An interesting aspect of the whole Boris Johnson persona thing is the obvious contradiction it throws up.
It is a documented fact that the electorate has become increasingly disillusioned with politicians in recent decades. The single greatest criticism appears to be that politicians lie extensively.
Now Johnson is infamous for being a renowned liar, even by the standards of the political classes. Remarkably he has even been sacked from the Tory front bench for being a liar. Only a spectacular liar could be sacked from his job by a fellow politician from his own party for being a liar.
And yet despite all that Johnson appears to be one of the most popular politician with the electorate, how can that be possible? It completely contradicts what the public claim they want from a politician.
I guess the truth lies in the fact that his popularity in solely based on his appearance in TV programmes such as HIGNFY and the 'amusing' way he walks around with unkempt hair. He has never been exposed to any meaningful scrutiny.
Which is why I believe that if he does ever become leader of the Conservatives the intensive scrutiny he will undoubtedly be exposed to will destroy him. His past will come back to haunt him, his lies, his reckless vanity follies such as the Garden Bridge and the disastrous routmaster buses, his inability to provide any coherent political arguments, and his complete lack of idealogical commitment to anything. Ruffling up the hair and chuckling in an endearing way won't be enough.
In reality Boris Johnson isn't really a politician. He is just an attention-seeking clown who has simply used politics to satisfy his huge ego, provide the intense limelight that he undoubtedly craves, and also huge financial rewards.
I personally welcome his prosecution. Not because I dislike him, but because it is long overdue that politicians are held for account of their lies. I don't think it will turn him into a "martyr", most people recognise that the courts and judiciary are not institutionally anti-Tory. I have no doubt that the prosecution will only be successful if it is proven that Johnson did indeed lie and is guilty of an abuse of the public’s trust.
I have always believed that if your politics don't reflect the truth you should change your politics, not the truth.
Nice try, you do realise of course that Guido Fawkes is also known as Paul Staines.
Why is this relevant?
I guess the truth lies in the fact that his popularity in solely based on his appearance in TV programmes such as HIGNFY and the ‘amusing’ way he walks around with unkempt hair. He has never been exposed to any meaningful scrutiny.
This. He was on the last leg years ago, hair was perfectly fine then, seconds before going live, he scruffed up his hair. Utter charlatan, couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.
it may be my recollection being wrong but isn't part of it that the £350M bus fact was pretty well rebuffed by 'experts' (ah, problem spotted) but rather than correct the information or issue a retraction, he/they continued to spout it ad infinitum
in her written ruling, District Judge Margot Coleman said: "The applicant's case is there is ample evidence that the proposed defendant knew that the statements were false."
He's up on three counts, including during the period of the GE 2017 when he continued to use the 'fact'
All politicians lie, it's in the JD.....it's the continuation even when found out. Even the bloke that made up stats on the spot about the 80% level of support for Teresa's deal backtracked on that......who was he again?
he/they continued to spout it ad infinitum
A big part of the problem for the remain argument (and the court case is another example) is *we* kept spouting it ad infinitum every time there was a debate, there we went blah blah 350mil to the EU every week blah blah. Yes we decried it as false time and again but we kept bringing the sodding thing up, and all BJ and the rest had to do was grin, point to leave, thank you.
And low behold 3 years down the line and 350mil is in the bloody news again. And what will a huge number of people take away from that? "Bloody hell 350 million is a lot of money, you could build 2 hospitals for that*" if we're very very lucky maybe they'll think "Bloody hell 250 million is a lot of money you could build a hospital for that*"
*of course you can't heat them, staff them, feed the patients etc.
Elected politicians are allowed to lie and the public will just have to suck it up. Ask Alistair Carmichael.
Elected politicians are allowed to lie
Pretty much this although there are specific circumstances where they're not, but they don't seem to apply in this case:
(Ignore the political stuff, if you wish, the legal aspects are discussed sensibly AFAICT.)
Equally..... is there not a case to say that they shouldn't lie, that we've had enough, and much like a referee saying 'right....next one that steps out of line goes in the book' .... Boris is the one that an example gets made of. Tough on Boris - maybe but I won't honestly shed a tear whoever it is.
Politics has the chance to change, the 2 party system, coalitions vs outright rule, why not really change it starting now?
why not really change it starting now?
I think the reason that no true democracy in the world makes it an offence for Politicians to lie (except in specific circumstances) is that if you do that you'd be allowing the police and courts to be sole arbiters of what politicians say. That's fine until Roland Freisler is the judge and Heinrich Himmler is head of the Police.
We'll all just have to keep listening to More Or Less and googleing facts the Politicans state.
We’re told it’s the cost of participating in the free market
No, it's our contribution to the cost of running the stuff that all EU countries use, including us (formerly). Regulatory bodies, EU civil service and all the rest of it.
Japan &co don't pay into the budget but they also have to spend on all their own regulatory bodies and can't share any of the EU's. This stuff really is not that difficult to understand. You pay your club subs to get the benefits and facilities.
If Bojo loses this landmark court case and any subsequent appeals I don't think he can appeal to the European Court of Justice,which coincidentally has a budget of £350million per year.An appeal to the European Court of Human Rights might be an option though.
Is anyone here surprised that a Brexiteer is having a problem with the definition of the truth?
I’m fing not.
This is for the good of politics & you can’t see past your own narrow take on the World then you’re no more than a **** oxygen thief.
+1 with ernie. Boris is fing despicable & needs to be held to account.
most people recognise that the courts and judiciary are not institutionally anti-Tory
Remember the Daily Mail "ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE" headline from not all that long ago, with a photo a half a dozen judges who had the audacity to rule that parliament was sovereign?
That’s fine until Roland Freisler is the judge and Heinrich Himmler is head of the Police
+1. As much as I want to go to Boris's sentencing for the comedy value - this probably sets a dangerous precedent.
Looking forward to the courts being full of politicians up on "misleading" charges ...
"WMDs in 40 minutes" didn't get Tony time ... and that was a huge porky ...
Yes I remember the Daily Mail headline Cougar, and to be fair it's a good point. But I'm still not convinced that most people think the courts and judiciary are institutionally anti-Tory. Any more than I'm convinced that Daily Mail headline writers speak on behalf of most people. Or even believe what they say.
As much as I want to go to Boris’s sentencing for the comedy value – this probably sets a dangerous precedent
The problem about lying is that the more people get away with it the more they do it, it's one of life's lessons.
I personally believe that it is long overdue that politicians be held accountable for their lies. If this prosecution is successful it could result in cleaner and fairer politics.
Remember politicians at the present can't tell straight forward lies about their opponents, there is no reason why this can't be extended to facts and figures. And also remember that we're not talking about small inconsequential lies here, we're talking about major disinformation and abuse of the public's trust.
Where do you draw the line? Or wouldn't you - would you be happy to let politicians lie about unemployment figures, or homelessness, or security threats, etc ?
why isn't it Blowjo as he does suck the proverbial ? :/
I personally believe that it is long overdue that politicians be held accountable for their lies. If this prosecution is successful it could result in cleaner and fairer politics
Until the far right Infiltrate the judiciary. It's not like they haven't already with the police. As much as they do a valuable and dangerous job, do you seriously trust coppers to moderate politics?
But I’m still not convinced that most people think the courts and judiciary are institutionally anti-Tory.
If anything probably the opposite, but most actual tories think as little of Boris as we do but recognise his voter appeal so put up with him to a greater or lesser degree.
Putting him in the dock isn't anti tory, won't be seen as anti tory or anything of the sort, the people Boris apeals to are disenfranchised voters, "your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. [s] Send these [/s] , the[politically] homeless" who somehow identify with the rich, privately educated self serving snake oil salesman as a representative of the common man. It's the same with trump, the people who most identify with him are the ones he screws over most and represents the least, and by and large they do think the judiciary is anti poor hardworking folk who struggle to get by day to day and at best thinks of them as a number.
Yes I remember the Daily Mail headline Cougar, and to be fair it’s a good point. But I’m still not convinced that most people think the courts and judiciary are institutionally anti-Tory.
My point was more that I've long since given up any hope in putting any trust into what people think. We're in the middle of a propaganda war, you only have to look at the EU thread to see how effective this has been in certain quarters. We're in a time where "people" believe that a vote is undemocratic and think that 80% of voters voted for brexit in the Locals. Hanging your hat onto what people "think" is a very risky prospect indeed.
do you seriously trust coppers to moderate politics?
Not really, but not because I trust the courts any more.
We are not talking about "moderating" politics. We are talking about politicians being held legally accountable for abuse of public trust. We talking about politicians deliberately lying (allegedly) and misusing official statistics.
If government ministers are legally entitled to lie how much faith can you have in the Freedom of Information Act?
It's obvious that the line has to be drawn somewhere, the question is where? In this particular case the courts will be deciding. They will decide whether it amounts to the abuse of the public's trust. And quite right too.
BTW I have no idea how you think the far right will infiltrate the judiciary. If that becomes a problem then it will have to be tackled. In the meantime don't look for solutions to problems that don't exist and are unlikely to exist in the near future.
* edited because the paragraphs somehow got mixed up.
We are not talking about “moderating” politics. We are talking about politicians being held legally accountable for abuse of public trust. We talking about politicians deliberately lying (allegedly) and misusing official statistics.
Yes we are, because we would be asking the police, the cps and the judiciary to decide what is and isn't a lie and what is a misuse of an official statistic. Misuse is a very broad term.
The only way to deal with is is to counter lies through public discourse or disenfranchise those that are not capable of critically appraising what they are told.
BTW I have no idea how you think the far right will infiltrate the judiciary. If that becomes a problem then it will have to be tackled. In the meantime don’t look for solutions to problems that don’t exist and are unlikely to exist in the near future
In the same way it has happened in the past and is currently happening elsewhere in the world. In the same way that the police have had/potentially still have issues with it.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/rise-of-the-far-right-is-a-global-security-threat.html
'On Tuesday, the New York Times published a disturbing story on what the Freedom Party has been up to since then. Shortly after the party came to power, the Interior Ministry asked the anti-extremism unit of the domestic intelligence service to hand over the names of informants who had infiltrated the far-right community; the leader of that unit refused, and a few weeks later, “armed police burst into her office and carted away years’ worth of domestic files as well as intelligence from allied nations."
Now you're just being silly womble, it's nothing like Austria here.
It's not as if people in this country would turn out in any number to vote for a single issue xenophobic right wing party in an election such that they become the main party is it? I mean just look at the recent European elections, oh hang on.
Well the euro elections are silly anyway, no one cares about them and given we're leaving is just a protest exercise. At least in a real GE the two main parties would have a majority and never side with a reprehensible right leaning homophobic mysogynistic by bunch of nationalists just to get their arses around the top table would they? Oh, it seems they did.
oops
In the same way it has happened in the past and is currently happening elsewhere in the world.
I'm not aware that it has ever happened in the past. When did the far-right infiltrate the judiciary in the Uk? The 'elsewhere in the world' example you give is Austria. In that situation the Interior Minister was a member of the Austrian Freedom Party, whose first leader was a former Nazi minister and SS officer.
When here in the UK we have a Home Secretary who is a member of the BNP or EDL I will worry about infiltration of the judiciary by the far-right. In the meantime don’t look for solutions to problems that don’t exist and are unlikely to exist in the near future.
Anyway getting back to Johnson's alleged lies I guess the reality is that the private prosecution will almost certainly fail. If an attempt to prosecute Tony Blair for telling a bunch of lies to the British people to justify starting a war in which tens, if not hundreds, of thousands died failed, then what hope for a figure written on the side of a bus?
Still, nevertheless I welcome it and hopefully the fact that it's gone much further than would normally be expected will make politicians think twice about causally misusing official statistics.
I'm reminded of a situation many many years ago when some local authority councillors were hauled before the courts for allegedly overspending. I can't remember the precise details but it was at the time when the Tory government were at war with Labour local authorities over spending. I don't think it was Liverpool or Lambeth though, the famous two.
The Labour councillors defence lay heavily on the claim that they were obliged to carry out the policies as they had been election commitments and they had a clear mandate for the people, and that to do otherwise would betray the trust placed upon by the electorate. The judge rejected that defence claiming that the "public expected politicians not to carry out their promises".
Now whatever the rights and wrongs of that particular case what the judge was clearly doing was to legitimise politicians right to lie to the general public, which quite frankly was appalling. It would obviously be hugely beneficial if we were now to see a different attitude prevail.
Sorry server error recurred before I could edit the grammar
I’m not aware that it has ever happened in the past. When did the far-right infiltrate the judiciary in the Uk? The ‘elsewhere in the world’ example you give is Austria. In that situation the Interior Minister was a member of the Austrian Freedom Party, whose first leader was a former Nazi minister and SS officer.
When here in the UK we have a Home Secretary who is a member of the BNP or EDL I will worry about infiltration of the judiciary by the far-right. In the meantime don’t look for solutions to problems that don’t exist and are unlikely to exist in the near future.
See dangeourbrains response - just because it hasn't happened here yet doesn't mean it won't. That is some kind of logical fallacy and smells a bit of British exceptionalism. The far right in the US have already infiltrated the police, the military, civil service and now government.
With the power that you want to give the judiciary, it would be of no use worrying about it once we had a far right home secretary - as it would be too late to do anything about it by then.
Policing politicians like this is so typical of fellow lefties, trying to control people this way never works out in the long run. It's a reactionary ideological move. Social/political control like this always, always backfires.
The alternative sends a message that they can all lie with impunity. Can't see that backfiring.
And they didn't think they could like with impunity in the past? If we are going to start going after liars, the b est answer is probably a decent evidence based/driven independent media that holds politicians to account - not a media that is politically motivated one way or another and driven by ideology like we have now. If we are going to have a purge we need to start there, but instead of a purge of one ideology in favour of another like in the pas,t we need to purge them all from the media and replace it with some kind of evidence based reporting and investigation at the forefront. It should be papers and the media that are punished for repeating politicians lies without criticizing them. Punishment of the media should be as decentralized as much as possible, through peer review - not through centralized courts so as to keep the power out of the hands of the political classes. Rule that all shareholder/owner ties in the media to politics is a conflict of interest and introduce laws like the insider trading and corruption laws in the finance world etc.
Personally, I would much rather have lying money oriented self serving politicians than ideologically driven true believers who have a legislative avenue into controlling and defining the "truth".
Be careful what you wish for, the parallels in the thinking of the left and right with the left and right of the 30's is becoming spookier by the day.
Yes we are, because we would be asking the police, the cps and the judiciary to decide what is and isn’t a lie and what is a misuse of an official statistic. Misuse is a very broad term.
This.
Be careful what you wish for, the parallels in the thinking of the left and right with the left and right of the 30’s is becoming spookier by the day.
And this.
Normally when people make these kind of statements people are over egging the pudding. In this case it's a direct parallel with the end of the Weimar republic. People are saying our politicians are crap (because they lie) and it would be better to have unelected people in control of what elected people say. Sacrifice democracy for 'better government'.
Democracy *can* function in spite of politicans lying. Democracy *can't *function if unelected people can put politicians in prison for a catch-all like "misuse of statistics" or lying.
There's a reason no democracy in the world has this kind of legislation.
The alternative sends a message that they can all lie with impunity. Can’t see that backfiring.
The safeguard against that is the Politician's opponent will point out the lie as will Facebook and "More or Less" on the wireless box.
Digression: The 350 million bus is a classic example. The only reason we've ever heard it is because it's debunked about 20 times a day for years. I assume all the busses had vaguely true stuff written on them this time because the media has largely ignored them. A debunked lie is 10,000 more newsworthy than an undisputed fact. Trump used the same technique to get his message viral on a fraction of the communication budget of Clinton. People now know that the number sounds big. South of £350M, but big sounding. If you want to attract attention to a news-story, put a typo in it and let the pedants send it viral. If you want a number out in the open, release an exaggerated number and watch the debunkers publicise the accurate number for you. (Sorry for the digression.)
There’s a reason no democracy in the world has this kind of legislation.
Johnson's being prosecuted under existing legislation in our democracy. From the CPS website:
The offence is committed when:
a public officer acting as such;
wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself;
to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder;
without reasonable excuse or justification.
I assume if Johnson had just spouted the usual throwaway political lie and moved on, he wouldn't be in this position, but the sustained nature of his repeated deception has opened him up to the accusation he has wilfully misconducted himself "to such a degree" that it constitutes an abuse of the public's trust.
Johnson’s being prosecuted under existing legislation in our democracy.
Yup, that applies to people holding public office acting in that capacity as discussed in detail in the link I posted above, harmless to democracy because if you're haven't got a government role it doesn't even apply to you. (...and almost certainly didn't apply to Boris in the referendum campaign which is why we can be fairly certain this prosecution is going nowhere.)
"and almost certainly didn’t apply to Boris in the referendum campaign "
The district judge did address this point in her decision.
See dangeourbrains response – just because it hasn’t happened here yet doesn’t mean it won’t.
I did see dangeourbrains response, he claimed that it has happened in the past, and is happening again today elsewhere. It has never happened in the UK. Every single Home Secretary in UK for literally hundreds of years has come from the Tory, Labour, or Liberal Party.
Of course anything is possible, no one's arguing that it isn't. Nigel Farage could be installed as Prime Minister by a military coup, stranger things have happened in the world.
If we are going to have a purge we need to......
Who the hell is talking of "purges"??? Get a grip. We are talking about politicians being held accountable in law for deliberately lying to the public in relation to official government statistics, if they have indeed done that.
As I have already pointed out it is currently illegal for a politician to tell lies and if they do they may be held accountable by the courts. Here is an example of a politician being successfully taken to court for lying :
Was that the courts "moderating" or interfering in politics? I don't recall an outcry over that particular case. Sure I recognise that it was under completely different legislation, well common law actually, but the moral principle (ie whether a politician can lie with impunity to achieve their political goals) remains the same.
And note this from the article : "In her defence, Collins argued that it was a political speech, which did not contain any allegation of fact, but merely expressed an opinion"
So her defence thought the issue was whether it was an "allegation of fact". What's a "fact"? Was the £350m a week a "fact" or an opinion? In the case of the UKIP MEP the court presumably decided that it was indeed an allegation of fact.
Let's be clear, I accept very much that we are treading on potentially dangerous ground when we talk about taking politicians to court for lying, but that doesn't mean that we should dodge the issue altogether. And let's also be clear that we're talking about deliberate repeated lies, which are deliberately designed to misinform and mislead the public and are presented as official government statistics/facts. And have real consequences, not trivial stuff which forms part of the normal rough and tumble of politics.
The district judge did address this point in her decision.
Great, linky?
he claimed that it has happened in the past, and is happening again today elsewhere
I don't think that was my response, or least if it was you read it rather differently than I wrote it.
that doesn’t mean that we should dodge the issue altogether.
We don't dodge the issue. As you yourself say, libel laws still apply to politicians, if they hold public office they already can't lie under many circumstances. So where possible Politicians are already prevented from lying, but allowing non elected people a wholesale veto over the words of elected people (or people seeking election) makes totalitarianism likely/inevitable and that's why no real democracy does it.
As I have already pointed out it is currently illegal for a politician to tell lies and if they do they may be held accountable by the courts. Here is an example of a politician being successfully taken to court for lying :
Libel is a very specific form of lying, lying per se is not currently illegal. Libel applies to everyone and doesn't have the potential to impact freedom of.soeech in the same way.
Your reference to hundreds of years of Labour,l and Tory government etc, is just more British exceptionalism. We've only had full enfranchisement for what, 70-100 years? Hardly enough time to see whether the British population and political system is immune to the cyclical waves of populism evident throughout history.
I think you should read the whole post raybanwomble instead of small selected bits, it will give a much clearer picture of the points which you have apparently missed.
It’s either the truth or a lie, as it was phrased as a statement of fact, not a suggestion. There’s no misleading.
I think the problem is that it’s both true and misleading.
You might argue well the payments are monthly, or annually not weeks but as footballers have been paid monthly for decades could you really call it a lie?
So, it seems our annual payments to the EU are indeed about 18bn a year, but they pay us back 5bn a year so we only pay 13bn. This happens all the time in business I might owe another business £5k for some building work in the office but they owe me £3k for some hardware. A lot of the time I’ll ask for a ‘contra’ invoice to be raised and pay them £2k.
I hope he’s found guilty because the bus was a horrible lie, but for me it was the “let’s give it to the NHS” part that was a lie, there was never £350bn to give to anyone, there wasn’t even £250bn in fact as we (remainers) all know in reality we’ll likely have to suffer more cuts as our GDP and tax revenue falls. If they get him on the first sentence for the crime of the second I’d call it justice served.
The bigger issue though is the court of public opinion (unless he actually gets sent down of course) it doesn’t really matter - voters might hate lying MPs, but leavers won’t think he’s lied, that’s the payment, and we’re all going to have more money after we leave so it’s just a political witch-hunt from remainers trying to steal Brexit.
While it's easy to take pleasure in anything that puts BoJo into some legal discomfort, even going this far creates an unsettling precedent which means the authorities will be deluged with criminal allegations that politicians of all persuasions are knowingly misleading the public. This private prosecution opens the door to all kinds of badly-motivated and vexatious allegations against MPs, councillors etc.
This allegation has been shoehorned into legislation which was designed to counter far more extreme cases of corruption and malfeasance (hence the maximum sentence of life). It will fail, not just because the statement in question is worded in such a way that it is a lie contained within a partial truth, but because IMO the Brexit campaign related only tenuously to Boris' actual public office at the time.
The idea of using this law to criminalise falsehoods from MPs and ministers may seem superficially attractive, but would be used as a stick to beat every government, and potentially those on the opposite benches, from now on.
Outofbreath:
Here you go - https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/marcus-ball-v-alexander-boris-de-pfeffel-johnson/
but for me it was the “let’s give it to the NHS” part that was a lie,
That's not what it said.
The suggestion is clear but at no point does that say "give it/use it/spend it", it certainly doesn't say let's give ALL OF 350mil/week to the NHS instead. It simply suggests we should fund the NHS instead. A £0.01 switch from the EU bill to NHS funding would make what has been said perfectly true.
