It’s been a while since my last post, and in that time, a new phenomena seems to have arisen. “Post Truth Politics”, coupled with it’s close cousin “Fake News” have come into daily use. Lying in public office is nothing new, but the last year or so has seen an apparently uncontrollable rise in its use, to the point where I feel that some penalties are now required to discourage it.

Unparliamentary Language

Now, anyone who has a reasonably functional brain knows that bears shit in the woods, the Pope is catholic, we all have to pay taxes and eventually die, and of course, that politicians lie. It’s a bizarre fact that the one thing an MP cannot accuse a fellow member of the house  of being is a liar. This attracts the most severe sanctions and is termed Unparliamentary Language. Profanity is also banned, which is a shame because most politicians fully deserve to be called fucking liars.

Brexit

In the United Kindom, the campaigns associated with the June 2016 referendum on the decision about remaining within or leaving the European Union brought this whole post-truth thing to a head. I make no secret about the fact that I voted to remain and and that side of the argument lost the vote. That is not the point of this article I am much more interested in the lies that were told during the campaigns. ON BOTH SIDES. What follows is a short list of the most obvious lies that I can remember.

Remain Lies

David Cameron stated categorically that he would not resign as PM, whatever the
outcome. However, just one day after the referendum, he did resign. Was this a lie? Yes. But in my opinion, it takes the form of one of those regular lies that politicians tell, and perhaps have to tell. To have said otherwise would have weakened his position.

Much more reprehensibly, George Osborne stated that if the referendum resulted in a “leave” vote, then he would have to impose an emergency budget immediately after.  However, Osborne did not impose such a budget, even though he remained as Chancellor of the Exchequer until 13 July, three weeks after the vote. George was in a very senior position in public service and he told this particular lie as part of Project Fear.  This was  a very clear abuse of his position and should have resulted in severe penalties. Instead, this nasty little liar commands huges sums of money providing consultancy to his friends in the city. Presumably he coaches bankers in the art of dishonesty.

Leave Lies

Michael Gove, once voted Britain’s most punchable man, repeatedly stated that he would not stand for the Tory leadership if David Cameron resigned. Yet, just seven days after the Brexit vote, he announced that he would stand. The fact that the tories rejected his candidacy to such an embarrassing extent does not detract from the fact that he was, is and always will be a lying little shit.

It does not need me to point out that Nigel Farage is a mendacious twat, but for completeness sake I will do just that. There are countless examples, but his iconic denial of the £350m per week dedicated to the NHS just hours after the result had become clear was perhaps the most stomach churning moment of the entire campaign. He was not alone. The entire Vote Leave team, including Boris Johnson had endorsed the battle bus. However, Nigel does deserve special criticism, for the Hitler-esque poster of desperate refugees fleeing a humanitarian crisis.

What a truly vile individual this is. And now, he’s cozying up to Donald Trump. Birds of a feather…

The Pointless Labour Party

The above list seems largely to feature right wing politicians. That’s mostly because Jeremy Corbyn wanted to keep as low a profile as possible during the Brexit campaign. He is anti-European, whilst most of his party, at least the parliamentary part of it is pro. Corbyn did not want to draw attention to this split, so pretended to be pro-remain but was so luke-warm in his support that it was clear what he really thought. Such cowardice is an obvious, pathetic lie. It deserves no explicit punishment, but it all adds to the overall unelectability of Corbyn’s party.

Possible Controls

I started this blog saying that maybe it’s time for penalties to discourage lying in campaigns and public office. Here are some possible thoughts on this:

• Anyone putting themselves forward as a candidate for public office must  not lie during their campaign. If they can be demonstrably shown to have knowingly lied, they should be removed from the election and barred from running for public office for a period of 5 years. “Knowingly” is the tricky bit here and it should be determined by a judicial process.
• When a party wins an election, they should keep their manifesto pledges. At present, a manifesto seems to be a marketing brochure and nobody expects the commitments to mean anything. A manifesto should be more like a legally binding contract. Just today, Philip Hammond broke a conservative manifesto pledge  not to increase National Insurance. I understand that circumstances do change and some pledges may have to be broken. However, at risk of mangling an Oscar Wilde quote, to break one pledge is unfortunate. To break two is careless. Breaking three should be unacceptable and should automatically trigger a general election.
• Anyone in public office who has clearly lied in their line of duty should be prosecuted for perjury. This would mean that George Osborne would be serving a 5 to 10 stretch at Her Magesty’s pleasure, rather than raking it in talking to wankers.

There are probably other things that could be put in place, but these simple rules would go a long way towards cleaning up politics.