Jonathan Calvert and Clare Newell
The Sunday Times
Financial corruption in parliament – cash for influence
FOLLOWING the MPs’ expenses scandal, the Sunday Times Insight team has continued to keep the spotlight on financial corruption within parliament. The three most prominent articles from this campaign over the past year were the investigation into Lord Taylor of Warwick, which resulted in the peer being charged with fraud; the Lord Paul exposé which led to his suspension from parliament; and the cash-for-influence scandal (in collaboration with Channel 4’s Dispatches) which caught ex-ministers offering political favours to a fake lobbyist in return for cash and provided that memorable quote from Stephen Byers: “I’m like a cab for hire”.
By last autumn the police investigation into Lord Taylor had stalled. But Insight revealed in December that he had fraudulently claimed thousands of pounds by using someone else’s address pretending it was his main home. Insight further discovered that in October, the multimillionaire Lord Paul had claimed £38,000 by saying a one-bedroom flat occupied by the manager of one of his hotels was his “main home”.
The third submission, the cash-for-influence scandal, then dominated the headlines in late March, giving new meaning to the term Buyers & Sellers.
Back to Paul Foot 2011 » The Paul Foot Award 2025
PRIVATE EYE is pleased to announce the six shortlisted entries for the 2025 Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism.The prize commemorates the late Paul Foot’s lifelong drive to uncover injustice through his work, rooting out corrupt politicians, governmental errors and miscarriages of justice. The winner of the annual prize, worth £8,000, will be announced on 20 May.
Padraig Reidy, chair of the judges, said: “At a difficult time for journalism, the breadth and ambition of this year’s entries was impressive, with established print outlets competing with smaller, online-only publications. The variety of the shortlist demonstrates that great investigative and campaigning work can be done by all kinds of outlets. What matters is caring enough – and having courage.”
The judging panel also included last year’s winner Tristan Kirk, along with Matt Foot, Janine Gibson, Francis Wheen, Helen Lewis, Julia Langdon and Sir Simon Jenkins. They selected the following shortlist, in alphabetical order:
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
The Guardian/Reuters Institute
Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
Brinkhurst-Cuff movingly told the story of Fiona Holm’s disappearance, asking why it was so overlooked. She supplemented her reporting with a wider investigation into how the media covers missing people.
Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday
The Guardian
The carer’s allowance scandal
Vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP. Labour has now set up an independent review.
Laura Hughes
Financial Times
Lead poisoning
In this deeply reported investigation into the effects of lead in paint and in the soil, Hughes asked a provocative question: will lead exposure one day be seen as a scandal on the level of asbestos?
Aaron Walawalkar & Harriet Clugston
Liberty Investigates in partnership with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian
Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest “crackdown”
The investigation unit at the human rights charity looked at British universities’ harsh measures against pro-Palestinian protests and activism on campus, and the institutions’ close cooperation with police.
Jim Waterson
LondonCentric
Lime bikes and broken legs
Waterson’s Substack newsletter uncovered a spate of broken legs caused by the heavy frames of Lime electronic bikes falling on their riders. Who was regulating this Californian company?
Abi Whistance
The Liverpool Post
Investigation into the Big Help Project
Whistance’s four-part investigation for the Liverpool Post newsletter exposed a housing charity that left residents of its homes living in dire conditions.
