Expenses leak was not about the money says middleman
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 12:00 AM
by Liz Stephens
The man who passed on details of MP's expenses to the Telegraph from an unknown whistleblower has said that he did so for the public good, and not financial gain.
Public relations consultant Henry Gewanter told BBC's Newsnight he was "extremely proud" of his actions.
Mr Gewanter again refused to disclose the identity of the whistleblower, who he claimed he had deliberately avoided meeting so he could give as "little away as possible" if he were arrested.
Despite claiming that no-one involved in the leak made any money personally, he refused to confirm or deny if any sum had changed hands.
"Clearly the confidential details of the specifics with the Telegraph and indeed other discussions I had with other newspapers must remain confidential," he said.
Sources estimate the Telegraph paid somewhere in the region of £100,000 for the material, although this figure is the subject of considerable speculation.
Mr Gewanter said he was surprised how difficult it had been to get the information published, confirming that several newspapers were approached unsuccessfully before the Telegraph agreed to take the material.
"I thought it would be a very simple straightforward job, all I would have to do is approach one decent newspaper and that would be the end of it" he said.
However, he claimed that the sticking point on negotiations for the unredacted expenses was not the fee but rather the ethical conditions he wished to impose on the coverage.
"One of the prime conditions was that whichever newspaper did get the exclusive had to be willing to cover every MP who misbehaved from whatever party," he said.
"There is at least one newspaper who wanted to use it to destroy one party."
The interview came as the government rushed to outline new laws which will mean MPs who break the rules on expenses could face up to a year in jail in future.
Commons leader Harriet Harman said the government planned to clean up parliament with three new offences targeting false claims, not registering interests, and payments to MPs for raising issues.
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