George Greenwood
@GeorgeGreenwood
Followers
8,787
Following
9,670
Media
813
Statuses
9,836
"Ever active" investigations reporter at The Times. Lobbyist for big transparency. george.greenwood @thetimes .co.uk or DM for Signal
London, England
Joined May 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Real Madrid
• 984948 Tweets
Champions
• 690737 Tweets
Dortmund
• 306917 Tweets
Joselu
• 287879 Tweets
مدريد
• 197095 Tweets
Bernabeu
• 182388 Tweets
Neuer
• 161450 Tweets
Wembley
• 142747 Tweets
Vini
• 126299 Tweets
#APorLa15
• 125703 Tweets
Borussia
• 124097 Tweets
Tuchel
• 121239 Tweets
Ancelotti
• 81513 Tweets
Davies
• 80719 Tweets
#RMAFCB
• 78901 Tweets
Harry Kane
• 71905 Tweets
#XMen97
• 65267 Tweets
Nacho
• 59163 Tweets
Steve Albini
• 56598 Tweets
Rodrygo
• 55955 Tweets
De Ligt
• 55575 Tweets
#دوري_ابطال_اوروبا
• 53558 Tweets
الريال
• 50126 Tweets
Sane
• 49871 Tweets
Kimmich
• 45204 Tweets
نوير
• 34519 Tweets
#RMABAY
• 31923 Tweets
Marciniak
• 26006 Tweets
Rudiger
• 22957 Tweets
#Number_i_ビアボールでカンパイ
• 21373 Tweets
#UnaNessunaCentomila
• 18829 Tweets
Muller
• 18308 Tweets
توخيل
• 16779 Tweets
ビアボーーー
• 13516 Tweets
انشيلوتي
• 13339 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
The Ministry of Defence has raised “significant national security concerns” about Russia-linked Tory donor Alexander Temerko’s plan to build a £1.2 billion power link between England and France through his company Aquind.
2
15
19
Does anyone know why a significant volume of carrots has just been dumped on Goldsmiths university campus?
3K
6K
59K
A Conservative MP who is paid £200 an hour by the betting industry has used questions in parliament to warn ministers not to introduce tough new laws on gambling.
119
2K
3K
We have live footage, but still no explanation...
Back in London for just a few hours, watching an articulated lorry tip 3 tonnes of carrots outside an art gallery because Goldsmiths
66
144
732
83
118
2K
The Conservative MP Scott Benton lobbied a minister on behalf of the gambling industry to object to several candidates for the position of chairman of the gambling regulator, documents obtained by The Times under FOI reveals.
74
740
1K
Randox, the diagnostics company that paid Owen Paterson as a lobbyist, won a £133 million Covid-19 testing contract days before government officials concluded it did not have enough equipment,
#FOI
disclosures show.
@Gabriel_Pogrund
and me in todays ST.
29
686
1K
The government is using YOUR money to try to block YOUR right to know what it's up to and how it spends your taxes.
It spent £13,000 trying to block an
#FOI
of mine in the courts before realising they didn't hold the information in the first place...
17
389
734
The Department for Health was ordered to release a report about what it got wrong during the pandemic by the government's own transparency watchdog.
Instead of releasing it, it is spending taxpayer cash on a legal bid to try to keep the report a secret.
23
647
725
My dad has just described my parents new car as being “too woke” because it warns you of upcoming obstacles…
23
31
675
Prince Andrew has gone into business with a former Coutts banker who quit in disgrace over allegations of sexual harassment, using a company structure which allows the firm to avoid filing accounts.
@ManuMidolo
and me on
@TheTimes
p1 tomorrow.
Tuesday’s TIMES: “Johnson ‘said he would let Covid rip’ in lockdown row”
#TomorrowsPapersToday
58
347
404
54
340
624
Ten Tory politicians helped firms to secure £1.6bn in PPE contracts, leaks reveal.
The Cabinet Office has been blocking my
#FOI
for emails between Gove and his personal donor David Meller, who received £164m in non-compete contracts, since March.
21
340
618
I’m delighted to say that I’ll be joining The Times investigations team as investigations reporter.
I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck in to the job in the new year.
If there are things you think should be public knowledge please do get in touch!
90
22
582
Apparently an investigative reporter at the paper of record asking for correspondence related to the biggest public interest story currently going is a vexatious fishing exercise...
42
198
562
Lawyers hired by chancellor Nadhim Zahawi have sent “threatening” legal letters to a blogger who accused him of lying about his tax affairs.
The letter asked
@DanNeidle
to withdraw the allegation that day and suggested he seek advice from a libel lawyer.
35
317
535
MPs paid by the gambling industry include:
-Laurence Robertson MP paid £24,000 a year by the Betting and Gaming Council.
-Philip Davies MP paid £16,660 advising Entain, which owns Ladbrokes.
-Rob Butler MP paid £68,640 a year providing media training to lottery firm Camelot.
25
227
470
The Ministry of Justice has been tracking journalists who make information requests.
Emails disclosed after I put in a SAR show Dominic Raab’s office asking for lists of the requests I was making.
27
279
463
The Cabinet Office has spent at least £300,000 in taxpayer cash taking the government’s own transparency commissioner to court in an attempt to block orders to release information under
#FOI
records released for such 13 recent cases show.
15
306
443
Devon local journalism keeping it real...
Meet the Devon woman whose knees look like Grant & Phil Mitchell
25
101
434
Police have been accused of failing the victims of grooming gangs after an investigation found the force at the centre of the Rotherham scandal was still not recording the ethnicities of suspected child abusers.
My investigation in today's Times.
45
205
371
Prince Michael of Kent’s private office lobbied a senior Foreign Office official to help obtain a fast-track UK visa for a Russian financier closely linked to sanctioned oligarch Boris Rotenberg,The Times can reveal.
33
253
411
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen faces a Commons suspension after being found to have displayed a “cavalier” attitude to the rules in a series of lobbying breaches.
I found he had accepted a £5,000 donation from a timber firm months after lobbying for them.
37
238
408
Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton used a meeting with Britain’s Saudi ambassador to win access to Foreign Office commercial staff for the disgraced Australian financier Lex Greensill, emails show.
12
316
410
Andrew Bridgen has now declared millions of pounds in loans he received from the Reclaim party's main backer, which Bridgen had previously not disclosed to parliamentary authorities, following my reporting from November.
14
219
382
Given tonight's
#Panorama
#FinCENFiles
revelations, it is worth remembering that two Tory members of the Intelligence and Security Committee and a total of 14 ministers have taken Russian-linked donations...
19
292
354
Kwarteng on Marr: "I've never commented on this specific project (Aquind), I've said very broadly I'm very much in favour of more interconnectors."
Kwarteng letter to Alexander Temerko: "Please be assured that our support for the project remains"
25
210
332
Getting in the Halloween mood with something that has been a nightmare for the dodgy and the inept since 2005...
11
26
323
Looks like someone who shouldn't still has access to the Labour press account. Tweet now deleted.
#Panorama
16
163
296
We can also reveal that Benton, who had the whip suspended after offering to lobby for undercover reporters posing as gambling industry investors, has asked 34 written questions about gambling since 2020 having received £8,500 in freebies for the sector.
7
125
306
Journalists who are facing aggressive responses from government departments. Do consider filing a subject access request, or
#FOI
for all the discussions around their decision making process on their response. It’s worth digging into why they are taking this approach.
5
82
288
Teesside mayor Ben Houchen spent taxpayer cash on legal advice from libel lawyers Carter Ruck over criticism from a Labour MP and Private Eye
12
186
284
Taxpayers were forced to pay a £62,500 bill to a top PR firm in a failed attempt to install Liam Fox as head of the World Trade Organisation after allegedly squabbling ministers nearly missed the deadline.
10
205
266
Read our exclusive investigation into the links between the PM’s former top aide and a £187m loan that benefitted the company he was advising in tomorrow’s edition of
@thesundaytimes
13
100
241
In another high-profile case it spent nearly £40,000 trying to prevent the release of information about its secretive “clearing house” to
@openDemocracy
.
3
112
229
In another victory for applicant blindness, DHSC officals referred to me in internal correspondence as a "serial requestor across the whole of government" when deciding how to respond to one of my requests.
6
51
226
Loans meant to support desperate businesses through the pandemic were misused to fund gambling sprees, home improvements, cars, watches and garden refurbishments, a Times investigation has established.
18
155
222
One of the firms that got millions of pounds of PPE contracts after being referred to the VIP lane was a firm co-owned by Michael Gove donor David Meller, as revealed as part of the Good Law Project's litigation.
12
191
212
Can anyone beat this as an FOI delay example?
I was 25 when I put this request in to the Ministry of Defence...
16
40
221
Great story from the BBC, totting up how many fines have not been issued to overseas property owning firms who have not declared who their beneficiaries are.
5
114
206
Tories refuse to answer questions about what due diligence they did on £100,000s in donations from a firm owned by a Russian-born tycoon, or whether they were aware he owned the company when they accepted them. Me and
@ManuMidolo
for today's Times.
10
134
197
Ten years after Rotherham, police and social services have been accused of failing thousands of girls as young as 11 who have been reported missing repeatedly while at risk of sexual abuse.
Me
@pmorganbentley
and
@Fhamiltontimes
in today's
@TheTimes
12
140
185
Benton wrote in 2021 to the gambling minister, to express “extreme worry and anxiety of the whole gambling industry” about three of four rumoured candidates for Gambling Commission chair.
The candidate he didn’t object to, ex-Deloitte board member Marcus Boyle, was appointed.
1
51
199
In the letter, Benton suggests the concept of affordability in gambling is “woke”.
12
62
189
Here's the letter Benton wrote to John Whittingdale. He didn't respond to a Times request for comment.
8
65
188
In the past three years he has asked questions pushing for tax breaks for the sector, advocating cashless betting and asking whether the government had conducted a full scientific assessment to support closing betting shops as part of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
2
35
185
I'm delighted to be a winner in the News and Investigations category for the 2023 30 To Watch: Journalism Awards!
24
9
183
I’m delighted to say I’ll be joining
@TheTimes
and
@TheSundayTimes
data team from September. I’ll be working to break data-lead investigations across the papers, as well as no doubt continuing to harass the country’s
#FOI
officers.
37
6
183
It's nice to see how succinctly the Attorney General's Office has managed to sum up my journalistic career...
Also nice to see how effectively they're upholding applicant blind principle of FOIA!
7
38
183
Separately, at least £100 million of taxpayer-backed Covid loans went to companies formed after the start of the pandemic, raising questions about whether the money went to businesses it was designed to help.
14
131
162
David Cameron’s employer secured a £123 million genetic sequencing contract after the former prime minister lobbied Matt Hancock to attend a genomics summit.
My investigation with
@georgegrylls
on p1 of tomorrow's
@TheTimes
Wednesday's Times: "Call for urgent A-levels overhaul as grades soar"
#BBCPapers
#TomorrowsPapersToday
29
17
47
9
74
145
Interesting little nugget in an ICO decision notice in the context of auto-deleting messages in government.
Prime Ministers Office email accounts automatically delete staff emails three months after being received.
What is the logic of deleting emails that quickly?
20
65
142
Nadhim Zahawi has been accused of giving a misleading explanation of his tax affairs amid allegations that he may have avoided millions in tax by using an offshore family trust.
@billykenber
, me and
@marioledwith
in today's paper.
14
79
138
Boris Johnson is having to let his £1.2 million south London townhouse as he reportedly finds himself short of cash. He took out a buy to let mortgage on it in August.
He also got a buy to let mortgage for his Oxfordshire property in January last year.
38
123
133
The Times has confirmed that at least two engineering experts who previously worked on HS2 have written to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to raise their concerns about mismanagement of public funds.
2
74
129
This document showed officers routinely failed to log the ethnicity of those suspected of sexually abusing minors, with the highest failure rate being in the Rotherham district itself where in 67% of cases it went unrecorded.
2
50
111
I got hold of some of the internal Met comms about the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil, in which the force was widely criticised for its heavy handed approach including the handcuffing of
@PatsyeStevenson
immortalised in the famous photo.
8
63
127
South Yorkshire police blocked the release of their internal intelligence document that set out serious failings in how it handled child sexual offences for 14 months, that I first requested in August 2020. It took two separate regulatory complaints to force disclosure.
3
32
114
Low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) are being introduced in wealthier streets at the expense of poorer neighbouring roads, directing more traffic their way, according to an analysis by The Times. Me and
@andrewellson
in today's paper.
47
68
123
Robert Jenrick watched a promotional video for a £1bn housing development on media mogul Richard Desmond’s personal mobile phone weeks before overruling his officials and approving the scheme. Story by
@Gabriel_Pogrund
@ManuMidolo
@TomCalver2
and me.
7
99
125
This is completely untrue
@TfL
. FOI law has not changed during the pandemic, and you are obligated to provide a response under the act.
@BecMajor
@TfLAccess
@ICOnews
1/2 - Hi Rebecca, thanks for getting in touch. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic we are not able to answer Freedom of Information (FOI) requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present. I have passed on your feedback regarding the Equality Impact
10
3
0
5
12
125
This is despite race being a key issue in the original scandal, with the Jay review finding some child protection professionals were reluctant to address the hidden crime pattern “for fear of being thought racist”.
2
22
105
A Malawian-born arms dealer who is accused of defrauding one of the world’s poorest countries has told The Times British police investigating him over corruption allegations should “bring it on”.
18
92
120
Conservative Party special advisers are being allowed to vet the release of documents under
#FOI
, potentially allowing them to act as “gatekeepers” for politically embarrassing disclosures, Whitehall guidance documents show.
2
117
120
Prize for worst constituency name ever? Reply with other howlers.
13
52
112
I've been given a copy of DHSC's internal FOI training tangentially to one of my requests. Some of it's quite entertaining. Advice to civil servants in this slide is quite blunt:
"Think - Do I want the Daily Mail seeing this?"
3
30
109
I'm delighted to have been shortlisted at the British Journalism Awards alongside
@jameshurley
in the Business, Finance and Economics category for our work on misuse of research and development tax credits.
#BJA2023
7
2
108
After a two year
#FOI
battle, I've been released a copy of the official briefing Tony Blair got on his first day in No 10.
This included gems such as "Mrs Blair may spend more on clothing".
7
64
107
My parents got me a copy of
@thetimes
from the day of my birth in 1993 for Christmas, which is very cool. Some current colleagues feature, just to make them feel extra old this Christmas...
5
3
105
Ten women have been shot dead by partners allowed by police to hold gun licences despite allegations of domestic abuse or severe mental health problems in the last nine years, a Times investigation shows.
With
@Effy_Yeomans
4
59
101
An
#FOI
officer from a central government depart just made a cross with their fingers when they saw me at an event and said to "stay away from us". Glad to see my reputation precedes me!
11
3
104
The Oxfordshire property does not appear on his register of interests which raises a few questions. MPs don't have to declare property they use "wholly for their own personal residential purposes". But normally, buy to let mortgages can't be taken out on these kinds of homes.
3
40
95
This was for correspondence of one member of staff for a two week period on a single topic.
4
11
97
This was in relation to a request to which took 7 months longer than it should, requiring an
@ICOnews
appeal.
DHSC eventually released emails (but not WhatsApps) showing ex minister Steve Brine lobbied Matt Hancock on behalf of a firm that had paid him.
6
53
95
Our investigation with
@FinUncovered
and
@OCCRP
has uncovered a global web of businesses, banks and tax havens used by international crime gangs and fraudsters was created by a family-owned company in Britain.
#29Leaks
2
81
90
The bid could cost the public up to £130,000, based on the previous costs of these actions. The move has sparked cross party outrage.
Tory MP William Wragg, chairman of PACAC committee said: “Put simply, this report should be released.”
1
21
97
Jay advised that "agencies should acknowledge the suspected model of localised grooming of young
white girls by men of Pakistani heritage, instead of being inhibited by the fear of affecting community relations."
1
27
83
A large Covid-19 testing provider is being investigated by the UK’s data privacy watchdog over its plans to sell swabs containing customers’ DNA for medical research.
@shanti_das
and me in today's Sunday Times
9
81
92
The Cabinet Office has ruled that my
#FOI
request asking for emails relating to their decisions to deem my requests as vexatious and refuse to respond, as itself vexatious and have declined to respond on the grounds that this is “improper use of a formal procedure".
10
20
92
I have come to the conclusion that the freedom of information act truly is a malign piece of legislation that should be scrapped as an unnecessary hindrance on government.
14
5
91
Dear Cabinet Office FOI team…
💥The reference here to a “document with clear terms to which you agreed” suggests Braverman has this deal on paper and can prove that the PM did a deal and didn’t deliver on promises he committed to in black and white 💥
498
742
3K
1
17
89
Independent review into shortcomings at Ben Houchen’s flagship investment project Teesworks specifically calls out FOI compliance as a major issue.
3
58
90
Cast your minds back a couple of months to LDR gate. Bristol City Council was criticised for questioning whether a local democracy reporter was supposed to be asking questions of mayor Marvin Rees at a regular press conference.
4
56
88
A Whitehall whistleblower has told The Sunday Times that the housing secretary rubber-stamped the £1 billion Westferry project even though officials “begged him” not to do so. Story by
@Gabriel_Pogrund
@ManuMidolo
and me.
3
84
88
Two Conservative MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee, and 14 ministers have received donations linked to Russia, directly, or given to their constituency parties. Me,
@ManuMidolo
@TimesONeill
and
@LOS_Fisher
for
@thetimes
3
97
87
I'm delighted to have been nominated for New Journalist of the year!
13
1
88
David Meller, a personal donor to Michael Gove, complained to Gove's ministerial office that he had received no response to offers to provide PPE in March 2020, FOIs show.
Meller's firm later received contracts worth £164 million without competition.
4
72
85
Boris Johnson’s chief adviser has been accused of a possible conflict of interest over payments of nearly half a million pounds he received from a luxury property developer, whilst chair of Homes England. Me,
@ManuMidolo
and
@LOS_Fisher
for
@thetimes
6
93
82
Entertainingly, the Cabinet Office has deemed my attempt to find out why they are rejecting meta
#FOI
requests as "vexatious".
Meta requests are routine, used by requestors to check an authority handled their request correctly by obtaining records on how they were dealt with.
6
21
82
The Oxfordshire property has now been let, and we understand Boris has informed the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards of this. But we've asked the Commissioner to take a look at whether the property should have been declared earlier.
1
23
81
Complaints from peers about House of Lords catering are hilarious
One peer grumbled: “There are only so many smoked salmon or prawn and crayfish salads one can take week after week.
“Both the Chardonnay and the Sauvignon Blanc are really poor quality... Can something be done?”
4
33
84
British universities have accepted £240 million from Chinese institutions, many linked to the military, amid fears their joint research could help Beijing to build superweapons, a Times investigation has found.
With
@Fhamiltontimes
and
@CharlieHParker
12
60
77
The government is taking its own transparency regulator to court at the taxpayers’ expense to try to block the release of messages between Matt Hancock and his adviser and lover Gina Coladangelo, after the ICO ordered some of them to be released.
6
62
81
The FCA has moved its FOI team into its press division.
As campaigners point out this creates a fundamental conflict of interest within the agency.
Increased internal pressure to circumvent inconvenient disclosure would clearly harm the public interest.
5
54
83
The husband of health minister Gillian Keegan works for a firm that got £35.2m in MoD contracts while he was also serving as an MoD procurement adviser.
The Times has now identified 51 contacts issued to Centerprise International since he took the role.
5
70
81
The state of the environment in England in now getting worse. A stark comment from the Environment Agency chair to Defra secretary George Eustice in a letter released to me under
#FOI
. EA chair Emma Howard Boyd blames 50% cuts to her enforcement budget.
3
64
77