Mr David Laws resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after it was revealed that he had used parliamentary allowances to pay £40,000 rent over five years for a room in the house of a man with whom he had long had a sexual relationship.
Mr David Laws resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after it was revealed that he had used parliamentary allowances to pay £40,000 rent over five years for a room in the house of a man with whom he had long had a sexual relationship. ‘My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit,’ Mr Laws said, ‘but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.’ Mr Danny Alexander, also a Liberal Democrat, replaced Mr Laws in the Cabinet. Mr Michael Moore, a Liberal Democrat too, replaced Mr Alexander as Scottish Secretary. A new code of conduct stipulated that ‘where practicable, ministers are encouraged to use public transport’. Mr Graham Brady was elected chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives after David Cameron backed down on admitting ministers to its deliberations. Mr John Prescott, the Rev Ian Paisley, Mr Michael Howard, Mr John Gummer, Mr John Maples, Sir Michael Spicer, Mr Quentin Davies, Mr John Hutton, Mr John Reid, Mr Paul Boateng, Sir Ian Blair, Sir Ken Macdonald, Mr Guy Black and Miss Sue Nye (blamed by Gordon Brown for letting Gillian Duffy speak to him) were among 56 made life peers in the dissolution honours.
Stephen Griffiths, aged 40, was charged with the murders of three prostitutes in Bradford, and, when asked his name at a magistrates’ court hearing, answered: ‘The Crossbow Cannibal’. Lee Murray, a cage fighter by profession, was jailed in Morocco for his part in the £53 million Securitas robbery in Kent in 2006.
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