I suppose the smokescreen excuse he will use will be the colour of his hair.

Why is the Telegraph the story rather than the tax dodge? And why aren’t the government vetting people before the appoint them?

# 2

Because as even the Telegraph admit it’s all perfectly legal and probably loads of other people – MPs and not – did the same thing.

Oh this gets better by the day.

Lib Dems need to wise up and pretty quick. You are being destroyed by the scum you got into bed with. The tory sense of entitlement know no bounds. They want power , and power without the Liberals. Clegg will have to decide if he will roll over on one policy after another or pull the plug and set of another election.

The bad news for the Lib Dems, to quote Jimmy Cricket…”and theres more”..http://redrag1.blogspot.com/

shatterface is right.
Also why is it just lib dems targets
As for the telegraph, a story is a story.
As a child of Harry Potter and the Ginny Weasley, he will sort out the problem

this is the telegraph weakening the libdems credibility so they will have to back down over raising capital gains tax. very effective.

Laws was silly to break the rules (not that he obtained any advantage from doing so – if he’d been willing to admit that his landlord was his partner, then he’d have been eligible for more money) and therefore, sadly, had to go.

However, if Alexander gets ousted for not doing anything wrong *and* not breaking any rules, it’ll be a seriously poor show for all concerned…

The bigger point here is that the right wing are going to take down one liberal policy after another. It will be the same with the voting system. What Clegg has to ask himself is do I just give the tories what they want and have all my things broken by the right wing media. Or does he pull the plug on the whole project.

The Telegrapgh used the expenses to attack the Labour party, and is now using the same tactics to attack the Liberals. Interesting that they did not publish this stuff before the election.

In the end this helps the Tories in the coalition.
Weak partners who they can trample into submission.
In the long run, the liberals will really suffer because they will be portrayed as the weak link of the coalition.
I warned you MattGB, these boys play for keeps.
You can see Tory agent provocateurs like Cohen doing the early spade work even now

@9. sally

The Telegraph used the expenses to attack the Labour party, and is now using the same tactics to attack the Liberals. Interesting that they did not publish this stuff before the election.

The question is: how much more of this does the Telegraph have, and how long will it take for all of it to come out? I’m sure they kept stuff back on all parties, so that if Labour had been the largest party (or had a small majority) the Telegraph would have been able to use what they had against Labour to force another election at an opportune time.

I have no problem with people using tax loopholes if they can find them but I do have a moral issue with those that appropriate taxpayers money, even where the rules seemed to allow it.

How does Alexander justify using his MP’s office allowance to pay an accountant to complete his self-assesment form?

How does Alexander justify using his MP’s office allowance to pay an accountant to complete his self-assesment form?

Because paying an accountant to complete your self-assessment form is, unequivocally, a legitimate and allowable business expense.

The telegraph ran the parliamentary expenses inquiry when it did to get the bankers bonuses off the headlines, that had been the story until then that had dominated the news cycle. It is clear that the telegraph is now trying to discredit the LibDems to weaken them in relation to the fight over CGT.

Not that the lib dems need help at compromising themselves at the moment. Joining the tories in government did that.

Um, this is for those who seem to have forgotten that the Telegraph investigated Tory MPs as well. I know you can’t stop your knee from jerking, but don’t forget the duck island and the moat.

UK liberty , not now you Tories are in power. Also newspapers are paying for private conservations when your chatting up a bird. Personal liberty eh, you have got to love it.
Also UK liberty, politics, like good comedy, is about timing. Why wasn’t the Laws and Alexander issues mentioned at the time of the moat and the duck pond

The bigger point here is that the right wing are going to take down one liberal policy after another.”

Why would the right-wing want to take down David Laws? They were cheering him on.

NCiaT,

…politics, like good comedy, is about timing. … Why wasn’t the Laws and Alexander issues mentioned at the time of the moat and the duck pond

You’ve answered your own question. Have a think – a good long think.

Spoiler:Because Laws and Alexander are only recently important?

Surely the first question should be whether Alexander’s explanation is correct and he’s telling the truth? Newspaper accusations can be wrong.

There was not a mention of this on the BBC news a t lunch time. Which is interesting because they could not wait to lead with the scandals everyday when it was Labour politicians.

Now that it is co-alition members, it’s look over there……………………

A politician without skeletons in his cupboard is rare so it seems fairly transparent the way the telegraph are hounding all the Lib Dem chief secs and paying no attention to the expenses the chancellor has claimed.

more here
http://liberateyourpolitics.blogspot.com

…politics, like good comedy, is about timing. … Why wasn’t the Laws and Alexander issues mentioned at the time of the moat and the duck pond?

In the case of the first, because the Telegraph didn’t know that Laws was renting from his ‘partner’, which meant there was no story. In the case of the second, because ‘man pays the correct amount of tax’ isn’t a story at all.

UK
You have no problem with a news organisation who kept giving us the mantra “it is in the arena of public interest”, then they keep details of selected individuals to be used when the Telegraph wants a politician smeared or to sell papers. It is funny that the top tories info has not been released because at least one would have been involved. Probably the Telegraph will be getting exclusives.
Also why no investigation of Conrad Black or Rupert Murdoch by the Telegraph and their dealings.