Liberal Vision

Is Laws set to return as Clegg’s consigliere?

Get ready to break out the champagne.

 The Independent reports in today’s paper that David Laws looks set to return to the heart of the Coalition Government. We at Liberal Vision can only pray the report is true. His presence has been truly missed.

According to the Inde, Nick Clegg and David Cameron have had private discussions about appointing Mr Laws to work alongside Oliver Letwin and Francis Maude in the Cabinet Office. 

 Amusingly the Daily Mail describes the role as  “..Mr Clegg’s ‘consigliere’ in Whitehall.” . Oh I wish.

The Inde reports, more soberly, that David will be  taking on responsibility for “co-ordinating and driving through all aspects of the Coalition’s policy agenda”  (a job currently undertaken by Danny Alexander).

Danny has been a good and loyal friend to Nick Clegg  for some time – so it would seem unlikely that he will raise any objections to Nick’s plans to return David to the heart of the Coalition. Especially as it comes with senior Tory approval. Surely its a win-win? Danny gets to focus more clearly on his work at the Treasury, whilst Nick gets one of the Lib Dems greatest minds (and Orange-booker) working on Coaltion policy (and future Lib Dem policy no doubt). 

The post is unlikely to be a “full cabinet position” – (that might upset the “Tory-Lib Dem balance” (yawn)),  but would allow David to attend Cabinet and would have influence over all areas of policy. That should be enough to be going on with.

As the Inde rightly points out, any comeback would be dependent on David being cleared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards which is, as far as we can tell, STILL investigating whether David broke expenses rules. So when exactly is the investigation going to be concluded? Perhaps the conversations between Dave and Nick are an indication that the investigation is finally drawing to a close.