What the REAL Fifth Estate is — before being suborned by money, celebrity and class loyalty….

“It began modestly enough back in 2005, when an American freelance writer and journalism teacher living in London, Heather Brooke, entered a request under Britain’s newly promulgated freedom of information act for details of the expense claims of British members of Parliament.

Ms. Brooke’s initiative to expose the politicians’ greed, now led by one of the country’s principal newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, has led to the biggest scandal to hit the House of Commons in decades. On Tuesday, the affair claimed its biggest victim yet when the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, became the first man to be ousted from that job in more than 300 years.”

Scandal Erupts

Heather Brooke says: “you should always be skeptical of government and have a right to know what’s been done with your money.”

TPM

On the other hand, I’ve heard that Brits are up in arms, picketing at MP doors and demanding resignations while we in the US just snark at the enormous corruption in Big Business and Government and do little.