There is only one test here, irrespective of David Laws wealth, personal relationships or his character, be it good or bad. Did he or did he not illegally and knowingly claim and accept monies to which he was not entitled?
If the answer is yes, he should, like all the other thieving b*****s be brought to book in a criminal court, be stripped of office and barred from ever holding public office again.
But like the others, he will walk away with nothing more than having to pay back the alleged £40,000 he purloined. From his massive wealth it could be likened to me losing a pound.
Yet if you steal a packet of pork chops to feed your family your poverty or your hunger will not be an excuse. While you may be treated leniently by a judge or magistrate you will find yourself before one or the other and have a criminal record to be taken in to consideration should you find yourself before a court of law again.
And they try to tell us we live in a classless society? That we are all equal before the law? There is only one answer to this 'money talks' society thrust upon us by Thatcher and her 'ites' and that is a return to socialism.
To this end I hope to see Len McCluskey elected General Secretary of the Unite union. With millionaires abandoning New Labour they will have to rely on trades union funding once again and accept the agenda of the blue collar worker, not the wealthy entrepreneur or the City execs.
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Have to say I've crossed a bit of a mental rubicon on this in the past couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm fed up with all this righteous or more often than not self-righteous indignation from those who want to play the anti-politician card.
I frankly don't care any more how much individuals claimed - it's not really that important. We all, individually and collectively, bought in to an economic culture in the 2000s that facilitated a sense not only of enrichessez-vous but also that the pit was bottomless and the good times would go on for ever.
Self-serving neo-puritanism is no more than the current zeitgeist. Yes, that's crack down and punish genuine criminality but we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater and creating a political system inhabited only by politically and financially emasculated individuals more scared of the media than their electorate.
@loadofoldstodge First, I for one did not buy in to any such economic culture. I knew what tony Blair and his ‘New Labourites’ were from his first appearance as a force in the Labour Party.
ReplyDeleteWhat you appear to be saying is some crime is ok. Well if that’s the case, what if I decide it’s ok to break into houses and one night it’s your house? Please don’t respond with what you’d do to me if you caught me. This is a hypothetical question, as I am sure you are aware. I merely wish to emphasise we cannot pick and choose which laws to obey or uphold based on wealth and/or place.
What annoys me most is that many of those guilty of fraud were actually very privately wealthy individuals who saw fit to purloin our taxes.
No, they have committed a crime and thought saying ‘sorry, I’ll pay it back’ is enough. Every shoplifter, every burglar, every pickpocket has said the same at some time; I have yet to hear an instance of a police officer saying that would be ok and letting them go.
Politicians thought their position and wealth would save them; and to some extent, for the great majority it has. For the vast majority of the proletariat whose crime is need, not greed their position will not.