The victims of FOI
It's been a day of changing and conflicting briefing on what MPs will do immediately after the Easter break about revealing expenses details, as charted by Sam Coates of the Times.
That's with regard to the Information Tribunal decision on disclosing the full extent of MPs' spending on their second homes.
There's also the unresolved question of how the Commons will respond to the Information Commissioner's ruling about revealing more details of all the expenditure they claim for.
'Freedom of Information can be inconvenient, at times frustrating and indeed embarrassing for governments'. That's the view of Gordon Brown.
However, while the government may have found FOI frustrating and inconvenient, I would say that so far it has caused them little in the way of substantial embarrassment. It looks much more as if it's certain MPs who are going to face the true embarrassment.
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The latest development would seem to be that the House of Commons authorities are appealing the decision saying, among other things that "The release of their home addresses could "inhibit democratic debate" on a range of sensitive issues".
The home address point seems a bit of a dead end though. MPs have to declare their home address on the nomination paper when standing for election. Even if that wasn't done if someone has a malicious intent it would be relatively easy to find it out through publicly avaiable sources.
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