David Laws Is Still Valuable Livestock Politically. or He Was until Yesterday; Yesterday in Quentin Letts Parliament

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THE House normally keeps quiet when an MP is being suspended. Gloating has long been considered poor form. There is usually an air of 'Willoughby has bought it, poor devil - there but for the grace of God go I' as the guilty MP is carted away.

So it was unusual to hear Labour MPs piling in when the House announced the red-carding of former Lib Dem Cabinet minister David Laws (Yeovil).

Mr Laws (absent yesterday) is to be banned for a week for expenses fiddles. He was judged by the Standards and Privileges Committee and found guilty of 'a series of serious breaches of the rules'. Take him down!

That would normally have been that. The House would have cleared …