Last night, Sky News repeatedly aired a special report on the Ukraine crisis. One of the talking heads on the programme, Edward Lucas, introduced as “Senior Fellow, Centre for European Analysis”, offered a pretty pessimistic view of the government’s response – and clearly didn’t think much of the Foreign Secretary. Here’s what Lucas said:

“Sending tanks to Estonia improves the defence of the Baltic states somewhat, although not hugely […]  but while London continues to be the money laundering haven for kleptocratic regimes in Russia and elsewhere, no one is going to take Liz Truss very seriously.”

What Sky News forgot to mention about Lucas is he’s currently running as the LibDem candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster seat at the next election. He’s also repeatedly described himself as a “life long LibDem” and a party “diehard”. Years ago, he was even a bag carrier for Paddy Ashdown.

As ever, Lucas is well within his rights to hold those views, and his columns on Putin are often on the money. Sky News is entitled to broadcast them. It is nonetheless incumbent upon broadcasters to identify his political affiliations before he waxes lyrical on government incompetence. His dim view of Liz Truss is unlikely to be entirely a product of neutral political analysis, especially given that he could be on the campaign stump against her government in a year or two…