Battle over THAT note saying ‘No money left’

FORMER Treasury Minister David Laws has revealed how he is fighting to retain ownership of the infamous note left to him by Labour after the 2010 General Election declaring: ‘I’m afraid there is no money.’

And he says Liam Byrne, his predecessor who made the gaffe, was so angry with him for telling the press about the note that he feared he was going to thump him, adding that Byrne has not spoken to him since.

Laws says he has faced demands from the Treasury and the National Archives to hand over the document. He is insisting he wants to keep it as a memento of his five years in the coalition government.

Laws revealed the battle for control of the note when he was interviewed last week at the Henley Literary Festival about his new book, Coalition. In an episode worthy of the TV series Yes Minister, he said the Treasury’s ‘Sir Humphrey’, Permanent Secretary Sir Nicholas Macpherson, wrote to him demanding he hand it over.

Macpherson wrote: ‘You will obviously be aware that since the Byrne letter was addressed to the office of Treasury Chief Secretary and not to you in person, it is the copyright of HM Treasury. While I understand you may be reluctant to part with it, it is our duty to retain historic documents and I must ask you to repatriate it.’

Instead, Lib Dem Laws sent the mandarin a photograph of the note. He has also received a separate demand from the Government’s National Archives, which demanded it on the grounds that it was ‘an important political document which must be preserved for the nation’. Laws ignored it. ‘As far as I am concerned, it’s mine,’ he said. ‘It’s in safe keeping and I’ll leave it to the nation in my will.’

Byrne left the note on his last day as Treasury Chief Secretary in Gordon Brown’s Labour Government, which was devastated by the banking crash. It said: ‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money.’

When Laws revealed it, Byrne was humiliated – and widely ridiculed. He said last year: ‘People ask me, “How could you do something so crass and bloody offensive?” I’ve asked myself that question every day for five years and every day I have burnt with the shame of it.’

Laws says Byrne has refused to speak to him ever since, even though they were fellow MPs until last year. Laws said: ‘He always looked very aggressive when I passed him in the corridor and on one occasion when I bumped into him behind the Speaker’s chair, I thought he was going to thump me.’

However, the political foes will come face to face in a few weeks at a Downing Street reunion of all living Treasury Chief Secretaries. Both are on the guest list.