What led the British public to put a liar in Downing Street?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Anneliese Dodds gave a detailed speech a few weeks ago, where she set out pretty much exactly what Labour's economic position is. Apart from the aberation of the 2019 manifesto, it is pretty much what it has been consistently for 11 years. Aim toe balance the current books but be prepared to borrow heavily to fund capital investment.

There is absolutely nothing more important that the macroeconomic policy for a party, so I'm struggling to see why you think Labour doesn't stand for anything or is flip-flopping.

[wilts rover]

Wilts, in capitals since you keep missing it. TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC THERE WAS NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE OFFERED AT THE TIME

The viable alternative to a known and proven liar...hmm...no I'll just vote for the liar

[Ldr]

Because the ordinary man in the street doesn't think along those line. They see images like Starmer and Rayner in the office taking a knee. They see one labour MP (apologies cant remember which one) banging on about institutional racism in context of COVID deaths. Surely you must appreciate the vast majority of voters are not ethnic and possibly see Labour as against their interests.

[Ldr]

Wilts, in capitals since you keep missing it. TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC THERE WAS NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE OFFERED AT THE TIME

The viable alternative to a known and proven liar...hmm...no I'll just vote for the liar

Why are you scared of addressing the obvious. Corbyn lost that election, it was there for the taking. As a Labour campaigner take some responsibility for your part in ensuring that prat was the leader.

I regret wholeheartedly with hindsight my support for Boris

[BillyStubbsTears]

Talking of Oborne, I see he's a signatory of this letter, along with dozens of people from the media across the political spectrum.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20475592/freedom_of_information_letter.pdf

tl:dr. They are accusing the Govt of deliberately and systematically blocking release of information that they are legally obliged to do under FoI legislation. That is one of the Cummings strategies. Block the media so no-one can find out what is going on in Govt until you've done what you wanted. Very, very bad for democratic accountability.

It shows how serious this is when you've got people as far apart on the political spectrum as Alan Rusbridger and Paul Dacre signing the letter.

[Ldr]

The amount of time wasted by my department on foi requests is unbelievable

[BillyStubbsTears]

Maybe so Ldr. Nothing's perfect I guess. But a world in which investigative journalists are systematically blocked from finding out what is going on in Government is a very unhealthy place to be.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Government accountability is never a waste of time.

[Ldr]

Government accountability is never a waste of time.

I agree Glyn, trouble is we are inundated by tabloid journalists. An example (paraphrased) how many ppl did your trust see with sex toys stuck in their anus per year for the last 5 years?

[drfchound]

Ldr.

There is a perfectly viable alternative now. And 40% still say they would vote for Johnson's party. So clearly that 40% are untroubled by him being a pathological liar. Which he unquestionably is.

BST, ill refer you to my comment about not knowing what Labour stands for now, that lack of clarity isn't helping you

Starmer must have padding in his pants to stop him getting splinters.

[drfchound]

  I would like someone to let me know which PM in history they didn't think was a liar, and please don't say Blair, he was one of the worst.

Maybe some PM's did tell lies.
The difference with your dear Boris is that he's a pathological liar.
He lies about everything.
From making model buses to being a Remainer then a Brexiteer.
The bloke couldn't lay straight in bed.
He's one of those who sees which way the winds blowing and refutes everything he used to say when it blew the other way.
Reminds me of the Catholic then Protestant then Catholic again politicians depending on who was on the throne in  Elizabeth and Bloody Mary's reigns.

This.

All politicians have to some extent played fast and loose with the concept of total honesty, when put in a corner. But we have never, ever had a PM whose entire career and life show that he is a habitual and pathological liar.

He's been at it his whole life, not just the two occasions when bosses sacked him for lying.

Remember those stories about the EU banning bent bananas and prawn cocktail crisps? Or the stories about the EU insisting on a single size "Eurocoffin"? Go on. Have a guess who made those up.

And it continues to this day. Politicians dissemble to control the agenda, but until very recently, no-one ever lied about objective truth which can easily be checked. But Johnson does. Habitually. He negotiated and signed the deal with the EU that accepted that there would be a checks and controls on goods travelling between GB and NI. That document is published. Anyone can read it. Anyone who has read it knows that it explicitly talks about control checks on goods passing between GB and NI. But Johnson immediately and repeatedly insisted that there would be no checks on goods passing between GB and NI.

This is NOT normal. Politicians have never lied about stuff where the truth is objectively unambiguous and got away with it. Doing that used to be a career-ender. Johnson here, and Trump in America have now normalised that.

I'm convinced it's a psychological issue. A combination of a need to impress and a need not to be found out. I've been professionally close to someone who turned out to be a pathological liar and the damage they can do is horrific. Johnson's approach is scarily similar.

 

BST

All politicians?
Really.
Did you say that?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound.

Of course. They are human. Find me a human being who claims they've always been absolutely scrupulously honest and never dissembled and I'll show you a liar.

Joking aside, there is a world of difference between someone who is occasionally less than clear about subjective issues, and someone who habitually and constantly lies about objective truths.

I will repeat: ALL politicians and ALL people do the former. Until recently, the latter used to be a political career ender. But now, lying about objective truth is entirely normalised and your approach is to shrug and say, "Well they ALL do it."

Anyway, on this subject, Johnson has announced that people can be jailed for 10 years for telling a lie on an issue of objective truth.

https://mobile.twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1359413000273289221

Insert your own punchline.

[wilts rover]

In this weeks PMQ's Johnson said Bridgend would become a great centre of battery manufacturing.

Which is news to the people of Bridgend who were shocked last December when they learnt that the battery plant they believed was coming there was announced to be built in Blyth.

Did he lie, did he mispeak, or does he just not know what he is talking about?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56012151