In the interests of editorial freedom

I have been following the debate sparked off by The Times editorial on the results of the Irish referendum. Kenneth Wain's outraged response to it and how people reacted to that was particularly interesting.

The leitmotif of Monday's contributions on the subject in the Letters section (In Defence Of The Times) was "democracy". In that vein, but without getting into the merits of the debate itself, I'd like to point out that it would have been in the interests of our own democracy had Prof. Wain disclosed the fact that he is a director of Allied Newspapers when he launched his salvo upon the editorial policy of The Times.

This, because the editorial freedom of this newspaper is as important a feature of our democracy as any other. By assaulting its editorial so rigorously in the public forum without declaring his role in the private one, Prof. Wain left himself open to the suspicion that he will now take his reservations to the board of Allied Newspapers.

Had he declared his directorship, on the other hand, and made it clear that he was opting for open censure in preference to any other one then, as a private citizen and respected academic, it would be much harder to deny him that right.