IT SEEMS surprising that John Wick – the former SAS man and Tory supporter who grassed up Westminster to the wider world – took many weeks to find a buyer for a disk containing a run down of all parliamentary expense claims going back several years. After all, this is material that Telegraph hacks have been easily able to transmute into an inexhaustible supply of front page splash gold dust.

Despite Wick’s protestations that he was essentially acting in the public interest, he initially tried to secure £300,000 for the info, at which price there were no takers. Nobody is quite sure how much the newspaper ultimately forked out, but the lobby correspondent rumour mill suggests a sum of around £70,000. Isn’t it nice when principle and pecuniary gain just happen to coincide like that?

For its part, the government – which often lists Britain’s laughably ineffectual Freedom of Information Act as an example of one of its more progressive policies – did all it could to keep everything under wraps. All the punters were due to get were a heavily edited version, and some way down the line at that.

Socialists will have few qualms about MPs being brought to book, and will thoroughly enjoy watching the big league politicos squirm. Those of us in jobs in which we are reimbursed for out-of-pocket air, train and taxi fares and restaurant and hotel bills legitimately accrued in the course of our employment accept that expense account arrangements are, in principle, fair enough.

But by the same token, we are aware that fiddling your exes is quite literally a sacking offence. Do it big time, and the plods will be invited to take an interest. In short, an expense account is not a means of securing a major augmentation of the salary set down in your employment contract.

Moreover, it is a basic socialist principle – albeit one that some star-struck revolutionary organisations have lightly tossed aside of late – that political and union representatives be paid no more than those they represent.

The point is that the way in which these matters came to light underlines the depth to which the British political system is addicted to state secrecy. It is unacceptable that electors are only in the know thanks to some ageing reactionary touting the skinny round the capitalist press in the hope of trousering tens of thousands of pounds himself.

Maximum transparency when it comes to the financial affairs of those holding public office should be axiomatic for the left. Until it is, all boasts about FoIA are pretty much worthless.