How to hide something from journalists: say it in Parliament
Today’s Guardian has a big page one splash on revelations that the Prince of Wales gets formally consulted (and given the chance to veto) various pieces of legislation.
Well, I say revelations and the story is written that way – complete with references to correspondence seen by the Guardian and a freedom of information request.
Except … take a look at Hansard: each time the Prince of Wales has been consulted, it’s been reported in public to Parliament in a debate which then has its full transcript published online and free for anyone to read. (The process of consultation is also documented in public on the Cabinet Office website.)
Nor are these Parliamentary references hard to find – I found them myself by simply searching in the first place for “Prince of Wales” and “prerogative”, seeing the formal phrase used each time and then searching just for that.
The moral of the story? If you want to hide something, tell Parliament…
Re-reading the article, I’m struggling to see the problem you have with it.
It doesn’t appear to deny that the consultation has been reported back to parliament. The issue is that we don’t know the details of these consultations, and neither of the links you provide actually tell us anything about this.
So the substantive to the Guardian article is correct: it is secretive. It seems like a genuine issue to me and that, at worst, the Guardian is guilty of having an over-zealous sub-editor or two (so what else is new?).