Thursday 25 June 2009

MP who questioned FoI journalist's motives in news again over expenses

Journalist Heather Brooke, whose Freedom of Information battle led the courts to rule that MPs' expenses should be public, writes on her Your Right To Know blog today:"Readers of the blog may recall Alan Keen MP questioning my motives at a parliamentary inquiry held several weeks ago.
"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.
Now it seems that flat in Brentford – the couple’s ‘main home’ – has been vacant for so long the council want to repossess it."
You can read the full story about the Keens in today's Daily Telegraph here.
At a Select Committe hearing looking at press standards, Alan Keen asked journalist Nick Davies about Brooke's FoI activities "does she earn money from this?"- suggesting she had a vested interest.

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