The Daily Telegraph's expose of MPs' expenses, which dominated the news agenda for more than six weeks, made history by leading to the resignation of the Speaker and several Cabinet ministers, as well as taking Gordon Brown to the very brink of losing his grip on power. It is a story which began in the unlikely setting of a Chilean vineyard, when Robert Winnett, the paper's deputy political editor, first learnt from Gordon Brown's soon-to-be-disgraced aide Damian McBride, that a disc containing details of every MP's expense claims had gone missing. Winnett was destined to become the reporter who would secure the disc and its contents for his newspaper, landing what has been described by some commentators as "the political scoop of the century".Yet it was only after several other newspapers had been approached, that John Wick, a former SAS Major turned whistleblower, made contact with the Daily Telegraph to offer the explosive material.
