Integrity and meeting Jacqui Smith

I was at a lunch time event today and the guest speaker was Jacqui Smith, MP. Lots of what she said was really interesting. For example how she was misquoted in a magazine article when she had talked about the importance of professional development. I am a huge supporter of keeping skills and knowledge up to date and development myself as a person. The way she was quoted in the media was much more about how she felt that she wasn’t up to the job and via a search on the Internet I found ‘Jacqui Smith feared she was not up to being home secretary and wished she had been better trained for the role, she reveals in a magazine interview.’

Later the discussion moved on to how her husband had written letters to newspapers praising her work, and failing to mention that he was her husband and managed her constituency office.

I’d found her down to earth and interesting till this point. She didn’t see there was anything wrong with doing this, and the other panelists agreed with her, they also said that they would have done the same for their partners.

I find this incredibly unethical. All the testimonials I have on my web site are legitimate and I have the letters and emails to back them up. I’d never want anyone to question my integrity through my falsifying this.

What do you think?