What’s the Telegraph up to?

A couple of days after trashing Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary David Laws, the Telegraph has now taken pot-shots at his replacement, Danny Alexander. WTF?

Are we to expect this Tory rag to attempt to undermine every Lib Dem promoted to high office? And why attempt to impugn Alexander? He appears to have broken no laws, or parliamentary rules, according to the Guardian. Taking advantage of a tax loop-hole, in the light of the expenses fiasco, was probably dumb, but dumb isn’t the same as illegal. Don’t like it? Close the loop-hole.

It’s being said, though, even by his Lib Dem colleagues, that Alexander is too inexperienced for the Treasury post, but “…he has a lot of self-belief”. Well, maybe, but that’s no substitute for experience, and it’s no reason for the Telegraph to turn on him. At least wait to see if he screws up – it’d look less like a vendetta that way.

It will be interesting, in the coming weeks, to see how many more senior  Lib Dem politicians attract the malign attention of this paper. Even if the allegations turn out to be justified, the Torygraph’s motives must surely be questionable. They’ve had their under-the-counter CD of MP’s expenses data since they broke the scandal – so why hold names back until now?

And by the way, while David Laws did breach Commons rules, had he not done so, it would have cost the taxpayer even more than it did. Hardly a master criminal, then, and a great pity neither Clegg nor Cameron had the balls to face down the Torygraph by pointing this out to the public. Assuming they bothered to check and didn’t just panic.

But is the Torygraph acting out of its own innate malice towards anyone outside the Conservative party, with a mission to keep Lib Dems from any senior office, I wonder, or are Tory politicians egging them on behind the scenes? Or, perhaps, something else entirely?

Could this possibly, and I’m just speculating here – and even the original scandal – be payback for UK government intervention in Sark politics, eventually pulling the rug out from under the Barclay Brothers feudal rule in the name of democracy? The same Barclay Brothers who just happen to own the Telegraph.

Lawyers and WP mods please note – speculation is not accusation.

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