A Measure Of Sympathy For David Laws

Leave aside the financial stuff for a minute. Although it looks bad at the moment in the sense of having given our intellectually elite journalists a month's worth of headline fodder, no question about it, it's hard not to think that it might have come from having spent too much time trying to compartmentalise the public and the private.

And although I can think of at least one gay reader (or ex-reader) who may be very surprised at this, it is very hard not to feel sympathy for a gay man who, in the early years of the 21st century, might still have felt the need, for whatever reason, to stay in. Reserve is all well and good, but I do know from experience that one can gain a great deal of peace from accepting your own parameters.