A tangled web was woven
If you’re a cynic, you might say “all politicians lie”. As a sceptic, I prefer to say “many politicians lie, all politicians can avoid the truth if it does not suit their purposes”.
Until 2016, I would have said this description fitted the Tory Party, as much as it did the other political parties in this country; but in 2016, that began to change, and when Boris Johnson was elected in 2019, the party moved very rapidly out of that descriptive category, and into a new one. Johnson removed, or simply drove out, those who fitted the normal description, because he required complete obedience to the lies at the heart of the “Vote Leave” campaign. Adherence to the Party became adherence to a set of lies.
I doubt many readers will be surprised by this truth about lying; one lie often requires another, to support it. Individuals can – and do – get away with a couple of lies without being found out, if the truth they are hiding is minor and difficult to discover. But as the lies scale up, and the truths they are attempting to disguise are more obvious, the task becomes more difficult. The truth has an inconvenient habit of asserting itself in unexpected ways. So new lies must be invented to try to maintain the illusion. A Lie Machine is required.
Lie Machines
Lie Machines have been created many times, in many places. They have been created by those at both ends of the political spectrum. From the past, for me, two stand out: Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union. But there are other candidates. To be “successful” (to last for any significant period of time), they require a degree of control of information only achievable in a dictatorship. The truth must be constantly suppressed, the new lies propagated vigorously, and the population required to subscribe to them. I have found, in my time lived in countries governed by Lie Machines; they almost always have to fall back on the use of force, and they all face the problem that people may be forced publicly to subscribe to the lies, but they cannot be forced to believe them. And there are always individuals willing to challenge and subvert, even if clandestinely. The Machine is in constant need of repair and maintenance.
A new chance for honesty rejected
Watching the contest for the Tory leadership today, the effect of the Lie Machine is evident. Candidates take on and declare their belief in policies which they publicly refuted in the past; everyone knows this. But the fact that it is known, and could and does make the candidate look weak and dishonest, is sacrificed to the need to be obedient to the Machine. It’s also difficult to keep up with the growing edifice of lies, because they cover such a wide range of issues, and they begin to contradict each other. Even if they do and most people can see it, the lies must be supported, or your career within the party is over. The Machine has become the master, daily demanding new and more outlandish lies, and adherence to them.
The Lies
- The Bus promise vs. the NHS brought to its knees.
- Controlling our borders vs. the increase in those risking their lives in the channel.
- Brexit checks on imported goods repeatedly delayed.
- Gove’s promise of higher environmental standards vs. sewage and pollution in our rivers and on our coasts.
- Minford’s model showing an 8% drop in the cost of living on day one vs. a cumulative price increase of 25.4% since 2019.
- Rees-Mogg’s prediction that food, wine and clothing costs would reduce by 20%, vs. the same.
This is barely a start; the list is very long, and still growing.
The Lie Machine is still going; it must. A German decision to process applications for asylum in Rwanda is presented as Germany taking over the Tory deportation scheme. Germany putting police on some border roads is used to predict the end of Schengen, the end of the Single Market, and so on.
Tories line up to condemn the introduction of “means testing” for winter fuel allowance which they campaigned for themselves. Jenrick talks about a day of shame over the state of the courts and prisons, cut to the point of collapse by his own government, on his watch. We have not reached the stories of immigrants stealing pets for food. Yet.
Will the deceit endure?
Having seen and studied the Lie Machine in the old communist bloc, I never imagined we would see it in this country; the only difference is the Tories never had the power to enforce national adherence to their lies through the security services, police and armed forces, thankfully.
Can you imagine how, as a Tory politician, you could now come back to truth and reality? The edifice collapsing around you; “yes, everything we told you was a lie”. They are trapped in the Lie Machine.
And Labour need to be careful that in their effort to chase the “Overton Window” for electoral purposes, they do not also become enmeshed in it.
