Facts. Not fantasy.
To those (thankfully few) retards on here who are so outraged about the leaking of this information. . . here are some facts:
1) The Commons was set to release all the expense claim details, subject to the Commons deciding which bits would be released. And which wouldn't. So no: the information now in the public domain would never have been in the public domain.
2) The Commons was painfully aware that even after sanitising the material, there could well be some information likely to prompt a headline. Spin doctors of the sort that undermined Parliament's integrity long before Parliament destroyed it completely would've been involved and would have advised that the best way to stifle a story is to prevent a newspaper from getting hold of the individual at the centre of the story -- it's a given, where the Press is concerned, that it MUST allow anyone it writes about to "tell their side of the story".
3) It was therefore decided not to release even the sanitised information until the summer recess. The decision was cynical and deliberate. The timing was intended to allow MPs to vanish from sight for a while in the certain knowledge that by the time they were once more contactable, the story would've gone stale and the more severe accusations that might have been levelled by a newspaper remained unpublished.
4) Any poster here who thinks a crime is involved in this issue (outwith any consideration of the shysters calling themselves Honourable Members) needs a brain transplant: it's one thing to flog material to a newspaper, quite another for an elected assembly that purports to be the pinnacle of Democracy at work, to deliberately contrive a situation where the electorate is left in the dark and any and all attempts to shed light are wilfully and cynically frustrated.
5) This is the 21st Century. It has no time for heroes. The past is littered with whistle blowers to whom honour was all but the consequences, dire. Taking out an insurance policy to protect one's future (and that of one's family) is sensible. Not venal.
El Reg's comment about the nature of the newspaper auction is intriguing, however, because it certainly looks as though those involved were less than skilled in their appreciation of how the national Press works. However. . . that same apparent naivety may actually be an astuteness -- a realisation that The Mail is much too devalued (and The Mail On Sunday) by its own long-time hysterics ever to count as a paper of worth / paper of record where public opinion is concerned.
(The same could be said of The Sun, however, so quite how that aberration occurred is beyond me: perhaps desperation was beginning to set in arising from a fear that the situation had begun to drag on so long that risk of exposure was imminent.)
The Sun, of course, is crap and its Editor, useless. By contrast, the Telegraph seems to have undergone some kind of quiet revolution: no longer just the "Torygraph", it has someone managed to become more populist, yet less biased, than in days of old. Its handling of this affair has been exemplary, and the fact that it's seeing a sustained circulation boost of at least 200,000 must be driving Murdoch nuts: not only did The Sun miss out (so goodbye, Ms Wade) so did The Times and Sunday Times, and this at a time when every paper is desperate to maintain circulation so as to maintain advertising revenue.
If the authorities are daft enough to track down and prosecute the leaker, then so be it. But even in a Britain dominated by a political elite as mendacious as this one, it's unlikely any such prosecution will occur: what everyone involved will be hoping for is that this fades away (some hope) and that regardless of what may or may not happen in a Court of Law, it's the Court of Public Opinion that's more important, and one which should be shut down as fast as possible.
Finally. . . how wonderful that those involved here ignored the ubiquitous Max Clifford entirely!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
