I blame sex

[peterbirks]

One thing which no-one seems to have commented upon in this whole David Laws farce is that if the British didn't have such a ridiculously uptight attitude about sex, none of this would have mattered.

The guidance on expenses claims is littered with words such as "partner", without delving too deeply into the meaning of the word. In fact, it's probably because the drafters of the guidelines were thinking along the lines of married couples in semi-detached houses, rather than along the lines of the far more varied societal world that we now live in, that the mess developed the way that it did.

OK, so Laws and James Lundie were "partners". In 2006 MPs were banned from "leasing accommodation from a partner". The obvious question here is, why? I know that it offers opportunities for side-stepping the system, but, hell, the entire tax system works that way, offering opportunities that I would define as "unfair" to those who have a partner. But, hell, life is unfair. Live with it.

My point is, the alternative, once you use the phrase, is that you have to define what a "partner" actually is. And, as far as I can see, this basically comes down to "do you share a bed?" It doesn't seem to be about shared bank accounts, "going everywhere together". Indeed, this whole "is this person my 'partner' or not?" region seems to be stuck in the area of "does it walk and quack like a duck"?

I think that the whole business comes down to sex being "special". But, let's be blunt about this, sex isn't special any more. In the US it appears to be commoditized at High School level. And in London's gay scene it's definitely commoditized. Thirty years ago Laws could have shared a flat with this man, gone everywhere with him, and still claimed for rental expenses (no-one, recall, is denying that the money wasn't paid to Mr Lundie, who probably found the rental income useful. No-one is denying that Laws also had another home in his constituency, for which he paid the upkeep). and no-one would have muttered a word.

In addition, if Laws had been in an equivalent private sector position, the company might well have paid his London-based expenses, without worrying about whether the money was going to a boyfriend, a partner, or Mrs Hiscox's B&B in Wilton Road.

In other words, it's all UK-morality bollocksy tight-arsedness about the sanctity of sex, be it heterosexual, homosexual, or with the sheep in the field out back. If we stopped worrying about that, and stopped worrying about whether couples treated themselves as one economic unit or two, as one social unit or two, then perhaps we could get back to the important work of having the best man for the job when it comes to trying to get us out of the shit that we are in.

The Daily Telegraph should be ashamed of itself, as should anyone who works for it.

Comments

Hard cases - bad law

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

Obviously everyone working for the Telegraph should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves - not for making this an issue, but for stockpiling it to the point of maximum political embarassment. The trouble is that Laws has buggered things up in all senses of the phrase. His problem is the grey-ness of the rules here, compounded by a desire to protect his career and that of his bloke by keeping his sexuality under wraps.

What would have happened is James were Jane Doe or Mrs Laws? I think the rules would have it that money that was being paid in rent to Mrs Laws would not have been claimable and that if he and Jane Doe were partners then any expense payments would have been rules out too. The trouble is that in relationship-politics there is a very grey area between a couple of dates, a quickie, a one-night stand, staying for the weekend, having a couple of draws for your clothes and full-blown shacked-up. It gets even more complicated if Laws had ended up bonking Mrs Hiscox, the landlady.

And this is where your duck comes along. In this case they were partners and I would say that under the rules, Laws should not have been making the claim, knew that to be so and chose to keep it under wraps and not bring it out in the major hand-wringing on last year. The fact that Jane is in fact James doesn't enter into it (although it adds to the sweetness of the story for the Telegraph's homophobic, but secretly repressed, audience).

It's a duck, they are partners and it was a fiddle of the rules. The offence had nothing to do with sex. I abhor the means and the timing of its revelation especially as public reaction and media reports are about sexuality. But no, he can't sensibly run the Treasury and I say that as a permanent Lib/Lib Dem voter