The man who leaked details of lavish expense claims by British lawmakers says he was motivated by anger over the poor pay and equipment of U.K. soldiers, a newspaper reported Friday.
The Daily Telegraph said that the man, who was not identified, had been part of a team of government workers who were preparing for the publication of legislators' expense claims by redacting — or blacking out — much of the piquant detail.
"It's not easy to watch footage on the television news of a coffin draped in a Union Jack and then come in to work the next day and see on your computer screen what MPs are taking for themselves," the book quotes the mole as saying.
The leak of the unredacted documents to The Daily Telegraph fueled a series of stories about claims for cleaning a moat, buying a floating duck house, couples claiming expenses on two homes and lawmakers even claiming compensation for a candy bar.
Senior opposition Conservative lawmaker George Osborne charged 47 pounds ($77) for two DVDs of one of his own speeches, entitled "Value for Taxpayers' Money." Another lawmaker charged 1 pence (1.6 cents) for a 12-second phone call.
Peter Viggers, the Conservative whose claim for 1,645 pounds for the duck house was rejected by Parliamentary officials, subsequently announced that he would not seek re-election. The expenses scandal led to the resignation of the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin — the first speaker to resign in 300 years.
The saga is now being retold in a book, "No Expenses Spared," by Robert Winnett, the Daily Telegraph's deputy political editor.
The newspaper paid 110,000 pounds ($176,000) for the documents collected by the mole, the newspaper's assistant editor, Andrew Pierce, said Friday.
The book quotes the mole as saying he was part of a team assembled in July 2008 to redact the expense claims before publication of an official report.
"People couldn't believe what they were seeing," the book quotes the mole as saying.
"They started to nudge each other, saying 'have a look at this!' and the other person would reply 'never mind that, look at this one!' "
Workers became so angry, the mole said, that a manager intervened to tell them: "We're here to do a job, it's as simple as that ... so let's keep our opinions to ourselves and get through this."
However, the mole claimed, anger was stoke further by the stories the workers heard from some soldiers who had taken temporary jobs in the security team for the redacting operation.
One Iraq veteran, who expected to be sent to Afghanistan, said he was trying to raise money to buy lightweight Kevlar body armor such as U.S. soldiers wear. Another needed money for better quality boots, and others were working to buy Christmas presents for their families, the mole said.
"Hearing from the serving soldiers, about how they were having to work there to earn enough money to buy themselves decent equipment, while the MPs could find public money to buy themselves all sorts of extravagances, only added to the feeling that the public should know what was going on," he said.
"That helped tip the balance in the decision over whether I should or should not leak the expenses data."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he didn't understand the link between soldiers' pay and equipment and the leak of the expenses data.
"As far as the troops in Afghanistan are concerned, right throughout the period I have been Chancellor (Treasury chief) and then prime minister, I have been determined to make sure that the troops that are serving our country are properly paid, that we make proper allowance for them, that we give them the best equipment, that we help them in every way possible," Brown said in an interview with Sky News on Friday.
Source: AP News
