One of the top stories this morning is that expelled Israeli diplomat, Amir Laty, has claimed his expulsion was related to a friendship he had with Caitlin Ruddock, daughter of Philip Ruddock. Based on the radio news bulletin I was expecting to write something suggesting Ruddock should resign for his own good, but going into the detail reveals no cause for that. In fact the allegation does not deserve reporting without serious qualification.

Now I am not somebody who thinks Ruddock should remain - he is somebody who was once (to all appearances) an idealist who has lost his soul to political careerism, has done a shockingly bad job as Attorney-General and who betrayed what were once his own convictions as Minister for Immigration - but honestly, an allegation by a platonic friend of his daughter that his expulsion was related to a friendship with the daughter just doesn't rate, especially when it is as speculative as this one is and comes from the mouth of the aggrieved person.

Not everything a Howard minister does is bad - indeed I have always thought that most of the time the Howard ministry has done a very good job, marred by a few very serious failures that weigh more heavily than the good - and while it is normally only the bad that is interesting to talk about, it is a bad idea to start reading bad things into everything. The latter approach is something that unsettled me a little during the election, when a lot of the people I as dealing with were trying to pick every potential issue as reasons the PM needed to go, whereas I thought there was really only a handful of serious ones.

When we make complaints about ministerial conduct, let it be about things that are worth complaining about. To pick up this one and run with it diminishes the democratic process by confusing legitimate complaint with cheap political point-scoring.