Westminster Gravy Train

Stop the train - we want to get off

A date for your diary - tomorrow night at 7 pm BOM's old friend Heather Brooke is presenting her C4 Dispatches programme on the Westminster Gravy Train.

Heather is our leading campaigner for freedom of information, with a dedicated website Your Right To Know. And for five years she has been doggedly pursuing our egregious trough snuffling MPs for crimes against the taxpayer. As she writes here:

"When I first made a freedom of information request for a detailed breakdown of MPs' expenses five years ago I was pretty much laughed at. It was considered inconceivable that the average member of the public could be allowed to trawl through an MPs' 'personal' receipts...

The structure of Parliament appears to favour political insiders at the expense of the general public who pays the bills. What other person has a boss who allows an expense system like that outlined by Andrew Walker in The Green Book? Walker, the director of the Department for Finance & Administration, stated in The Green Book: 'It is your responsibility to satisfy yourself when you submit a claim.'

A must watch.

Even if it does push your blood pressure into the red zone.