Now revealed publicly as David Laws boyfriend, James Lundie is a director at spin-merchants Edelman, he is a former adviser to both Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown when they were respectively leaders of the Liberal Democrats. Laws says that “James and I are intensely private people … We made the decision to keep our relationship private and believed that was our right. Clearly that cannot now remain the case.”

It was widely known in Westminster that David Laws was gay, some years ago he dared a tabloid paper to justify threatening to out him, he didn’t make an issue of his sexuality. Laws should have known better than to rip the taxpayer off for rent paid to his boyfriend, it doesn’t just look bad, it is bad. In the coming tough times on public spending it will not play well that he milked the expenses system. Using the “we wanted our privacy” line doesn’t really wash when it comes to public money.

UPDATE : Punters have raised the probability of Laws being the first Cabinet member to resign from 6% to 15% this morning. Guido thinks he will probably survive because he is too important to the coalition…

UPDATE : The probability of Laws exiting the cabinet has been rising steadily all morning, punters are now giving him a 30% chance of going. Declaration of interest – Guido just put £500 on him surviving.