How do you tell when a Politician is about to lie / evade answering ?

[Donnywolf]

It used to be - if his lips move he is lying but now I have a new theory
If they start a reply will "Well" , "Look" or the double whammy - "Well - look" ignore the rest of their answer
Any other signs

[drfchound]

What about “the truth is.......”

[BillyStubbsTears]

Politicians have always evaded and dissembled. Not because they are born liars. Because the issues they deal with are so fraught with problems that if they were blunt and honest, we the electorate would be unable to deal with it.

We want simple yes/no answers to horrendously complex and nuanced issues. And a politician who gives a yes/no answer is opening themselves up to being shot from the other side.

So they evade, dissemble, avoid the point, give vague, deniable answers.

That's not their fault. It's our fault for not being grown up enough to hear the truth without having a strop, or using it to beat someone with later.

What has NEVER happened before very recently is the rejection of objective truth. That's the scary thing that we're experiencing now. And it is NOT all sides being equal. It's coming from a handful of people, all on the far right of British politics.

[Glyn_Wigley]

https://www.finn.agency/blogs/35-techniques-politicians-use-avaid-answering-interview-questions

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is though Glyn, some of those techniques are reasonable.

If you're asked "Who is the most honest politician in the world, Trump or Johnson?" it's perfectly ok to attack the question as invalid.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The thing that gets me about this issue is this.

The people who complain loudest about ALL politicians being liars struggle to find many if any examples of most politicians actually lying, but totally ignore the mountain of incontrovertible evidence of examples where Trump or Johnson or Farage has lied about objective truth issues.

That then metamorphosis into "He's on my side therefore he can't do anything wrong."

Consider this.

The Trump-Biden-Ukraine impeachment issue.

Trump has admitted that he talked about Boden with the Ukrainian president.

Look at this.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463948-poll-just-40-percent-of-republicans-say-trump-mentioned?amp#click=https://t.co/GcSVnjPDBO