The sad truth is that in our current political landscape lying works.
As I wrote in the Byline Times yesterday: “Whether it’s Rishi Sunak’s ‘Labour will cost you £2,000 in extra tax’ claim or Boris Johnson’s ‘£350 million for the NHS’, once the mud of deception has been slung, enough of it sticks to make it worth the fallout.
If lying didn’t work, Sunak would have corrected the record instantly. Instead, he has taken every opportunity to repeat the tax claim and stand by the lie. Every new rebuttal, whether it’s by the Office for Statistic Regulation or senior civil servants, merely creates an opportunity for the lie to be repeated again.”
So, what can be done? Quite a lot actually. We don’t need to accept deception as an inevitable part of the political landscape.
Misrepresentation is against the law in almost every other walk of life. Whether you’re buying a coffee, having an operation or filling in your tax return, the law prevents deliberate deception.
Yet somehow dishonesty has become normalised in politics, and we have accepted the biggest lie of all, that there’s nothing we can do about it.
At Compassion in Politics, we focus on solutions. We’re calling on whomever enters Number Ten to extend the law to prevent deliberate misrepresentation in politics. It would hold politicians to the same standards that the rest of us live by and help to rebuild trust in democracy.
What’s more, it would be hugely popular. Polling conducted by Opinium for Compassion in Politics just last month found that 72% of those surveyed would support the creation of an offence of deliberate deception.
So, let's get on with fixing politics. All eyes are on the next Government.
The time for action is now. Across the world we can see what happens when lies are allowed to replace the truth. AI now threatens to make the situation even worse. Let’s act before it’s too late.
With your help, we can make change happen. If you can, please support our work.
Together we can create a more honest politics.