US campaigning journalist 'instrumental' in exposing UK expenses scandal

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror."
Angelo, Measure for Measure

Because I don't read the papers everyday any more, I missed this story of the wonderwoman researcher/writer with dual US/UK citizenship, Heather Brooke, who battled for years to get hold of, through the Freedom of Information Act, the expenses details that were eventually leaked to the Telegraph.

She wrote a book with Ian Hislop on how to use the Freedom of Information Act just after it came into law, and runs a blog, Your Right to Know, and If I had bought last Friday's Guardian I would have learnt of her sooner, for she was on the cover of their G2 section (pictured). If any member of the public should have been able to get access to the expenses, it was her.

"She made a verbal request to Parliament in 2004 for records on members' expenses as an experiment in her research on the new FOIA law. She was told records would be released that October, and they weren't. Then promises were made to release information in aggregate, which proved worthless. She filed numerous FOIA requests after the law came into force in 2005. At least two other journalists did so, too.

Brooke and the other reporters were rebuffed with delays and refusals. Brooke obtained the free services of a prominent British lawyer. In a special court reserved for records cases, they won. But Parliament met that victory with more delay, and even an arrogant attempt to alter the law."
Seattle Pi

That MPs and the civil service fought so hard to keep the expense claims secret is a further shock after the events of recent weeks. Of course the public's indulgence is required that a fair share of these expense claims were made in error - as many doubtless were. And I hope that the public legislature in turn will provide similar indulgence for the sort of mistakes small business-people and freelancers make all the time. Tho I work from home, I've never tried to claim for house cleaning or renovation costs, but with every food or drink receipt I deduct from tax I worry if I've eaten too much. And there are countless more people who no doubt err on the side of caution with their Self Assessment form - the film writers who feel too guilty to claim for their cinema tickets, film books and DVDs because they also enjoyed them, or the bedroom entrepreneur who doesn't claim for a fair share of their rent or utilities. (Perhaps the government should make it easier by listing all the legitimate expenses by job-type that people would normally need an expensive accountant (or good wiki) to inform them of.)

But where there has been plain fraud, even exploitation of the system and its loopholes by the very folk who designed the loopholes yet would imprison any of us if we tried to rip of such significant sums, then the full criminal process is surely needed.

Yet this in turn should not distract from the far bigger and more urgent debate over why our political system in the UK is so embarrassingly antiquated to the point of being almost irrelevant, and certainly far less popular or debated publicly as reality TV. Compared to the US, with an elected upper house, full freedom of information and a president who can lead a house majority against him (kind of like the curious idea of Cameron leading a Labour majority in the commons) we are quite shockingly stuck in the 19th century and lazily blame the public for being disinterested, when every law in the country must pass through an unelected house from which no-one is allowed to retire.

As Heather Brooke told the Seatle Humble Pi "This is a very odd country. Although it likes to describe itself as the mother of parliament and the model of democracy, it is an amazing culture of secrecy." Just ask James Bond.