In the last fortnight, a series of sleaze scandals have rocked the Conservative government, but often these stories are based on information that has been in the public domain for weeks, months and even years.
So why now?
Well, one reason is that it’s not easy to find out about parliamentarians’ second jobs. Almost everything about the system for publishing the Register of Members’ Financial Interests – those dry declarations that all politicians have to make about their income – is suboptimal, if not outright broken.
Instead of easily searchable public documents, the register documents are published as PDFs buried on the official parliament website. They are almost impossible to find, analyse and follow for anyone.
