Star of the week.

For the time being, my blogging is probably going to be limited to the weekend. At least until I have a fully functioning office. So choosing a Westminster 'Star of the Week' seems a reasonable idea. Its all subjective of course - and depends on who happens to be speaking when I'm in the chamber. And David Cameron and William Hague don't count - because they would probably win every week.

This week there are joint winners - Peter Lilley and David Laws. The former moved acceptance of the Queen's Speech on Tuesday with great wit and just about the right degree of independent opinion. The latter, responded to an Urgent Question from Alistair Darling about the £6.2 billion of spending reductions that had been announced earlier in the week. OK, so things have not gone smoothly for David since then, but I thought his performance was outstanding.

Here's an extract from Lilley's speech, speaking of his pleasure at being invited by Mr Speaker to be involved in moving the motion "..it is an honour traditionally shared by a genial old codger and an oily young man on the way up. When the Speaker assured me that this year the criteria were different, I assumed he was referring to the fact that I am still mid career, until he added that instead of an oily young man , we have got a Lib Dem"

And another one. "Coalition requires compromise. Neither party can achieve all that it promised in its manifesto and many of us are receiving letters from our constituents upset that measures they voted for are not now in the coalition programme. There is a simple reason for that. The Conservative Party did not receive enough votes or seats to deliver all our manifesto pledges. The solution is to...win more votes next time."

Here's a taste of David Laws "The previous Government were borrowing at the rate of £3billion per week - that is an unsustainable rate. Those huge public debts threaten financial stability and, if left unchecked, would derail the economic recovery."

And here's another - speaking to Alistair Darling "We appreciate he took over the economic position and the Treasury at a difficult time and also had to deal with the difficult circumstances of having a Prime Minister of the type that the last Prime Minister was".

As I post this blog, I do not know where today's revelations about David Laws expenses in the Daily Telegraph will lead. I can only comment that the loss of David Laws from the Coalition Cabinet will be a huge disappointment to me.

UPDATE - Fellow bloggers are reporting that David Laws has resigned. I make no comment about whether this is right or wrong - but it brings nothing but great disappointment to me. In a very short time he has shown us that he is/was an outstandingly good and impressive Minister.