In Britain, it's bred into you, the idea that you can't really change anything, so why bother. When I went to school in America, it was the total opposite view - you, as an individual, can change anything and everything. It's how you're raised.
When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.
In the soil of ignorance, fear can easily be sown.
The way the Establishment deals with people like me is to ignore them. When you become unignorable, they will try to smear you, and that's what I feared for a long time. Now I have somehow vaulted into this space where it's difficult for someone to smear me because it would look as though they were being vindictive and spiteful.
When I was 26 or 27, I gave up journalism. I came to England after my mom died, to let serendipity take its course. And I just found myself back in journalism again.
When it comes to reforming MPs' expenses, the answer is simply to keep it simple: show us receipts as they're claimed and, where there are abuses, enforce the law.
