...There has to be some reason this story broke when it did! It's been going on for years and years, yet it only hits the headlines now?
Because this is how long it took to pursue the Freedom of Information requests.
If the original FoI requests had resulted in the information being supplied, this would have blown up five years ago.
But it's taken this long because the case had to be pursued through the office of the information commissioner, and then through the courts. At any time in the process the government/fees office could have handed over the information. But they didn't.
As far as it being a conspiracy theory, a lot of the control over when the information came out rested with the Labour government, speaker and the fees office.
It's my understanding that the information was leaked prior to publishing in July because the information that was due to be published in July was going to be redacted, full information was not going to be published.
But because the information had been collated in order to prepare for the publishing of the redacted records in July, it meant that the information was in an easily accessible and readable format.
Before, say, two, three or four years ago, all that information wouldn't have been in an easily accessible or readable format, because there were no plans at that stage to publish the information, in fact the plan was to maintain secrecy and privacy and not to publish the information, and they went to great lengths and expense to prevent it.
It's just a matter of serendipitous timing that the information was collated in readiness for publishing, and someone took offence that the information due to be published wasn't going to be redacted.
Yes, leaking and publishing may have been politically motivated (although tbh, all parties have had skeletons in the closets), but the timing issue was due to it being the end of a five year plus process started by the investigative journalist Heather Brooke, it was because of her long-drawn out battle relating to FoI (and she's known for FoI cases), enabled other parties to capitalise on her groundwork.
Brooke did all the groundwork, other people who may or may not have had a political axe to grind have benefited from her hard work. But those third parties have only been able to do what they did at the time that they have, because of her longstanding FoI campaign.
