And so David Laws wins the prize for shortest ministerial career to date (although he'll probably be back at some point if this coalition holds up.
While the manner of his departure - feeling unable to come out because of possible prejudice - is unfortunate, the media reaction - that the Coalition has been deprived of some sort of star performer - is ludicrous. Laws's main attributes seemed to be a hard-right approach to economic policy and a wish to cut public expenditure as much as possible. What's so great about that? He was the Judge Dredd of the coalition administration. A Tory by any other name.
Similarly, fears that Laws's replacement, Danny Alexander, will be somehow not up to the job, are equally laughable. In one of my previous jobs I spent some time talking to Danny Alexander for a project I was doing on welfare policy and found him to be very on-the-ball. I have little idea what his general political stance is, but the idea that he's out of his depth is frankly ludicrous. I don't know how the newspapers get away with writing crap like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment