Buckingham Palace connived to keep ‘Brown at Number 10 to seal Tory-Leb Dem coalition’

LONDON - British premier David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg connived with Buckingham Palace to delay Gordon Brown’s departure from Downing Street while they did a deal to form a coalition, former cabinet minister David Laws claims in a new book.

David Laws, who stepped down in May as Treasury chief secretary after revelations he had claimed 40,000 pounds in taxpayer-funded expenses to rent a room from his partner, makes the allegation in his account of the dramatic coalition talks, the Telegraph reports.

According to Laws, the Palace, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats wanted Brown to remain in office in early May as they believed that Britain would be left without a government if he left Number 10 early.

The book is the first published account by an insider of the five days that shaped Britain’s first coalition government since the Second World War. Laws was reportedly on the four-man Liberal Democrats (Lib Dem) negotiation team that did the deal with Tory counterparts.

His book also reveals that the Lib Dems never wanted to form a coalition with Brown, which would have meant being chained to “Labour’s decaying corpse.”

Meanwhile, Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, demanded “haven’t the rich suffered enough?” in the face of Lib Dem demands for a to million pounds ‘mansion tax’.

The book forms part of Laws’ plans for a political comeback. Insiders believe he could be playing a front-rank political role by Christmas, the paper added. (ANI)