The Telegraph, 2/3/2008

There is an iron law of political power, a law confirmed daily by the behaviour of thousands of politicians the world over: funded by other people's money, and living in a cossetted world subsidised by the taxpayer, politicians lose touch with the concerns of ordinary people, and find it impossible to distinguish between actions which work to their own benefit and actions which are in the public interest. They start behaving as if tax-payers' money is rightfully theirs to use as they please.

The only device known to stop that corruption of the public interest is the constant vigilance of the people: our determination to identify, and to shame, every politician who starts on the downward slope. But to perform that role, we need information on how politicians are spending our money, and in particular how they spend it on themselves.

The obstacles that have been put in the way of those who try to discover how MPs spend our money are an object lesson in the tendency of the political class to lose the ability to distinguish between purely private concerns and matters which can genuinely be described as in the public interest.

When the Freedom of Information of Act was passed in 2000, it held out the promise that, finally, the people would be able to monitor the way our representatives give our money to themselves. It has not worked out that way. The iron law of politics has intervened: our politicians have searched for ways to ensure that they can prevent information on those topics from ever reaching the public - and frequently, they have discovered them.

That it has taken three years for Ben Leapman, our Home Affairs Editor, to get a ruling from the Information Tribunal ordering MPs to produce details of how they spend the "Additional Costs Allowance", illustrates that depressing tendency only too well. The allowance is supposed to help MPs fund the cost of running two homes. But it appears that some MPs use it to pay for their groceries, their personal phone calls, and even to fund their purchase of properties which they never intend to live in, but only to re-sell for their own profit.

If ever there was a case in which we had the right to information which would tell us how widespread such practices are, and which would identify the guilty men and women, this is it. There is no public or impartial justification for keeping such details secret - there is only the self-serving consideration that it saves MPs who have been fiddling the system the shame of being found out.

Yet MPs have fought tooth and nail to prevent Mr Leapman from getting hold of the information. And it still cannot be published: MPs can appeal to the High Court to overturn the Information Tribunal's ruling that they must release the relevant details within four weeks. If they decide to appeal - and there are indications that they might - then the information may never be released. An appeal to the High Court will certainly delay its publication very significantly.

We accept that confidentiality plays a part in good governance. There are good reasons why Cabinet minutes, for example, should be kept secret for a period. Effective government, from which we all benefit, depends on free and frank advice from Cabinet members, and such advice will not be forthcoming if ministers know that what they say will appear in public soon after they have said it.

That is why there is at least a prima facie case for not publishing Cabinet minutes on whether to go to war in Iraq, despite the ruling of the Information Commissioner that they should be made public.

The case of MPs' expenses is, however, utterly different. The only people to benefit from continued secrecy are corrupt MPs who are cheating on their expenses. It is our money, not theirs, and we have the right to know that it is not being misused.

A fundamental element of democracy is that politicians are our servants, not our masters. The moment they come to think of themselves as our masters, we are on the road to tyranny. To stop that process, we must be allowed to discover when they devote our money, not to the purposes we have authorised, but to their own.