No Expenses Spared - Softcover

Winnett, Robert; Rayner, Gordon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593065786 ISBN 13: 9780593065785

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2009

Synopsis

The Daily Telegraph’s expose of MPs' expenses, which dominated the news agenda for more than six weeks, made history by leading to the resignation of the Speaker and several Cabinet ministers, as well as taking Gordon Brown to the very brink of losing his grip on power.

It is a story which began in the unlikely setting of a Chilean vineyard, when Robert Winnett, the paper’s deputy political editor, first learnt from Gordon Brown's controversial aide Damian McBride, that a disk containing details of every MP's expense claims may have been obtained by a whistleblower.

Winnett was destined to become the reporter who would secure the disc and its contents for his newspaper, landing what has been described by some commentators as "the political scoop of the century". Together with Gordon Rayner, Winnett ran a team of reporters who pored through more than a million expenses documents. Astonishing details began to emerge: Gordon Brown's peculiar cleaning arrangements; Oliver Letwin's tennis court; Sir Peter Viggers' duck house; Douglas Hogg's £2,200 bill for cleaning his moat; house flipping and tax dodging; and the suggestion of deliberate fraud.

No Expenses Spared is the riveting inside story of the biggest political scandal to hit Parliament for a generation.

About this title

Review

"The biggest parliamentary scandal for two centuries" (Gordon Brown PM The Guardian)

"What the Daily Telegraph did - the simple act of providing information to the public - has triggered the biggest shake-up in our political system for years" (David Cameron Speech to the Tory party)

"The inside story of what was arguably the biggest scandal of recent British politics. No Expenses Spared is a racy, pacy work with most of the merits of a detective story." (Daily Telegraph)

"A gripping read" (The Independent)

Book Description

The inside story of the scoop which changed the face of British politics by the team that broke it

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593065786
• ISBN 13: 9780593065785
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384