Disclosure

Some commenters on the left are always going on about the important of disclosure, and go into a fury if a Richard Long column (for example) doesn’t appear with a disclaimer that he used to work for Don Brash (as indeed did I).

And I noticed yesterday The Standard also finally managed to find a column in a newspaper in favour of the Electoral Finance Bill.

It is written by Simon Cunliffe, a senior ODT journalist.

Strangely though, they did not think it necessary to mention that Mr Cunliffe was just two months ago a press secretary to a Labour Minister.

Now I don’t think this in anyway diminishes the legitimacy of Simon Cunliffe’s opinion.  He has every right to write his honest opinion of the Electoral Finance Bill.

I just thought there was a double standard for those insisting every Richard Long column mention his previous job (which now was over two years ago) and not applying the same standard to someone who had a political role much more recently.