Just When Was Jim Devine Exposed?

With the Telegraph’s exposure of MP’s expenses, it would be easy to assume that the revelations regarding Jim Devine (MP Livingston) were quite recent, possibly only coming out in the last few months.

That assumption would be wrong.

The issues with Jim Devine’s expenses were original reported by Private Eye in 2007. In 2008, the Sunday Herald picked up on these and ran a lengthy investigation into Mr Devine’s famous shelving (which, for some reason was installed in a disused pub cellar with no evidence that it had ever had any links to Mr Devine). Between that initial report and now, we have seen two Labour leaders in Westminster, two Scottish Labour leaders and the bulk of the expenses scandal.

Which begs a very simple question: why wasn’t it dealt with before now? The Labour Party did carry out an investigation in 2008, which was largely inconclusive despite the Herald’s considerable evidence. No doubt there are people in the Labour Party wondering why they didn’t quietly suggest that Mr Devine stand down “to spend more time with his family” then. Rightly so – by hushing up the matter at the time, Scottish Labour has raised questions about exactly what else it might have been hushing up regarding expenses.

This case should have been dealt with fully when it came to light in 2007. Private Eye may be a largely satirical journal, but it also contains some of the UK’s best investigative reporting, which politicians could do with reading and acting upon. Even then, the fact that one of Scotland’s most acclaimed Sunday papers spent several months gathering evidence against Mr Devine speaks volumes.

Finally, it’s worth taking a look at Jim Devine’s interview with Channel 4 News on Friday 5th.

It will be very interesting to see how this case affects Labour’s vote in Livingstone.