We think that pretty much anything Nicky Hager announces as a major news development — with the possible exception of his high-tech interceptions of former National Party leader Don Brash’s private correspondence — is guaranteed to be silly. But there is something a bit sad in his persistent belief that virtually any political activity other than his own is somehow illegitimate and requiring of public exposure.

Take the weird revelation that Brash’s successor, John Key, may have accepted advice from the Australian pr shop Crosby/Textor. Named for the Liberal Party's former Australian director, Lynton Crosby, and its chief pollster, Mark Textor, the company offers “comprehensive experience in market research, strategic communications and campaign execution” for political parties and business clients in Australia and abroad.

Among the company’s recent clients has been British Conservative MP and successful London mayoral aspirant, Boris Johnson, whom the Star-Times piece examples as a willing victim of the “deceptive, secretive and manipulative” service provided by the Australian company.

Since this is a media comment, not a political exposition, let’s skip Hager’s take on the London situation except to note that the Roseneath-based anti-capitalist pamphleteer is possibly unaware that Johnson, a former Spectator editor, is as gifted a journalist as he is a politician, so probably doesn't quite fit the dumb PR fall guy of Hager’s imaginings.

Nor is Johnson the same individual as John Key, and it seems — that word again — silly to extrapolate from whatever happened in the London mayoral race to the New Zealand situation.

Still, last year’s Australian federal election campaign does offer a useful test of the article’s overall judgment.

This was the same federal election, of course, in which at least one political pr outfit famously advised the ruling Coalition that it had left voters disillusioned over broken promises and dishonesty, even while Labor leader Kevin Rudd was acquiring a deserved reputation as compassionate, human, genuine and likeable. .

Excellent advice, that; honest, open and straightforward, too. Unfortunately for Hager, it also came from Crosby/Textor