A CHRISTMAS STORY: HOW BRITAIN'S CROOKED MPS WERE UNMASKED

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

And so to the finale of the year, as far as Press Club activities go. The event in question was the annual Christmas lunch at the Radisson, which this year was immensely livened up by the presence of Andrew Pierce, assistant editor of the ‘Telegraph.’

Pierce was there to entertain us all with revelations about how the ‘Telegraph’ beat its rivals to the scoop of the decade, namely the MPs’ expenses scandal.

The scandal had its origins in some poky office somewhere in London, where a group of squaddies were supplementing their meagre pay by being put to work on censoring MPs’ expenses claims forms, which were going to be made public due to Freedom of Information regulations.

The squaddies were incensed at seeing the extent to which the Westminster troughers were ripping off the taxpayer – whilst they had been risking life and limb in some hellhole like Afghanistan, the Right Honourable gentlemen had been busy claiming for moats, duck houses and £9,000 televisions.

Anyway, it was decided to ‘out’ the MPs, and the uncensored details were offered to a number of newspapers, including the ‘Express’ and the ‘Sun’, who obviously failed to spot their potential.

Pierce revealed that Rebekah Wade, editor of the ‘Sun’, said if there was no bonking involved, or it wasn’t going to bring down a Cabinet minister, then she wasn’t interested. Wonder what Rupert Murdoch thinks of such an enlightened approach to news gathering?

Mind you, it’s highly unlikely the scandal would have got as good an airing in the ‘Sun’ as it did in the ‘Telegraph’.

Encouraged by the success of their expenses coverage, the ‘Telegraph’ is now apparently going to turn it into a series of sorts – they’re going after MEPs next, who, said Pierce, can claim a whopping £360,000 a year without having to produce a single receipt.

And after that we can look forward to reading some revelations about expenses claimed by people at the BBC – bet that one will run and run.

After listening to Andrew Pierce, there seems little doubt that most people in Westminster had their noses in the trough – unfortunately, only a handful face the prospect of going to prison for their fraudulent claims, which he said was certainly not enough. Hear hear!

However, on a more positive note he did reveal that not quite everyone in the Houses of Parliament is a thief – step forward Ann Widdecombe (who, incidentally, read Latin at Birmingham University). Unfortunately, she is retiring at the next election. We can only hope that a few more honest people are elected next May.