Trainee journalists reveal comments made by disgraced Tory MP David Wilshire
STUDENTS from Wimbledon made the pages of six national papers on Saturday after exposing comments which disgraced MP David Wilshire had given during a mock press conference.
Last Tuesday, October 13, the Tory MP for Spelthorne met 36 students and two tutors from NewsAssociates, a journalism training centre based in Wimbledon, as part of a trip to the Houses of Parliament.
When Mr Wilshire hit the headlines two days later, after the Telegraph exposed him as having paid £105,000 of taxpayers’ money to his own company, the students realised they had a story on their hands.
They approached various papers with some of the choice quotes from the right-wing MP.
On Saturday morning what Mr Wilshire said during the press conference appeared in the Mirror, the Mail, the Express, the Independent, the Telegraph and the Sun.
“Mr Wilshire said at the beginning of the press conference that he was speaking on the record,” said student Harriet Churchward, “I imagine he rather regrets that now.”
The MP was quizzed on several topics during the hour-long meeting including the expansion of Heathrow, the expenses scandal and the minimum wage bill.
In response to one question about the minimum wage, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, said: “I work 60 to 70 hours a week some weeks. When you look at what I earn it comes dangerously close to working out as minimum wage.”
In answer to another question on MPs expenses Mr Wilshire said: “Some of my friends have been pilloried over a packet of biscuits, or a pork pie, or a tin of dog food.
“Is it fair to drive someone perilously close to a nervous breakdown or suicide over a packet of biscuits?”
Mr Wilshire is to stand down at the next election.
Head of Journalism Training, Andy Moorhouse, said: “Our students are taught to look for the story in everything.
“That is exactly what they have done here and to great success.”
