Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A recent forum in openDemocracy discussed whether there should be a law against politicians lying. It was probably started because the word got out about the programme Richard Symons made for the BBC. I watched the full thing, called The Ministry of Truth, last night on BB2. It was much more interesting than the clip run on Newsnight. You can get to the latter from the new Newsnight Big Fat Politics Page. I am very suspicious of the way politics is being turned into comedy to become part of the politico-entertainment complex and dislike the overly jokey approach, but in the end I was won over to the argument - having just argued against it in the oD forum. The film shows a wonderful range of politicians confronted with a draft for a Bill that would make it illegal for them to lie, and their responses. The penalty, if found guilty: to be disqualified forthwith from holding public office. There was a lot of huffing, and puffing and saying that they didn't even "fib" as Jack Straw put it. Symons made the point that there is a law against murder even though it is very rare. So why not a law against politicians lying? What really emerged as the programme unfolded is the way that British legislators regard themselves as a law unto themselves, accountable to no one else except - in a most distant sense - the voters, whom they do everything they can to manipulate. The idea that they should be answerable to the law was an anathema to them. As this became clear it changed my mind, we need this law! I don't think it addresses the central issue which it pretends to: of getting politicians, the media and also us the public to be truthful. What it does do is challenge the elitism of the political class.
There is a link here to the argument in Peter Oborne's new book The Triumph of the Political Class and what I like about the idea, as I think about it, is that while it has a populist edge, its outcome is a law not a prejudice. At the end of the film the Welsh MP Adam Price is seen saying yes, he'd run with it and try and turn it into legislation. There will be an early day motion on the 17th. (By the way, Adam has been promising to blog for OurKingdom. Er, we still trust you, Adam)
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Now watched and duly blogged:
"I’ve just spent the morning watching the BBC’s Ministry of Truth programme. Surprisingly, it is even more loathesome, and unexpectedly sinister, than I imagined it would be."
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I see what you are saying James, but watch the prog. Daniel gets the point that it exposes them - as I said we need a truthful politics which also needs a truthful media. This is a much bigger thing than making lies illegal. Tell us what you think when you've seen it.
Anthony
I've written about this here.
I have to admit to not having seen the programme yet, although I'm planning to watch it this weekend. But I think it is incredibly naive to think this would be a tool which the public could use to hold politicians to account: it would be a tool for politicians to bash each other over the head with.
Have you not seen how the Standards Board has degenerated local politics? It's based on the same fundamental premise. The result has been to transpose political arguments into a quasi-judicial sphere, using the fact that X has been "investigated" for Y as a perfectly legal way to smear your opponents (no smoke without fire and all that).
Have you not seen what a nonsense the police investigation into the sale of honours degenerated into?
The Misrepresentation of the People Act would catch out bad liars (who the system tends to catch out anyway) and exonerate the good ones. And what do you do about all those politicians (I could name a certain recently ex-Prime Minister for example) who have an uncanny knack of believing 100% of what they say? How do you regulate against that?
Its all very well to mock politicians for getting huffy about making it illegal for them to lie, but try arguing with a journalist that it should be illegal for them to tell fibs and the bumptuousness goes off the Richter scale. As it happens, I think both self-important professions are right - we ought to make defamation laws far more limited for example. It is crass to compare it to market traders being done for fraud; worse to compare it to murder.
What I found fascinating was how noneof the featured MPs disagreed with the flawed premise the 'misrepresentation of the people' bill was based on: that sovereignty flows from the people in the British Constitution. Our Kingdom is a constiutional monarchy in which parliament is soveriegn, power does not formally reside with the people. However the film, intentionally or not, brilliant revealed the contrortions MPs have to go through to link this brute fact to the democratic norms on which their legitmacy is based.
Today’s politicians necessarily have to pay lip service to popular sovereignty as praliamentary soveriegnty is practically if not formally parastic upon it. Yet they are understandably reluctant to put this on a constitutional footing – which would, rightly in my view, constrain the discretion they have over the democratic process and the means by which they are held to account. What the film revealed so well was that outside of elections people have minimal control over a self-regulating political class. While it may not have been the original intention of the film makers the idea of using criminal law to prosecute MPs was to my mind a brilliant ruse for highlighting the self-serving way in which popular sovereignty is used and abused by politicians.
Did the bill on truthfull representation get aired to day in parliament??
I now feel our Prime Ministers cannot be totally relied upon and am worried if this is the case i.e Iraq and weapons of mass destructruction . Who can one trust as an 84 yr old?????as
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