Audrey Young: Stubborn refusal to come clean more trouble than it's Worth

The Prime Minister cited the Cabinet Manual yesterday to justify his decision not to reveal why he lost confidence in former minister Richard Worth.

The Cabinet Manual states the Prime Minister is not legally required to give grounds for dismissing a minister.

But he is also not legally required to follow the Cabinet Manual either.

It is a guideline only or, as the preface to the manual says, it "is not set in stone".

Mr Key believes that any accountability issue is about Dr Worth and that because he has resigned from public office, accountability issues are not valid.

In doing so, Mr Key ignores the accountability issues around his own statements as Prime Minister.

Under the adage that the definition of news is something someone doesn't want you to know, there were tones of an outcry in the questions sprayed at Mr Key in his post-Cabinet press conference yesterday.

Mr Key is clearly hoping that it is only nosy journalists who want to know what lay behind his request for the minister's resignation. He figures that the public find the Richard Worth saga distasteful and time-wasting. He is asking for the public to trust his private judgment - and trusting that the public won't ask too much.

His reluctance to give details of why he lost confidence were - and still are - valid in terms of not wanting to influence the outcomes of the police inquiry.

But the Prime Minister has now made it clear he does not ever plan to - and there is no modern precedent for that.

Mr Key has said many times that losing confidence in a minister is not a legal test.

He is right, but that is why he should not rely on rules in the Cabinet Manual to justify his silence about the reality of having lost confidence.