What better advertisement of the power that Freedom of Information gives the people than MP Anthony Steen‘s intemperate comments:

“It was this Government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act and it is this Government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot.”

Mr Steen also complained:

“What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.”

I am in complete agreement with him on this point. I’ve only ever been interested in how MPs spent taxpayers’ money “wholly, exclusively and necessarily” in connection with their public duties, that their claims were “above reproach”, and of course that they were careful there were “no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money”.

I’m sure that Mr Steen took careful note of those Green Book rules when he submitted his claims for rabbit-proofing his country house!

Still, he has certainly shown great insight into the biggest scandal to hit Parliament for decades:

“As far as I am concerned and as of this day I don’t know what the fuss is about.”

The MPs’ expenses scandal has gained some international legs!

Peter Wilson of The Australian newspaper has penned a detailed piece including a few quotes from my good self. And I’ve learnt the pithy Ozzie slang for financial impropriety – a ‘rort’ – which certainly deserves to be picked up over here!

The New York Times rightly describes the whole scandal as flowing from what was originally a ‘modest request’.

It’s great to see the freedom of information angle of the story get picked up in other countries – perhaps this will encourage people around the world to put their politicians and bureaucrats under greater scrutiny!

For those of you who like good bedtime listening, The Centre for Investigative Journalism has a selection of audio recordings which include my tale of the MPs expenses scandal.

Preceding me in the recording is Belfast Telegraph reporter David Gordon’s witty and revealing recollection of the downfall of Ian Paisley Jnr, one of the first UK politicians to resign as a result of FOI-based investigation into his dodgy dealings.

Also worth a mention is David Leigh‘s detailed lecture on the exposure of corruption and bribery by the armaments manufacturer, BAE Systems, which you can listen to here.

I was both pleased and intrigued by Roy Greenslade’s column in today’s Evening Standard. Pleased because it’s always nice to be recognised by someone you admire. Intrigued by this recollection of his experience giving evidence to a parliamentary committee.

Brooke follows in the tradition of journalists who pursue single-minded missions on behalf of the greater good, earning only a meagre reward for their efforts. But MPs, who should act for the greater good, cannot believe that Brooke doesn’t have some kind of vested (financial) interest in exposing their expenses to the public gaze.

One Labour MP said as much a couple of weeks ago when the investigative journalist Nick Davies and I appeared before the Commons Media, Culture and Sport Select Committee. It was a pathetic attempt to sling mud at Brooke and a forewarning of MPs’ reactions to the Daily Telegraph’s acquisition of their expenses claims.

Well my interest was piqued. Which MP was slinging mud at me? I did a little digging and found the oral evidence given to the Parliamentary Committee examining press standards, privacy and libel. It was not without a chuckle at his chutzpah that I saw my detractor was the Member for Feltham & Heston, Alan Keen. With his wife, Ann, the couple are known as ‘Mr and Mrs Expenses’ for using £175,000 of taxpayers’ money to help buy a flat near Parliament – while they already had a constituency home nine miles away. They claimed more than £300,000 between them last year alone.

Q484 Alan Keen: There is a woman who has frequently been on television and in the press who appears to me to be a campaigner for freedom of information, an American I think.

Mr Nick Davies: Heather Brooke?

Q485 Alan Keen: Yes. Does she earn a living from this?

Mr Davies: She is a journalist. She is a specialist in freedom of information. I think she is actually British and she worked in America and used their Freedom of Information Act, came back to this country just as ours was about to come into force so wrote a book which is a guide.

Q486 Alan Keen: I have seen her being interviewed.

Mr Davies: You are wondering whether she has some vested interest.

Q487 Alan Keen: Yes, because I have seen her on television being interviewed.

Mr Roy Greenslade: I know her quite well. She teaches the students at City. She is a single interest journalist in the old tradition of having one niche interest and following it to its logical conclusion. She lives, in monetary terms, on the margins.

I’ve noticed a new excuse being used by Speaker Michael Martin and the House of Commons authorities when dealing with freedom of information requests.

They are now using the section 34 exemption of ‘parliamentary privilege’ – which is an absolute exemption against which there is no public interest test.

This exemption is one of the more draconian and when it was passed it was supposed to be used for only the most sensitive of national security issues.

Instead, it’s being rolled out for all and sundry. I’ve had three FOI request rejected under this section in the past month. For such earth-shattering stuff as the creation of the Parliamentary Beer Group and Wood Panel Industry Group. Also the sudden decision to publish the 2007/08 aggregate totals for MPs’ expenses.

And it’s not just my requests being knocked back. This blogger has noticed a ruling on the Information Commissioner’s website in which the Commons used the same excuse against a member of the public who asked for correspondence and documentation relating to whether Members of Parliament should declare overseas trips paid for by the British Council.

There’s a saying: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

It seems the Speaker and his bunch are quite happy to keep on digging and have learned absolutely nothing about what the public want from their parliamentarians: transparency.

As I’m a lone rabble-rouser I’m not always able to marshal the resources necessary to take on the full might of the state, though I do my best!

I’ve teamed up with the Taxpayers Alliance, Britain’s independent campaign for lower taxes and better government to create an online petition that we can all sign and that can move this debate in the direction it needs to go.

We cannot sit back and let MPs or politicians dictate the terms of this debate. They’ve proven time and again they can’t be trusted to do what is in the best interests of Parliament as a whole. Certain people in Parliament are content to stubbornly resist change and are willing to bring the whole institution of parliament into disrepute simply to maintain the lifestyle ‘to which they’ve become accustomed’.

So please tell all your friends and spread the word. In the current political landscape the sad reality is that the public are impotent. We cannot directly choose our MPs but instead have them foisted on us by a few party apparatchiks. We cannot call for a referendum. There will be no English ‘Obama’. The system of centralised politics and patronage denies it.

The only power the people do have is to band together and shame the powerful into doing what’s right.
So let’s do that. The more names on this petition the greater the chance we can start dictating a new relationship between politicians and the people.

Sign the petition here.

Some have asked why I haven’t updated my site to take into account the publication Friday in the Daily Telegraph of MPs’ expenses. Frankly, I’ve just been too busy! I was speaking at a conference for members of the Information Tribunal Friday morning and then doing all the television news rounds that afternoon and evening.

One highlight – debating Stuart Bell of the Members Estimates Committee on Channel 4 news (scroll down to watch). In the Green Room before the show, Bell told me Labour’s latest reactionary plan to hive off the auditing of expenses to a private company ‘like Capita or CapGemini’. These companies apparently picked at random by him. I assumed these were just his initial brainstorming thoughts. But no, apparently this was the government’s latest ruse to stop us, the people, getting a look directly at MPs receipts.

While I had his undivided attention, I asked Bell about Speaker Michael Martin who was behind the decision to take my case first to the Information Tribunal and then to the High Court, wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process. “He’s a very nice fellow. A Glaswegian. He does a good job looking after MPs.”

Not, it seems, such a good job looking after constituents or indeed the taxpayer.

I have a plan which I hope to announce in the coming days. I’m going to set up some mechanism to register the public’s demand for change in Parliament. We need a new system for MPs expenses. One that is simple, transparent and gives the final scrutiny to those people in the best position to provide it – the constituents.

Much more to say, but the demands of work are pressing upon me and unlike MPs I have no taxpayer-funded staff to help me.