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.

THE RETURN OF THE KING OF GOSSIP

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

Birmingham’s king of gossip is dead – long live the king! Yes, the legendary John Bright, formerly of the ‘Birmingham Post’, has been reincarnated, thanks to Birmingham Press Club.

For those baffled already, John Bright was the name given to a long running gossip column in the ‘Post’, which lifted the lid on the more interesting goings-on among Birmingham’s business community.

The Bright column was, for those who made an appearance in it, often highly embarrassing. Despite that, there were very few people on Birmingham’s business scene who didn’t relish being in it.

In fact, many of the city’s suits openly courted the main author of the column, the former business editor of the ‘Post’, the venerable John Duckers.

However, all good things come to an end, and when the ‘Post’ went weekly last month, Bright was abruptly dropped, no doubt much to the dismay of some of its regular contributors (what did Birmingham’s self-styled ‘favourite lawyer’ Adrian Hindmarsh make of it, for instance? Or ‘super-networker’ and otherwise humble accountant Tony Taylor?)

So, the ebullient Duckers decided to relaunch Bright as an online entity – with the backing of Birmingham Press Club, who are sponsoring the site (see story here).

There’s just one problem – the new website can’t be called John Bright, and that’s because the ‘Post’ is intending to re-introduce a Bright column in the New Year (although one imagines that may well turn out to be a pale imitation of what went before).

So, what to call the revelations of the guru of gossip, the titan of tittle-tattle, the wizard of whisper, the master of muckraking?

Well, he’s gone for ‘Duckers and Diving’ – and just in case anyone doesn’t see the connection, the website also goes under the slogan of ‘Birmingham’s brightest business gossip column’. Take a look here.

We all no doubt look forward to visiting the site and reading the latest revelations emerging from Birmingham’s business community – and if you’ve got any tittle-tattle to reveal, please let Duckers know about it via email (johnduckers@live.com), or else all we will read about are the latest events in the lives of Hindmarsh and Taylor. You can have too much of a good thing, you know!