Heather Brooke: Reformer of the Year

The think-tank 'Reform' have enabled online voting for anyone interested to decide who should be 'Political Reformer of the Year 2009'. With a landslide the winner was ... Heather Brooke, the lady whose tenacity got the ball rolling over the misuse of public money by many of our MPs. In other words it was her perseverance initially that won the right to get details of MPs expenses out into the public domain.

Well done Heather from me for not giving up when the going got tough. I think I have said before that it is a fascinating fact how even now one determined individual can create such a seismic change in an institution or in the way we live. I dare say most people will remember the revelations in 'The Daily Telegraph' about the way Parliamentarians have milked the system but perhaps not be aware that without Heather's work these matters just wouldn't have come to light. Hence this blogpost to remind folk about what Heather achieved.

Police chiefs pay and perks in spotlight

It was just a couple of months back on June 18th, link here, that I wrote about Heather Brooke, that very determined lady who successfully fought a legal battle to get disclosure about MPs expenses. Now this country's Chief Constables are in her firing line and rightly so because some of them are evidently getting perks and privileges that we, their paymasters, haven't been privy to. Even if these 'extras' were small beer we should be in the know. It sounds though that some of them are quite considerable in value. The fact that this information hasn't been put in the public domain as a matter of course or that they are getting add-ons courtesy of the tax payer is quite disgraceful.

Heather makes her case in a recent entry on her blog which can be read here. More power to her elbow!

Remember the name - Heather Brooke

Heather Brooke - that's not a name that resonates with the majority of folk in this country I imagine. But there are reasons why it should. Heather is a journalist and writer living in London whose single minded determination ensured that we would have the chance to find out just how much our MPs are costing us and what specific claims they are making on the public purse. By winning a High Court battle against the House of Commons there is now information in the public domain that would never have materialised otherwise.

What has happened now is the 'official' version of MPs expense claims has been published, but with a huge amount of information blacked out, as to addresses for example. However thanks to someone leaking the information 'The Daily Telegraph' has been churning out 'uncensored' information for many weeks now and, notwithstanding today's publication of expenses for all MPs, I do hope that the DT carry on with their good work.

One point about all this I want to briefly dwell on, and it's a point worth making strongly I feel, is the still enormous power of the individual. In these days of big government, big corporations, of big committees it seems so easy to believe that the individual has no chance to change history. But, thank God, that perception is wrong. A recent example was that of Joanna Lumley who deployed considerable finesse in ensuring Gurkhas could reside in the UK. Without taking anything away from her Joanna did benefit from being someone well known. But Ms Brooke wasn't, and I guess still isn't, a household name. Yet the action of this one persevering woman has changed the way Parliament, or at least the House of Commons, does its business for ever. I believe we should be eternally grateful to Heather Brooke; she has a website "Your Right To Know" here.