Inconvenient Truths, Lies and Politicians
Here is one of the few articles on the general election which actually made me stop and think.
Read the full piece via the link below to The Sunday Times, but Robert Crampton is dead right if you ask me - because when it comes to taking responsibility or paying for things, too many of us believe that 'other people' should do all the heavy lifting.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-do-politicians-lie-because-voters-dont-want-the-truth-zpbdwllb2
Why do politicians lie? Because voters don’t want the truth
On the campaign trail in the north, Robert Crampton discovered great humour and patriotism but a stubborn refusal to face political realities
Boris Johnson tries to look at home among builders in BedfordANDREW PARSONS/I-IMAGES
By Robert Campton - The Times, December 6 2019, 5:00pm
Falling asleep in front of Question Time the week before last I was jolted awake by a question I’d given up writing in my notebook. “Why,” a woman in the audience asked the panel of politicians and commentators, “do you lie all the time? Wouldn’t it be better if you just told us the truth?”
Reporting from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Teesside earlier in the campaign, I’d come across this plea and its close cousins many times over. “You can’t trust any of them.” “They’re all the same.” “They’re all in it for themselves.” “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, or if you vote at all, it doesn’t make any difference.” “I don’t believe a word they say.”
And so forth. On the road, vox-popping the electorate, you soon learn that to secure any quotable opinions that express a preference for one party or another you first have to wade through and discard all of the above remarks. This doesn’t only apply in the north. My colleagues Patrick Kidd (southwest), Hugo Rifkind (Scotland) and Damian Whitworth (Midlands) tell a similar story.
Falling asleep in front of Question Time the week before last I was jolted awake by a question I’d given up writing in my notebook. “Why,” a woman in the audience asked the panel of politicians and commentators, “do you lie all the time? Wouldn’t it be better if you just told us the truth?”
Reporting from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Teesside earlier in the campaign, I’d come across this plea and its close cousins many times over. “You can’t trust any of them.” “They’re all the same.” “They’re all in it for themselves.” “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, or if you vote at all, it doesn’t make any difference.” “I don’t believe a word they say.”
And so forth. On the road, vox-popping the electorate, you soon learn that to secure any quotable opinions that express a preference for one party or another you first have to wade through and discard all of the above remarks. This doesn’t only apply in the north. My colleagues Patrick Kidd (southwest), Hugo Rifkind (Scotland) and Damian Whitworth (Midlands) tell a similar story.
