FOR CHRIS EVANS, the Daily Telegraph’s head of news, the first two weeks of the expenses investigation had been even more nerve-racking than they had been for the rest of the team. Evans’s wife was pregnant with the couple’s second baby, which was due on 1 May – just two days after the Telegraph first obtained the expenses disk. Chris had resigned himself to the likelihood that he would miss the biggest story he might ever be involved with. Although he could never admit it to his wife, he had been secretly relieved when the baby became overdue and he had been able to steer the expenses investigation through its crucial first few days.
Coincidentally, Matthew Bayley, the news editor, was in a similar predicament. His wife was also expecting the couple’s second child, due three weeks after Evans’s baby, and each of them would share a joke every time their mobile phones rang without it being a call to rush to the hospital.
By day seven of the publication campaign, however, Mrs Evans could wait no longer. With the baby two weeks overdue, the birth would have to be induced; and so, as the suspension of Shahid Malik unfolded, the Telegraph news executive was pacing around a waiting room at University College Hospital in central London, following events on his BlackBerry and sending regular ‘thoughts’ via email to Winnett and Bayley. The other parents-to-be on the ward were speaking of little other than MPs’ expenses, but Evans decided not to disclose his key role in the story of the moment.
Julie Evans finally gave birth to a daughter, Sophie, at 11.15 p.m. on Friday, 15 May. For the next week, Evans’s only chances to keep abreast of the growing parliamentary scandal he had helped trigger came during snatched moments in front of rolling news channels when his new daughter was asleep.
Over the weekend, pressure built on Michael Martin, the Speaker, following his disastrous handling of the expenses scandal the previous week. Sunday is the day when politicians traditionally head to the television studios to give lengthy live interviews to the likes of Andrew Marr and Adam Boulton. On Sunday, 17 May, the interviews were dominated by one subject – Speaker Martin’s future.
Despite coming under criticism following his hectoring of MPs including Kate Hoey and Norman Baker in the Commons chamber, Martin had refused to back down. The respected Labour MP David Winnick had told Martin that his behaviour had been ‘inappropriate’ and his refusal to apologize ‘inadequate’, to which a bullish Martin retorted: ‘If it’s not adequate, then you know what you must do.’ The Speaker, who was in overall charge of the allowances system, should have been the man to whom MPs looked for a solution. Instead, his belligerent behaviour over the previous week had meant he had become part of the problem.
That Sunday Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, broke with the convention that party leaders do not criticize the Speaker and said that ‘the Speaker must go’. On the Labour side Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, became one of the first senior figures to break cover, saying Martin’s behaviour had been ‘utterly deplorable’ and he was ‘not the right man to oversee the necessary reform of the members’ allowance system’. For the Conservatives William Hague, David Cameron’s deputy, said the situation was at ‘crisis point’. Meanwhile Douglas Carswell, a little-known Tory backbencher, had begun gathering signatures for a motion of no confidence in the Speaker, which had been backed by a small number of MPs from all three main parties and had generated considerable coverage in the media.
On Sunday afternoon Gordon Brown and Martin had a private meeting during which the Prime Minister is understood to have assured the Speaker that the government would not allow a motion of no confidence in Martin to be debated. It was a crucial show of support, but one which was to be short-lived.
The following day pressure on the Speaker intensified with a new set of revelations in the Daily Telegraph. Jon Swaine had uncovered a peculiar deal involving a Labour MP, Ben Chapman, who had paid off part of his mortgage but was given permission by the fees office to continue making ‘inflated’ claims as if he were still paying interest for the entire loan. The arrangement – apparently sanctioned by the Speaker’s own officials in the fees office but then stopped when spotted by another official in 2004 – beggared belief.
It quickly became obvious that the Prime Minister’s patience was running out. Now, instead of backing Martin, a spokesman for Gordon Brown would say only that the Speaker’s future depended on ‘the will of Parliament’. Suddenly, Martin could see that his safety net of prime ministerial support had been whipped away from beneath him, just as he was starting to lose his grip on his lofty position.
Meanwhile, another key figure in the expenses scandal was also feeling the heat. John Wick had been ‘outed’ by the Wall Street Journal as the middleman who had passed the expenses information on to the Telegraph, and as a result he was under siege. The Wall Street Journal is a sister paper of The Times, and Wick suspected that his name might have been leaked by someone at the paper to which he had originally offered the material. Throughout Saturday, 16 May Henry Gewanter – who was fielding calls for Wick – had been swamped with calls from the Sunday Times, the News of the World and the Mail on Sunday. One newspaper offered Gewanter £50,000 just for Wick to speak to them on the telephone. The offer was politely declined following a frantic round of phone calls between Winnett, Wick and Gewanter.
The following day, the Mail on Sunday printed what is known on Fleet Street as a ‘hatchet job’ on Wick, calling into question his financial status and business history. Much of the article was based on conversations with people which Wick would later say had been taken out of context. To an extent it was inevitable that once Wick’s identity was known rival newspapers would attack the Telegraph through him, but the Mail on Sunday was read with derision by senior executives at the Telegraph who thought that the newspaper had gone overboard on the basis of relatively meagre information. Wick was angry and was advised to take legal action, but Winnett was concerned that the situation could get out of hand if not handled carefully. He and consulting editor Rhidian Wynn Davies arranged to meet Wick and Gewanter for lunch the following day at Brown’s in Mayfair.
As Winnett and Wynn Davies got out of the taxi outside the hotel, Wick and Gewanter were coming down the street. Wick was suntanned and smiling after his enforced exile in southern Spain; Gewanter, in stark contrast, looked a nervous wreck. His tie was at half-mast and he was smoking a cigarette as if it was going to be his last.
The foursome ordered a round of champagne and toasted the success of the story before beginning their three-course meal. Winnett explained that he and William Lewis had received reliable information suggesting the police would not be carrying out an investigation into the source of the leak of the expenses data. He proposed that, once the police had formally announced that the Telegraph would not be investigated, Wick strike back by going public with his reasons for blowing the whistle. It would be a brave thing to do – once out in the public domain, Wick would be exposed to intense scrutiny – but Wick felt he had an important story to tell.
As the meal progressed, Gewanter became more and more excitable. He repeatedly stressed that Parliament as a whole needed to change, with a revolution if necessary, and that the Liberal Democrats should seize power. The stress of the previous few weeks was beginning to take its toll on the PR man, and at one point he was shouting so loudly that other diners in the restaurant began to stare. Wick, Winnett and Wynn Davies, who had been hoping to keep a low profile, were not impressed, and Wick suggested that Gewanter might want to ‘calm down’ in the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later he returned and apologized. However, Winnett and Wynn Davies were concerned about his state of mind. A loose cannon could be very damaging to the investigation.
Just after 3 p.m. Winnett received a text message saying that Michael Martin would shortly be making a statement in the House of Commons. He quickly paid the bill and hurried back to the office.
A few miles away, William Lewis was enjoying a rather different sort of afternoon. He was at the Chelsea Flower Show opening the Daily Telegraph’s show garden – a minimalist creation from a Swedish designer which would later be awarded the top prize of ‘best show garden’. To Lewis’s great amusement, as he was shown around the garden, he saw that it had a moat.
Lewis approached his annual appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show with trepidation. The opening day was traditionally attended by members of the royal family, and the previous year he had been asked by the Duchess of Cornwall whether or not he knew anything about gardening. He had had to admit to her that his knowledge was rather lacking. This year, the opening of the show was one of his first ‘public’ appearances following weeks of early mornings and late nights in the office working on the expenses investigation. He was concerned that the high-profile guests, many of whom had regular contact with MPs who had featured in the Telegraph, might give him a wide berth.
His day got even more complicated when he received a call on his mobile phone from a member of staff whom he had mentored for several years.
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ the staff member said, ‘I’m resigning.’
Lewis was furious, but before he could say much in reply he had to end the call as several royal courtiers approached to tell him that the Queen wished to visit the garden.
‘She’s definitely coming here and she’s going to spend a lot of time here,’ said one courtier. Lewis was taken aback. Surely this wasn’t royal endorsement?
Moments later he was welcoming the Queen to the garden. Another member of the royal family said they had been ‘following [the story] very carefully’, before asking whether the Telegraph’s enquiries might spread to cover the rest of the public sector.
One of the next guests was Lord Mandelson, who had publicly attacked the expenses investigation on the first day of publication. The Labour peer was now in a more playful mood, however. He gently slapped Lewis on the cheek and said: ‘Who’s been a naughty boy then?!’
Throughout the afternoon the Telegraph garden was packed with famous faces, and everyone wanted to hear more details from Lewis about the expenses story. The visitors included Sir Cliff Richard, Cilla Black, senior members of the intelligence community, and the City businessman and Conservative Party treasurer Michael Spencer.
In the rather less glamorous surroundings of the Telegraph bunker, the reporters were gathered around a computer screen waiting for Michael Martin to address Parliament.
A hush descended on the Commons chamber – and on the bunker – as the Speaker rose to his feet.
‘I would like to make a statement on Members’ allowances,’ he began. ‘We all know that it is the tradition of this House that the Speaker speaks to the whole House, but in doing so please allow me to say to the men and women of the United Kingdom that we have let you down very badly indeed. We must all accept blame and, to the extent that I have contributed to the situation, I am profoundly sorry. Now, each and every Member, including myself, must work hard to regain your trust.’
‘Blimey, this is a bit of a turn-up for the books,’ said Rosa Prince, voicing the thoughts of the bunker team. But the drama had barely started.
The response from the MPs was brutal, merciless and utterly compelling. The reporters watched transfixed as the man who had been so defiant and aggressive in the face of criticism crumpled in front of their eyes. By the time his colleagues had finished with him, he was stuttering, confused and broken.
Backbenchers landed blow after blow on the Speaker’s vanishing authority as they repeatedly demanded the chance to debate a motion of no confidence in him the following day.
David Winnick, the Labour MP who had confronted him several days earlier, suggested that the Speaker ‘give indication of your intention to retire’. Douglas Carswell demanded to know when the House would get the chance to elect ‘a new Speaker with the moral authority … [to] lift this House out of the mire’, and Sir Patrick Cormack, a Tory MP since 1970, compared the situation to the 1940 ‘Norway debate’ which led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, when Neville Chamberlain was urged: ‘In the name of God, go!’
Martin said he would not allow a vote on the no confidence motion, but when asked why not he was unable to answer, having to consult his clerk before trying, and failing, to enunciate what he had been told. By the time he sat down, all the fight had been knocked out of him.
In front of a live television audience, and in the space of just fifteen minutes, Martin was reduced to a man worthy more of pity than respect.
The reporters in the bunker turned and looked at each other. They didn’t need to say anything; all of them were thinking the same thing. Michael Martin was a man for whom they had no sympathy, but seeing him crushed in front of their eyes still came as a shock.
Outside the Commons, MPs lined up to give their thoughts to Sky News and the BBC News Channel. The sound of knives being sharpened came across loud and clear. One MP described Martin as ‘a dead Speaker walking’. The Lib Dem Norman Baker said he had signed ‘his political death warrant’ with his performance and gave him ‘less than a week’.
‘So what happens now?’ Rayner asked, turning to Winnett and Prince.
‘He’s gotta go,’ mused Winnett. But the question was, how? No one really seemed to know if there was any mechanism by which the Speaker could be removed from office; in the absence of a written constitution such matters were governed by convention, and the convention was that Speakers were never challenged. But the consensus was that if Douglas Carswell got his wish for a no confidence vote, and the vote went against Martin, the Speaker would have to resign. As yet, however, Carswell had only fifteen signatures on his petition – nowhere near enough to force a vote.
It seemed that Martin’s future was entirely in the hands of Gordon Brown. The two men had been close for decades, having both emerged from the ‘tribal’ world of Scottish Labour politics, but such was the public anger at MPs’ expenses claims, personified by Martin himself, that unless the Speaker stood aside there was a very real chance that the Prime Minister’s own position could be threatened. Downing Street’s support for Martin had already become equivocal following the statement that morning that his position depended on ‘the will of Parliament’, and the reception the Speaker had received during proceedings that afternoon had, effectively, made his position untenable. Now Martin retreated to his office in Speaker’s House, his grand residence in Parliament, where he held a private meeting with Gordon Brown. By the time the Prime Minister left, Martin was in no doubt that his career was finished.
He spent Monday night on the phone, talking to friends and confidants about what to do next. Sir Stuart Bell, one of his closest friends, later said: ‘We were looking, those who were friends of Michael Martin, to arrange a graceful exit.’ Martin went to bed well after midnight, by which time he was well aware that a ‘graceful’ exit was no longer available to him.
The next day’s newspapers were full of speculation about how long Martin could cling on to his job, but even so the bunker team were stunned when reports started to circulate at ten thirty on Tuesday morning that Martin had decided to resign and would be making a statement to Parliament that afternoon. Within moments the Press Association had put out a newsflash confirming Martin’s intention to resign. Tony Gallagher rushed into the editor’s office to break the news to William Lewis and the pair shook hands to mark the momentous news.
‘Crikey,’ said Christopher Hope in the bunker. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘It’s all getting a bit serious, isn’t it?’ Rayner reflected. It certainly was. Until now, the most tangible effect of the Telegraph’s investigation had been to end the careers of a handful of backbench MPs and force some more high-profile ones to pay back money. Martin’s resignation wasn’t just a step change in the investigation, it was history being made.
No other Speaker had been forced from office for 314 years. The last Speaker to suffer such a fate had been Sir John Trevor, appointed to the post by King James II and expelled from Parliament in 1695 after accepting a bribe of 1,000 guineas from the City of London to help get a new piece of legislation through the Commons. Since then, Britain had been to war with Louis XIV of France and Napoleon; it had colonized, and then lost, America; it had fought two world wars and built (and given back) one of the biggest empires in history – all without the need to dispense with any of the thirty-five Speakers who had held the post in that period.
At eleven o’clock, when William Lewis convened the daily leader conference – the meeting at which leader writers and columnists meet to discuss with the editor the content of the next day’s comment pages – not everyone was aware that Martin was going to resign. Lewis began the meeting by making sure all those present were up to date with developments, and as he informed those present of Martin’s impending resignation, leader writer Phil Johnston’s face dropped with astonishment. Turning to Lewis, Johnston perfectly summed up the atmosphere in the room as he repeated Michael Caine’s famous line from The Italian Job. ‘Blimey, Will. We were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.’
Lewis, in common with everyone working on the story, felt that Martin’s resignation was the pivotal moment in the investigation. Until then, there had been a sense that the Telegraph was rolling a boulder up a hill, slowly gaining ground with each passing day, but all the time aware that there was a risk of being crushed at any moment. With Martin’s imminent departure, it was as if the team had reached the summit, and the boulder was suddenly careering down the other side, out of control and liable to smash anything in its path.
For all the talk there had been of an exit strategy, the Telegraph no longer had the ability to close the story down. It had taken on a momentum of its own, and there was nothing Lewis, or anyone else, could do to stop it.
Martin was due to make a statement to the Commons at 2.30 p.m., but before that there was another important piece of business taking place in Parliament. Sir Paul Stephenson, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, a routine appointment during which he was also expected to be asked by MPs for a progress report on the investigation into the leak of the expenses data. But no such question was forthcoming; so, as he left the committee room, Britain’s most senior policeman was asked by a Telegraph reporter whether the newspaper was still being investigated. He said that Scotland Yard would shortly be issuing a statement.
At 1 p.m. the statement from Sir Paul arrived. It read:
We have concluded that in all the circumstances and based on all the information, we do not believe a police investigation to be appropriate.
The Metropolitan Police believe that the public interest defence would be likely to prove a significant hurdle in securing a prosecution. An assistant commissioner has written to Malcolm Jack [the Clerk of the House of Commons] informing him that we have decided not to investigate the matters referred to us regarding alleged leaks to the Daily Telegraph. Consideration was given to the likelihood of a prosecution and whether a prosecution would be appropriate given other potential sanctions that might be available.
The newspaper was in the clear.
Winnett phoned Wick to tell him the good news. And, on a day when everything seemed to be boding well for the Telegraph team, Douglas Hogg announced he would be standing down at the next general election. His comments reflected a contrition that had been absent the previous week.
‘I entirely understand the public anger that has erupted over expenses,’ he said. ‘The current system is deeply flawed; we parliamentarians have got it wrong and I apologize for that failure which is both collective and personal.’
Parliamentary wags suggested he had been ‘demoated’.
Outside Parliament, College Green was becoming home to the biggest collection of broadcasting hardware since the day Tony Blair had left office. The main news channels sent their news anchors to broadcast live from Westminster, including Kay Burley, Sky News’s top anchorwoman, and the BBC’s Jon Sopel, who abandoned a planned day off to get stuck into the story. Andrew Porter, Benedict Brogan and Andrew Pierce were out in force on behalf of the Telegraph, passing between the various broadcasters who were forming hastily arranged panels of MPs and commentators of different political persuasions.
With few MPs willing to support Martin over his stance on expenses it was left to an ex-MP, George Foulkes, to try to defend the indefensible. Lord Foulkes was still spoiling for a fight and persisted in asking Porter about where the Telegraph had got the story. ‘That’s not the issue,’ Porter kept saying. Foulkes then turned on Porter and Sopel, apparently accusing them of sectarianism in questioning the conduct of the Speaker. He seemed reluctant to turn his attention to the one thing the viewers wanted to know about: the thoughts of Speaker Martin. By the end of the exchange, Foulkes and Porter were glaring at each other daggers drawn.
Porter finished the interview and dashed inside, making his way to the press gallery of the House of Commons to hear Martin’s statement. The press gallery, which overhangs the Commons chamber, is furnished with tightly packed benches with small desks. The Telegraph has two dedicated desks right at the front of the gallery, where the reporters sit just 20 feet from the party leaders. Andrew Gimson, the Telegraph’s parliamentary sketch writer, usually takes one of the seats, and Porter squeezed in next to him.
Dozens of journalists were crowding around the door to the press gallery, trying to get in, but there was such a crush that many of them did not make it in time to hear Martin’s extremely brief statement. Each day’s parliamentary business begins with prayers, and journalists are only allowed in after prayers are over. Martin was to make his statement immediately after prayers, so that dozens of reporters were still jostling to get through the door when he rose to his feet.
‘Since I came to this House thirty years ago, I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united,’ he said. ‘In order that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish the office of Speaker on Sunday, June 21. This will allow the House to proceed to elect a new Speaker on Monday, June 22.
‘That is all I have to say on this matter.’
To mark the historic occasion Martin had been able to muster fewer than eighty words, which took him just thirty-three seconds to deliver.
Somewhat disingenuously, Brown, Cameron, Clegg and other MPs then paid glowing tributes to the Speaker they had spent the previous few days trying to remove.
The reporters in the bunker watched in total silence as Martin made his announcement. Minutes later, the Speaker’s face was added to the portrait gallery on the wall. Lewis walked into the room after watching Martin’s statement and made a brief statement of his own.
‘I just wanted to say: respect,’ he said, leaving as quickly as he had arrived.
Michael Martin’s departure had not only been historic in a constitutional sense; it had made history in a far more fundamental, and far more important, way. The British public, appalled by the behaviour of the politicians who represented them, had stood together and told the political class: ‘Enough.’ And, for once, the politicians had found that they had no option but to listen. Instead of merely paying lip service to the wishes of the electorate, MPs who had abused the public’s trust for years were seeing real change happening in front of their eyes. Never again would they be able to treat the Commons like a gentlemen’s club, where they set their own rules and bent them to suit their whim. If the Speaker could lose his job as a result of the public outcry, no one in Parliament could assume that they were guaranteed to keep their job.
It had been, in the words of the Telegraph’s front-page headline the next day, a very British revolution.