would surely have been a shoe-in, had she not lost Camborne and Redruth by just 66 votes.