It was the FoI wot won it
Two of the biggest upsets of the winter in UK politics came from journalists using the Freedom of Information (FoI) law to probe the secrecy that has always protected the finances of British politicians.
In Northern Ireland a minister was forced from office — Ian Paisley Junior, the FoI Act’s first ministerial scalp. Days later, the NI First Minister, who happened to be his father, announced he was standing down as well.
Meanwhile a political crisis was breaking in the House of Commons in London, where MPs faced a series of shocks over their finances: paying members of their own families out of the public purse, and drawing expenses and allowances without any serious checks.
The facts were brought into the open by journalists pursuing freedom of information. Prominent among them were two active NUJ members, David Gordon in Belfast and Heather Brooke in London, who have used the Act to keep up the checks on our elected representatives.
Politicians who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear
HEATHER BROOKE tells how she won her three-year fight to bring MPs’ expenses into the public spotlight
Why Northern Ireland’s journalists don’t look so lazy now
DAVID GORDON reports on the work that brought down Northern Ireland Minister Ian Paisley Jnr and helped trigger his father’s dramatic departure from the political scene