‘All politicians are liars’. Or are they? It’s a difficult pitch to defend in the present climate but in my long experience I think most politicians are no more or less truthful then the average person. What a politician says is very often recorded either by the media or by Hansard. So unless you are particularly careful you can easily find yourself struggling to defend something that you said which is contrary to what you said before. That however is not necessarily lying.
Phil Wollas, who just lost his appeal, was accused of lying about his opponent. As a result he has lost the Parliamentary seat and there will now be a by election. I know Phil Woolas well, he was a good MP and a competent junior minister but that doesn’t justify lying about his opponent in the election material. That is the simple bit, now we come to the complex part of the argument.
Firstly, do we want our courts to have the power to decide who the electorate want as their MP? The famous 19th century case of Charles Bradlaugh MP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bradlaugh ) who refused to take a religious oath and was barred from Parliament is an interesting precedent. He stood again four times and each time was re elected despite Parliament refusing to allow him to take his seat. Eventually he was allowed to take his seat and now members can affirm if they wish. Phil Woolas was tried by a court that decided he should not be allowed to stand for election for 3 years so he can’t test the electorate’s opinion as Charles Bradlaugh did.
Lying to get votes is obviously different to refusing to take a religious oath but we still have to decide whether judges are best placed to determine this issue. If we are going to take this route would it not be better to re run the election and let Phil Woolas stand if he wants to? The question here is do we want the electorate or the courts to be sovereign?
The second problem is really challenging. If it is wrong for a candidate to lie about their opponent then it is wrong for a political party to lie about their opponents or about an individual candidate. And what about those organisations that support a party or individual – a lobby group, a trade union, or the press? There is no shortage of examples of the press lying in order to get their favoured party ahead in the polls or to stop one particular candidate from being elected. Rightly or wrongly Ken Livingstone takes the view that the Evening Standard lied about him.
And where does this leave the Liberal Democrats? A number of their Parliamentarians have said they would not have signed up against tuition fees if they had known they would be in government. So they lied to gain votes. Do we have to run the election again and ban those Liberal Democrats from standing? I hope not. All political party’s can give example of this type.
The underlying principle in this case is that we need to raise political standards but if the courts are to decide whether a dishonest attack on a candidate justifies a legal intervention to overturn the electorates decision then we are in very new territory.
There is an argument for taking a legal stance that improves political behaviour but this case opens up a really important debate about the role of the courts in politics. For that reason I am thinking of raising it with the Constitutional Committee of the House of Lords. http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-archive/lords-constitution-committee/
It is an issue that deserves serious debate.
My Lord, with the greatest respect I think you may be being slightly over-reacting to the ruling; your example of how this could be counter-productive is how Liberal Democrat MPs may have lied about their policy commitments, but the judgment was quite specific – the law, rightly in my view, only forbids false statements of character, not of policy.
Certainly, you raise good points about how the law needs to be updated for the new era of mass political parties and mass media (of course, which I view as needing more regulation than at present – cf Press Complaints Commission), but from what I can tell the central issue of your argument is, and should be, more one of principle than detail.
You question whether the courts should be sovereign or the electorate, which in my view is too simplistic. The electorate expresses its will in elections; if the candidate gives false information about his opponent’s character then the electorate is making a choice based on a false premise.
Certainly, you could argue about the law extending to policy on this basis too, but I would disagree simply on the basis that while the courts can, should and do regulate statements of fact (look at libel law), they can’t, shouldn’t and won’t enforce statements of intent except as expressed by legislation. Of course, I am no expert on this, and welcome any flaws in this – I certainly can’t think of a court enforcing statements of intent, but I could be missing something obvious.
The final question, of the sentence being possibly too harsh and whether he should be allowed to stand again, has merit as far as I can see. There is a genuine debate as to whether a re-run is possible, but in my view, sometimes harsh measures are necessary to cultivate a better culture where they are no longer necessary.
I, and I know many of the public – I remember something like seventy percent support in the polls, support the decision fully and see it as one of the many good decisions which hopefully will prevent our political culture degenerating into the quagmire that is the United States’.
Hang on a moment. Parliament decided that some courses of action during an election were so bad that they merited a 3-year ban from standing from election. The courts are doing what parliament intended them to do when parliament wrote the relevant law.
Isn’t it also the fact that the only reason the courts have the authority to overturn an election is because the elected politicians gave them that power in the first place?
I would say that as the intervention of a court into the electoral process is such a rare event that if anything, the ability for the courts to so intervene is actually a good thing as they evidently only intrude into the most egregious of cases.
However, times change and people are more willing today to turn to the courts to settle issues than they were 100 years ago – and if at the next election we find a slew of appeals to the courts, then that would be a good time to review the situation.
However, after centuries of effort to ensure that everyone is subject to the law, changing the law simply because an MP was found to have broken the law would be a dangerous route to take.
I believe Lord Phillips (President Supreme Court) has clarified the position of the courts and the Sovereignty of Parliament. Whilst we do not possess a formal constitutional court the Supreme Court is allowed to interpret the constitution for legal purposes.
As Parliament has removed all of its active judges operating within its sovereignty Parliament can no longer act as a court because of a formal separation of powers. Neither can it impeach and try any politician regardless of such practice being regarded as legacy.
Those Parliamentarians that fall foul of the law must enjoy the justice of the Crown courts and trial by jury. However, there remains a question hanging over Lord Phillips regarding formal separation of powers. He is a member of the ‘Great Council’ and a QC and therefore holds letters patent in both offices. The ‘Great Council’ numbers over 500 individuals and many serve in both houses of Parliament.
If Parliament sought to bring suspicion upon the Law Lords by suggesting that they were or might be somehow lacking in their informal separation of powers and without any evidence of such how can any Supreme Court Judge not be treated with the same suspicion by their association with the first estate the Monarchy. Is it not the case now that new Prime Ministers shake the hand of the sovereign as an equal when taking up their appointments?
The Supreme Court is vessel cast adrift on the seas of unintended consequence.
Ref: Regina v Chaytor and others
[2010] UKSC 52; [2010] WLR (D) 311
http://www.lawreports.co.uk/WLRD/2010/SUP/R_v_Chaytor.html
Senex’s post is a most interesting interpretation of recent Law with which I do not necessarily concur.
Any large corporation can try and find wanting, one of its number, even without resorting to the Law courts to do so. Merely because the Law lords are no longer at the end of the corridor, is no reason to suppose that parliament is not a court.
I should infinitely prefer that it should not be, when some such asses set themselves up as
judge and jury in a commons committee room to that effect.
Is it not the case now that new Prime Ministers shake the hand of the sovereign as an equal when taking up their appointment
Unequivocally no.
Lord speaker might, but would never think for a moment of doing so.
role of the courts in politics. For that reason I am thinking of raising it with the Constitutional Committee of the House of Lords.
Lord Soley will be wise to do so.
One one occasion many years ago a newspaper lied about me in such a way that I had a blutty awful conscience about being elected at all!
The two questions are very different of whether a newspaper lies or an individual lies; broadsheets would never have got going in the first place if they had not systematically lied through their teeth.
They might not have been locked up for their efforts either.
If the news paper CLAIMS that the individual has said such a thing, then they would need documentary evidence or recorded evidence that he has said what they have written down.
In the early days of the broadsheet, in which my forebear James Howell (historiographer royal 1660-1666) was very much involved, I believe that he claimed to be in the debtor’s prison,(governor’s digs) only so that nobody would try to sue him, or lock him up, for what he said about them (usually peers and aristocrats), whether true or not!
In the heat of an election contest, I fear there are very few holds barred. In the case of an election address impugning the integrity of an opponent with an outright lie, the lie, would have to be a lie which amounted to an accusation of criminal activity, by the opponent. An accusation of immoral activity would probably not be sufficient as evidence in court to set the election aside.
Mr Woolas might be able to find a way of side stepping the ban on standing for election with a collateral petition at the same time as the election. If his party supporters in the vicinity beleive in his integrity then they could stand outside each and every ballot booth and seek their petition support
in numbers.
Alternatively his party successor might agree to stand down as soon as he is elected,in his favour although the wages/expenses are good enough for the next one to be liar as well….. and not stand down!!!
I tell you what. I’ll go; we’ll split the wages. A quarter as much would be quite sufficient for me!
There must be ways round the law lords ban on standing again.
His wife perhaps?
Politics is a complex game but most politicians as you say are branded liars that is in the main because their lack of integrity, their inability to state honestly ” I got it wrong”. We saw early in this Government a very embarrassed Mr.Gove get it wrong and admit on a number of occassions he got it wrong. There was a brief hoohah but it blew over, because the man had the integrity to admit he (or more likely someone in his office) made a mistake. The one thing that is missing in a lot of our politicians is integrity, the public understand what a mistake is and what a down right lie is.
Now there is a very big difference in making mistakes and deliberately trying to get away with something and saying ” I made a mistake and wasn`t trying to hide something” as one of our current bloggers did, that man cannot be trusted and shouldn`t in my opinion be in his position. There is another major thing the public do not like and that is when the law that is applied to them is not applied to parliamentarians, that simply isn`t fair. Most of us know that in the position of some parliamentarians who are due in Court we would have been treated entirely differently, do you think that is fair ?
As for Phil Woolas, well the Courts can only apply the law that Parliament makes. You`re trying to blame the Judges, they didn`t take him to Court simply applied law that Parliament made. I agree a lot of parties lie specifically at election time, is that an excuse ? Your admittance of the problem gives justification to peoples apathy and distrust of politicians.
What you state is what people have thought for years Phil Woolas lied and was denied his seat but what about the rest, the whole Parties. Absolutely agree, sling that lot out too, after all if you`re lying to get seats you must all be out for yourselves. Isn`t that exactly what the public have thought for generations ?
The Lib-Dems, well they have a chance to prove their integrity, to prove they are honest, they are different to the others. If you make a pledge you stick to it, if you told people elect me and I will vote against Tuition fee rises and you don`t then everything you stood for is a lie. Now I haven`t looked in any depth at tuition fees, the coalition maybe right, it may not but I don`t break promises nor do I think people who do are worthy of a reasonable position. ONce you are told a lie you can NEVER trust that person again.
To quote Nick Clegg “Let`s be honest”, if the Lib-Dems vote for tuition fee rises they will destroy everything that years of work took, that they are different, that they are honest and wish to change Parliament to a more honest type of Governance. The respect that individuals worked so hard to gain for this party will be gone, they will become no different to the Phil Woolas`s and the MP`s now facing Court action, out for themselves.
There is no excuse they can give other than the retention of their places in Government. Lib-Dem integrity will disappear, everything Paddy Ashdown and many others fought to build, gone. Integrity and honesty have so much more value than the backroom deal on this issue. Churchill could probably have done a deal with Hitler and the British people may have been temporarily better off and there are far more instances where this can be applied but there comes a time where one must stand by an ethic, a principle and this is where the integrity of the Lib-Dems rises or is destroyed.
As for:
” The question here is do we want the electorate or the courts to be sovereign?”
Parliament is sovereign to design law and the Courts are sovereign to apply it. Our Governance is not merely the “Commons” who of late seem to think it is only they that are legitimate. The electorate WANT the Courts to apply law equally and that includes to Parliamentarians who try to design that they are ruled differently. You are not above the law and the correct place to decide if you have broken that law is in our sovereign courts.
I agree on the fundermental point – I want the courts to have nothing to do with deciding who can stand. The 3 year ban is deeply undemocratic and parliament ought to change the law. I have some concerns about this case as a whole – while the law might be an old one MPs and the courts previously had the general good sense not to bring election contests to the courts – I fear we will now have a move toward leaflets/speech being checked by the parties in house lawyers for great expense and little gain.
“‘All politicians are liars’. Or are they? It’s a difficult pitch to defend in the present climate but in my long experience I think most politicians are no more or less truthful then the average person.”
I often hear MPs say “My constituents tell me…” followed by an remarkably helpful political statement supporting whatever the party thinks that morning. I’ve always thought it an amazing fortune that MPs are so lucky in having constituents so interested in the minute/arcane aspects of government that there is always one who is telling them what is politically helpful and thereby preventing the need for them to ever…. 😉
If an employee is found to have lied in his job application/CV he can expect to lose his job and possibly face criminal charges.
You seem to be supportive of the idea that, in seeking a replacement, employers should re-interview the sacked employee. But the reason he lied was because he suspected he wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
Continuing with the analogy, the onus is on the employer to prove the applicant lied. I am not entirely clear who are the employers of MPs but it isn’t the judiciary. However, as with an Industrial Tribunal, I understand that the Election Court is only testing an existing claim ie whether the election (or employment offer) was based on lies.
As for the punishment, that’s up to parliamentarians to set the guidelines. Perhaps the whole subject whould be better argued at the same time when the recall of MPs comes up – y’know, you being a Labour peer etc…
As for the LibDems breaking personal pledges, that’s not lying is it?
The 3 year ban is deeply undemocratic and parliament ought to change the law.
A new election called and fought on who is the best man for the job… lies?
If an employee is found to have lied in his job application/CV he can expect to lose his job and possibly face criminal charges. I’ve never filled in a job application so I am no expert on the subject, but I have always thought that I would not get the job because I would have to tell untruths to get it!
By contrast I understood that most people ,especially those who do get the jobs, are the ones who are prepared to tell the most lies and bluff better than any body else!
There is surely a great deal of Bluff in the job of politician? Perhaps he should merely have bluffed.
Saying that, supposing somebody lies pathologically, one of them proven would surely be enough to set the record against him in a high court case?
but that doesn’t justify lying about his opponent in the election material.
Mckinnon (Bromley/Southend rtd?) would laugh
but it is the served writ aspect of the election material which would have created a need to prosecute, by the opponent.
If he had merely said it out loud, half a dozen times, it might have done far more damage and had far less contrary effect on himself.
Law lords decision right and proper.
3 years ban.
I know of one, peer now, who erred far more than that in 1997, and got away scot free thanks to the Lord Chancellor’s (Irvine) sympathy at the time.
Thanks for these comments. When Parliament passes an Act it doesn’t always get it right – surprise, surprise! That’s why I think we might need to revisit it. My main concern is the punishment. It seems to me that the electorate should be allowed the final say on this.
I think there is a related problem if another organisation lies about a candidate’s character – Gareth Howell makes the point about a newspaper which he believes lied about him. Newspapers do lie and that may be far more damaging for a candidate then something written in an election leaflet. The law currently relates only to candidates and character but it is easy to see how you could extend this to lies about character by powerful groups or individuals not directly involved in the election.
The question of lying about policy is more difficult and I should not have embarked on that question in this case. It deserves a post of its own.
I did have to delete one comment. Although it made some points similar to those in the above posts it was unnecessarilly abusive and made allegations that were serious and unsubstantiated. Take care what you write!
Isn’t it interesting that its only a candidate lying about another candidate that matters?
A candidate lying to the electorate isn’t an offence.
“It seems to me that the electorate should be allowed the final say on this.”
Oh right but they shouldn`t on other things ? All smells a bit doesn`t it. We have MP`s who are supposed to represent us in Parliament and the Judicial system that represents in Courts. You appear to want to change one small part that has affected one of your own.
Question: If it was a Tory would you be posting the same ? I think not.
You stated at the beginning that MP`s lie no more or less than the average person but would lying that much on oath be ok ? Should not MP`s be chosen from those with a higher ethic and therefore the incidence of lying be less than average ?
Also it`s not just the fact of a lie but it`s effect. If I say I went to Lord Soley`s for tea last evening, the effect is little but if I say I saw Lord Soley and gave him £10k to vote a particular way the effect is great. Neither is true of course.
The trouble is the double standards the World has, particularly the West. We can see at the moment with the outcry over wikileaks, the USA and Britain like to promote themselves as transparent democracies but obviously they are not. Now 99% of what appears on wikileaks will already be known to most Nations, they all have their intelligence gathering organisations. Truth and honesty are merely tools to be used as and when politicians feel it beneficial TO THEM.
On the subject of Newspapers, do you really think everyone is stupid ? Do you think we all take as gospel all we read in the paper, the bus on the moon etc ? Do you think we do not realise that sometimes things are taken out of context ? I see,we`re stupid and if the papers can do it politicians can too !
Newspapers lie, people lie but if politicians join that game what sort of society do we have ? You cannot justify Mr. Woolas`s crime by saying “But Sir the newspapers do it and I think we should change the law to allow lying”.
There are positions in our society where it is expected that the people in them should know better and act in such a way befitting their position. A prospective MP should be one shouldn`t it ? The fact a newspaper may lie about you does not give you the right to lie about others.
“Gareth Howell makes the point about a newspaper which he believes lied about him.”
Since Britain has one of the most one sided and expensive (mainly for the defendant) libel systems in the western world there is ample opportunity for MPs to sue and they do.
“the law currently relates only to candidates and character but it is easy to see how you could extend this to lies about character by powerful groups or individuals not directly involved in the election.”
Easy! See above but for any powers beyond libel what you are suggesting is an attack on the basis of free press reporting and editorial.
There are plenty of examples of politicians lying.
We’ve had the “my expenses are wholly and necesary for my work as an MP”
We’ve had “Honest, its my second home”
We’ve had “here is our manifesto and this is what we will do”
We have “We’re doing this, we didn’t put it in our manifesto because you wouldn’t have voted for you”
Even the outrageous “WMD were ready to be used in 40 mins”
So Lord Blagger do you want the courts to decide this or you the electorate?
Some highly amusing replies n’est ‘ce pas? not least the ignoble Lord Blagger’s comment
Isn’t it interesting that its only a candidate lying about another candidate that matters? No that’s lying.
A candidate lying to the electorate isn’t an offence. No that’s bluffing.
I wonder whether the election agent, who may have put the hard copy for publication before his candidate to sign as accurate, considered using the terms “untruths”, and then decided that it would be too kind, wrongly in the light of law lord events?
So Lord Blagger do you want the courts to decide this or you the electorate?
================
Nice try on the usual politician’s trick. Offer people a choice of A or B. They spend all their time evaluating A or B, and not thinking about C, D, …
Neither. I want to make it irrelevant.
Referenda by proxy makes it irelevant.
A slightly more important issue is thieving by MPs. Why should the electorate be forced to vote against their interests in order to remove an MP on the take?
ie. Lets say we have a Tory on the take. The police are reluctant to act because MPs are their paymasters. So what does the electorate have to do. All those who voted Tory have to vote against their wishes just to express the wish of removing that particular MP.
For example, 52% of MPs paid back cash. Same with some lords. Not a single one has paid any interest. Some Lords still haven’t paid back anything. Not paying interest is a financial benefit.
We can’t get rid of Lords, and we have to vote against our economic or other interests in order to get rid of an MP, on set occasions.
Referenda by proxy means people can express their vote on an issue. It also means that an MP can be sidelined completely if they are a thief.
If you want to get rid of an MP allow the right of recall.
For example, why has the new Lords expenses metamorphosed into an ‘Attendance Allowance’.
Attending doesn’t mean doing any work. It’s designed to prevent a prosecution for checking in, checking out, collecting the cash.
When are the electorate going to get a say?
The fact that politicians lie all the time is no surprise. It’s all part of the con.
The question is then how to get them under democratic control.
Referenda by proxy is the cheapest way I know of doing this, with the side effect that lies told become irrelevant. They can put whatever they want in a manifesto. What matters is the law/taxes/borrowing they want to implement and can they convince the electorate.
The current student protest has one interesting feature. The reason students are protesting isn’t that the cost of education is going up. It might be a bit by inflation, but the cost is there. No, the reason is that the cost has been revealed to them. They have received a direct bill for the cost, and the cost (its still only a fraction) has horrified them.
This goes back to the Lords. They have connived in keeping it secret along with all the off balance sheet accounting tricks the government has used to keep the debt off the books. (Comes from being ex-politicians and not proper auditors). That lack of oversight means that people will be in for a true shock when they find out that Parliament, lords include have run up 300,000 per house hold in debts.
All that money for the Lords, and no oversight at all. The same as with the banking regulators. All that regulation, and Gordon didn’t look at systemic risk.
Liar, traitor, Politician.
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1215.snc4/156721_183832771630983_183832658297661_736356_763611_n.jpg
No, the reason is that the cost has been revealed to them.
Rather like the national health then which is in theory free but in terms of longevity is very expensive indeed, if you get anywhere near the knife.
You sign a contract for free theatre surgery, which gives them the right to do whatever they wish to you, including, I have heard, to remove organs entirely and give them to somebody else! (organ donors on wheels)
Is this the same with Schooling?!
End result?
Mental defection.
My Lord, For many years I have advanced my thought that to be elected, on personal merit, as a MP, is one of the highest honours that a person can aspire to. In keeping with this it follows that I think a MP’s behaviour, including speaking the truth, should be far,far above that of an “average person”.
I have also advanced the suggestion that persons presenting themselves as candidates in an election should be required to affirm, before a senior judge, their loyalty to the Monarch. If they will not do that then they will not be allowed to become candidates. This will preclude the ridiculous situation where a person is elected as an MP, can receive a full salary, but cannot sit in the House because they will not affirm such loyalty.
Frederick W Gilling
I feel shocked that so many MPs misled the public during the AV campaign, and in particular that many made the completely (mathematically) incorrect claim that under AV supporters of unpopular parties effectively have more votes than supporters of mainstream parties.
A moment’s thought, (or a quick phone call to the electoral commission), would have set them straight. (If I vote for a fringe party and you vote for a mainstream one, then whilst my 2nd preference is counted, your 1st preference counts AGAIN).
I am sure many MPs were just parrotting NOtoAV propaganda, but some used weasel words such as ‘votes are counted more times’ which makes me wonder if they knew that the votes don’t ‘count’ for more – just they ‘are counted’ more often.
It has been suggested to me that this is an obscure technical point – however it was one of the key points made by the NOtoAV campaign, and was emphasized by the Prime Minister on the Today programme on 3rd May 2011.
It seems to me that many MPs breached several of the ‘Standards in Public Life’ guidelines over this. I have not looked at what Lords said, but I wonder how many went out of their way to point out the fallacy of this argument?