David Cracknell surprised many three months ago by leaving political journalism at the Sunday Times to join sleazy lobbyists LLM as chairman and also becoming an MD of Financial Dynamics.

Now he is off, saying “The valuable time spent here has opened my eyes to a number of opportunities outside the firm which it would not be possible to take up were I to continue. FD has been kind enough to release me and I am very grateful for that….” blah blah blah… Everyone is being suspiciously nice about things and smiling.

This should be a warning to the recent crop of hacks leaving journalism for the thicker pay packets of spin…