Following yesterday's editorial in The Press the increasingly embarrassing Glenn corruption affair is the subject of the editorial in today's Dominion Post.
But there is something very wrong about a party which has changed the law, supposedly to promote greater transparency and reduce the influence of what its deputy leader calls "rich pricks", soliciting assistance from those same individuals and then denying it has received any assistance.
Politically, Mr Glenn is now an embarrassment to Labour. His interest in being appointed honorary consul to Monaco and his "jest" that Miss Clark offered him a Cabinet post have become the subject of parliamentary scrutiny and his reason for making the original $500,000 donation - to counter the Exclusive Brethren's "sneaky" campaign against the party - does not accord with the facts. The donation was made months before the Brethren campaign began.
But giving $7.5 million to the University of Auckland's new business school and supporting it with scholarships worth $600,000 a year is as good a reason as most for making someone an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Thanks to Mr Williams' evasiveness, however, the honour will always be clouded by the suspicion that it was awarded for services to the Labour Party rather than to business and the community.
