UK expense row caused by anger at failure to supply troops

Telegraph:

The mole was among the workers who processed the MPs' expenses files, and his colleagues included serving soldiers who were moonlighting to earn extra cash for body armour and other personal equipment.

The soldiers’ fury when they saw the way that MPs were lavishing taxpayers' money on their second homes led to the mole's decision to leak the data to The Daily Telegraph via a middleman.

The man behind the leak - who is a civilian - has broken cover to tell his story for the first time, in the hope that it will shame the Government into finally supplying the right equipment for soldiers risking their lives in Afghanistan.

His account appears in No Expenses Spared, a book which is published on Friday and which discloses the full inside story of what Gordon Brown described as “the biggest Parliamentary scandal for two centuries”.

The Telegraph’s investigation into MPs’ expense claims earlier this year blew the lid off widespread abuse of the parliamentary allowance system, exposing the “flipping” of second homes, systematic tax avoidance, “phantom” mortgages and claims for fripperies such as moat cleaning, manure and a duck house.

No Expenses Spared, written by two members of the Telegraph’s investigation team, describes how employees at The Stationery Office – where the MPs’ files were sent for censorship before their intended publication by parliament – reacted when they first saw the MP’s claims for second homes, furniture and luxury goods.

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It does not appear that they have improved the supply of the troops even after the Queen also complained. It does look like the MPs will not be living as high as they were at public expense. You should not need a scandal to get supplies needed by the troops sent in harms way.