NO EXPENSES SPARED

Watching BBC late night news in early May 2009 I was surprised to see a report that the next day's Daily Telegraph would be publishing a report on the expenses of MPs. As an habitual reader of this newspaper I made the usual short walk to my newsagent to pick it up and read over breakfast. I was amazed to see that the paper had exposed the expense claims of several MPs and ministers with coverage of several pages. The coverage continued over the following weeks. It revealed what many people had half suspected - that Members of Parliament had been living a life of Riley on the Gravy Train. For some time some journalists had tried to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out what MPs were up to but the House of Commons authorities went to very considerable lengths to block these requests. At one time a Bill was introduced to exclude Parliament from the provisions of the Act but this failed to come into law. In the end it was agreed that expenses would be published but crucially it was decided that sensitive information, such as bank details, would have to be blanked out or "redacted". A team of workers under the watchful eyes of security guards carried out this work. Working on computers the material which would be blacked out in the final version was greyed over so that MPs could check what was going to be released. The Daily Telegraph was offered and obtained a disc containing the full unredacted documents.

This book is the story about why the disc came to be on offer, how the Daily Telegraph got hold of it, and how they set about to uncover the information. The book is emphatically the story of that process and not about the expenses themselves. These enter only as asides or illustrations to the main story. Having followed the exposures avidly when they were published I was fascinated to read this book. Some reporters and other Telegraph workers (editors, lawyers, political correspondents) took on a human face. Many had been just a name attached to a news article. In the book we learn something of their prior careers, their personalities and something of their private lives. For two the story of a lifetime came just as their wives were about to give birth, another's family had been through a tragic accident and as a result he had moved to rural Norfolk involving a long commute. There is information about the paper itself and how it is transforming itself from the Daily 'Torygraph'. How it is training reporters to upload many stories direct to its internet site. There are insights into how papers operate - time and again the reporters are working against the clock to beat the deadline when the presses have to start rolling; a deadline often met by just a few minutes. Details of how parliamentarians responded. Quite early on the team were talking about an 'exit' strategy - how much could the public take before they tired of the whole thing. The answer was that the public couldn't have enough. There was also a worry that the Parliamentary authorities might publish their own version which would effectively kill off the story. Another worry was that the police may be involved and arrest reporters.

The story ran for several weeks although it got less space as time went on. One reason why the Daily Telegraph got the disc in preference to other papers was that it had agreed to look at all MPs and not just 'cherry-pick' those most prominent. It also covered all the political spectrum and not just the party of Government. Oddly some of the outlandish expense claims had come from extremely wealthy Tory grandees. It also gave a 'pat on the back' to a minority, but a good number, of MPs who had claimed very little. Some comparisons were made: In Luton South Margaret Moran had changed her designated home more than once to enable her to renovate three houses at taxpayers' expense. One of these properties was in Southampton. Her neighbour in Luton North, Kelvin Hopkins, didn't need a second home as he commuted to London in the same way as many of his constituents had to. His claims were minimal.

The team of reporters worked in an out-the-way training room at Telegraph HQ which they called the bunker. Most of the other staff were in the dark as to why their colleagues were absent. They were told it was a 'training course'. The book describes the bunker atmosphere very well. The paper obtained the disc from a go-between called John Wick who had worked in the Special Forces and now ran a security company. But the original source is still unrevealed. However it seems the data was being redacted by civilian workers under the aegis of The Stationery Office. Some civil servants had been drafted in also. Like the reporters in the bunker they worked in total secrecy in a room of computers. Security staff (nothing to do with John Wick) acted as guards. Some of these security guards were soldiers moonlighting whilst on leave and who had seen service in Afghanistan. They needed money to buy thing such as lightweight body armour and desert boots. These things were issued to American troops in the war zone but British troops had to put up with much inferior ones. At first things went quietly but then the redactors grew restless as they realised what MPs were claiming for. Some struck up conversations with the soldiers and so found out why the soldiers needed to moonlight. Who got a copy of the disc and how they got it out has not been revealed although the soldiers have said that however disgusted they might have been they would never consider not doing the job they had taken on to the best of their ability.

The later pages of the book tell something of the aftermath. The revelations turned British politics upside-down. The Speaker of the House was forced to resign, the first for about 300 years. Many MPs have agreed to stand down at the next election under the force of public opinion. Some of their constituents are angry because by waiting till the election they can get sizeable perks. Some were pushed because well-known figures said they would stand against them if they did not. Not that I could ever see myself voting for someone like Esther Rantzen. At one stage it looked as if Gordon Brown might have to resign as PM or even that a General Election would have to be called. And many constituents made it clear that was what they wanted. The Daily Telegraph published a magazine supplement with details of every MP. It highlighted the 'saints'. Some MPs could face criminal charges as they (for example) claimed for mortgages they did not have. As one constituent said about one of them "he must be the first person in the country to forget he'd paid off the mortgage". And the Parliamentary authorities did get round to publishing the expenses file. It didn't kill the story but inflamed it. So much was blacked out that the majority of scams would never have come to light. The paper published some side-by-side versions of the redacted and unredacted documents. Clearly to the British public the MPs were continuing to behave like the spivs and scum they have been for the last few years.

I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the mechanics of political reporting. It is not the last word as the repercussions carry on. The first screen of "Question Time" on the BBC following the first revelations was traumatic for some of the panel. We shall have to see what the next General Election has to tell us.