Dispatches

The Westminster Gravy Train

Watch this episode now on 4oD freedom-of-information campaigner Heather Brooke

In May 2008, freedom-of-information campaigner Heather Brooke won a court battle that should have prompted the release of all politicians' expense claims. A year later, with those expenses still to be published and the flow of leaked information ever increasing, Heather studies the information that is available to piece together a forensic insight into how public money is being spent.

As well as a series of apparent inconsistencies and hard-to-explain expense claims, Dispatches investigates the controversial role of patronage and lobbying in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords - to what extent can this serve personal rather than public interests?

The programme also shows the damage that has been caused by protracted delays in releasing MPs full expenses, and asks how harmful these claims may be to the reputation of Parliament and its members.

Clips from The Westminster Gravy Train

On TV

First Shown

Date Time Channel
Sunday 19 April 2009 7PM Channel 4

Last Shown

Date Time Channel
Tuesday 21 April 2009 2.25AM Channel 4

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  1. Time to show it again, please - so timely. Or make it available beyond today (expiry day) Great piece of old-fashioned journalism. Well done Heather
    Posted by nickg101 on 19/05/2009 09:12:05
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  2. With the current public interest in MPs expenses please show this programme again. It is important for the public to know just how hard our elected government has fought against the publication of expenses.
    Posted by MD on 17/05/2009 13:21:57
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  3. Well done Heather and keep up the good work with your investigative, articulate, honest reporting. The news of the expenses is symptomatic of the way the party has governed this country. We seen systematic failures time and time again to manage and follow through any policy with detail and to the end. There is no control within the party nor within the parliment. My friend for the House of Lords and guess what, they can afford agency fees of 15 per hour for a Chef de Partie, waiting staff and yet sell food at subsidised prices! The taxi drivers have told me that the parliment spend 100s per night on taxis moving staff, goods and food between buildings. Said the taxis drivers rake in the money on these jobs. MPs have no clue how to be prudent, since they have never run businesses or been held accountable for what they do.
    Posted by SC on 16/05/2009 15:42:38
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  4. im not very good at writing but well done
    Posted by Leslie on 10/05/2009 16:59:59
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  5. Well done Heather and Channel 4 for exposing this crooked lot. They make Dick Turpin look like a complete amateur.
    Posted by IG on 23/04/2009 00:47:40
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  6. Demands for openness about public finances from the TaxPayers Alliance would be more persuasive if that organisation were more open about its own finances. The points made by its representative were consequently weakened.
    Posted by Roger Broad on 22/04/2009 22:11:13
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  7. Well done, Heather! Now, when will will see Sections 2-4 of The Fraud Act which came into force on January 1st 2007 being used to investigate and convict ALL Mps who have been making fraudulent expenses claims? As a taxpaying citizen I expect to hear the slamming of cell doors over this matter!
    Posted by johnlbell on 21/04/2009 21:07:08
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  8. Well done to Heather,& Channel 4, for the fantastic programme. This type of reporting, is well overdue. I wish you well for the future.
    Posted by Ian on 21/04/2009 19:29:38
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  9. I have just watched Heather's documentary, Well done - the quality and depth of the investigative reporting was good! I was astonished at the gall of some of the MPs reported on where they have rental properties in London already and then choose to take a mortgage interest payment on a second.
    Posted by snowy on 21/04/2009 16:58:44
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  10. The Westminster Gravy Train was an outstanding example of top notch investigative journalism - Heather Brooke is to be congratulated on sticking with it.
    Posted by Algy on 21/04/2009 09:56:02
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  11. The govt are promising to save goodness knows how many billions with "efficiency" savings - begs the question how was the public sector/whitehall/the civil servants allowed to become so inefficient inb the first place. Anyway these expenses would certainly be a good place to start - but do Turkeys vote for Christmas?
    Posted by Jorg on 20/04/2009 16:57:19
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  12. Has not our monkey ancestry conditioned us to grab something for nothing if we can? Why be careful with money earned by others? Particularly if your colleagues are taking it and have set up rules favouring themselves compared with the rest of society? We foolishly like to think that MP's, because we have elected them, might have higher principles than the rest of us but of course they have not. Sadly I suspect that all humans are basically dishonest and that is why we need so much law and order to regulate us. Those making the laws particularly need controlling since they have the power to fix things to their own personal advantage.
    Posted by GeoffH on 20/04/2009 13:52:01
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  13. What a good piece of journalism. How can anyone vote for someone who cannot justify their wages or expenses? How can anyone sit in office and deny the tax payer the right to inspect their own monies because of privilidge? Green, red,blue, black? Whatever the colour of the guide it is in BLACK and WHITE and simple ENGLISH. What MP's are doing is theft.
    Posted by Notareargunner on 20/04/2009 10:34:29
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  14. Fantastic program about MONEY, which is the main topic in the world now, this may be first step to total reform, how can we trust these people? The Tories are worse than these New Labour scoundrels, but it is the OTHER business interests that really worry me, as well as arms dealing and its lobbyists. We are supposed to trust these people? The corruption is obvious but the self regulation and rule changes, new laws, smoke and mirrors has to stop. Labour employs more and more advisors to lie to us in new ways on a daily basis. Who are the MP's that we can trust? Why can't we have public accountants running the budget? Maybe the government doesn't give a toss because in the end we pay they just bide their time. Oh well nothing changes.
    Posted by Pesky kid on 19/04/2009 22:44:25
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  15. Fantastic program about MONEY, which is the main topic in the world now, this may be first step to total reform, how can we trust these people? The Tories are worse than these New Labour scoundrels, but it is the OTHER business interests that really worry me, as well as arms dealing and its lobbyists. We are supposed to trust these people? The corruption is obvious but the self regulation and rule changes, new laws, smoke and mirrors has to stop. Labour employs more and more advisors to lie to us in new ways on a daily basis. Who are the MP's that we can trust? Why can't we have public accountants running the budget? Maybe the government doesn't give a toss because in the end we pay they just bide their time. Oh well nothing changes.
    Posted by Pesky kid on 19/04/2009 21:49:11
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  16. Hard hitting,detailed,investigation which will have many politicians squirming in their seats. Not just those already named and shamed, also many others who will be exposed when EVENTUALLY the full list is published. It strikes me it is little wonder that that so much money is wasted by the government at large when there is so little regard, or even complete contempt shown for the taxpayer by politicians in the matter of their own personal affairs. Do keep up the pressure Heather but please don't stop at Whitehall, it is also time the European Parliament gravy train was halted in its tracks. Let's make it quite clear that the long suffering taxpayer does not have bottomless pockets.
    Posted by David on 19/04/2009 21:33:55
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  17. And further to this when will Channel 4 by extension, do an in depth investigative profile of the civil service or more specifically, senior civil servants and other public officials including local authority directors and executive agency and NDPB bosses whose pay and benefits often leave the average MPs in the shade without having to assume any of the public glare or demands to resign for corruption, misappropriation or plain incompetence. When will these shadowy figures that often take the real decisions in ministers or councillors' names take their due share of the blame? What of the directors of the FSA that presided over this disastrous deregulatory horse trading banking climate, or the official in charge of the HMRC who hardly fell on his sword when the data of 25 million households just disappeared? The examples are innumerable. Let's face it, other than a handful of bankers, these people's pensions are also underwritten by you and I the public tax payer. I would suggest that the entire system is corrupt from officials to politicians to high finance and the sooner it is redesigned wholescale the better. People's patience is simply running out. NJR
    Posted by nick on 19/04/2009 20:54:32
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  18. Keep up the good work. How are you financed? How do I find out about my local MP? Next: I am self employed and I have to be able to justify all I claim. No ifs or buts. If I am employed I am not allowed to claim for my travel to place of work. Why not the same for them?
    Posted by Peter Holland on 19/04/2009 20:35:33
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  19. I think any 2nd home should be the property of the state. No personal profiteering. As with the efforts to claw-back Fred Goodwins expenses, so should we claw-back the 2nd homes by compulsary purchase and allow then to rent. Why should we keep struggling to pay pay pay for this????? Change the rules now. Lead by example or get out and get a proper job then you will know what its really like to balance the books. I'm fed up with all the 'cloak of the club' especially when MP's are from a educated background. One would hope that they recognise basic integrity. PB
    Posted by phil on 19/04/2009 19:28:37
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  20. This is very good work. You seem to be the only people who expose the lies of the politicians who are only interested in their own well-being and political survival
    Posted by alan stephenson on 19/04/2009 17:52:46
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  21. MPs are fast becoming a luxury we can't really afford. There are simply too many of them and I cannot understand why we still need MPs at Westminster representing Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh constituencies when they have their own parliaments! They could elect one representative from their own parliaments to representative their "voice" at Westminster. Give MPs a salary reflecting a multiple of the average wage and provide apartments for those who live outside of London. No expenses for bath plugs and furniture! Also make it a condition of employment that they work a minimum of 8 years in the real world with 4 of these being in the private sector. Perhaps we should also limit them to 2 parliamentary terms as they have usually run out of sensible ideas by then.
    Posted by Julie Fisk on 18/04/2009 19:41:31
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  22. Heather displays absolute gritty determination to expose financial corruption rife in our MPs. I think all but a few are now fully aware of the greedy, self serving PMs that WE put in power. Are WE are the problem for giving them power - there is no alternative. Exposure is only the begining. By what little history I know it seems to me that politicians (elected or not, national & at local level,(Europe even worse)) have behaved in this corrupt self serving manor this since time began. The next lot will become as corrupt as previous encumbents - the longer in power the worse they become. Exposure is only the start. It must be stamped out. The question is how? Peter Oborne says he only exposes corruption and I suspect Heather might say the same. Don't get me wrong I'm 100% in favour of what they do but WHO will instigate the changes necessary to stamp out the disgusting way our elected servants behave. It certainly won't be elected MPs.
    Posted by Michael Walker on 18/04/2009 18:12:09
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  23. Dear Heather, Keep up the good work. I know its uncomfortable for MPs but after all it is our cash they are squandering and misusing. It is hightime there was reform with no grey areas and no reason for ambiguity. MPs need reform, urgently!!
    Posted by David Hankey on 18/04/2009 06:58:58
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