> Shouldn't the public know that the former army general telling them that military spending needs to increase, now has the following roles?

I mean, the public can look up his current roles and the grounds for clearing him to take them on a government website if they really want to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carter-nick-chief... Or read what some of his former US counterparts said about him on Wikipedia if they're searching for stronger reasons to disagree with him...

But like most adults, I understand that former generals are not magical bastions of neutrality towards the defence sector, but people who generally have a very strong interest in the government spending on the institutions they devoted most of their lives to (Even Eisenhower spent more of the government budget on his military than any of these guys would ever ask for...). So the likelihood someone has a bias towards spending money on soldiers is very well captured by describing them as a someone who had a long and distinguished career as a soldier, without the need to mention every other tangentially related job they might have had.

So no, I don't think any of these part time roles are remotely more relevant to Gen Carter's comments the UK should spend of its budget on defence increases than the fact he's worked in defence all his life, and the comments echo similar comments he made in more peaceful times in 2018 when he didn't hold any of these positions but was Chief of Staff for UK defence. Not even some part-time consultancy for a German drone startup that doesn't have any commercial relationship with the MoD, never mind his advisory work for banks, insurers or advice on questionable interior security operations in Bahrain. You might as well ask why you saw fit not to mention Eisenhower's role at Columbia University when quoting him.

Now if he was specifically saying "the MoD should focus on autonomous systems and procure hardware from German startups" his advisory position with Helsing might actually be more relevant to his desire to see more funding for the defence sector than his most prominent roles in the defence sector, and ACOBA might even question the appropriateness of his interventions. But that's not what he said, and so we can associate his throwaway quotes with the stuff he's actually known for.