Politicians lie because we don't want to hear the truth

The reality of political discourse in Britain is that it consists of lies, petty gossip, moral panic and the latest media-driven campaign for a ban, law or other restriction

Huey Long, legend says, was telling one of his advisers they'd have to go back on a campaign promises. The adviser was aghast. He asked plaintively, "Huey, what'll we tell them?" Huey answered, "Tell 'em we lied!"

I really quite like Angela Rayner mostly because of her ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ back story, she is that rarity in British politics, an actual working class person made good. But Rayner, unlike many of her more sophisticated colleagues, obfuscates badly. And obfuscation is the core skill needed by politicians who are going to go and lie on the Sunday morning media round. This morning Rayner had what people like to call a ‘car crash’ of an interview with Trevor Phillips where she was confronted with wanting to deny one truth (Britain expects two and a half million new immigrants across the next five years according to the recent budget estimates) and it doing so was forced to deny another truth (we have a housing crisis).

Truth be told, Britain has both of these crises and an honest conversation about the problem would say something like: ‘we need to control our borders and allow the building of lots more houses so young people can afford to buy a home or pay the rent’. But because Rayner is in government she feels the need to obfuscate (regular folk spell this L-I-E) so as not to leave anything that might be a hostage to fortune or make any statement that will need ‘walking back’ over the coming days. And because Rayner isn’t especially good at obfuscation she revealed the essential truth about modern politics which is that no politician will ever present specifics about their programmes, proposals or plans because to do so might show part of this to be unpopular with either the media or the public (occasionally both).

Of course, Rayner has only ever known opposition which is much easier because you nearly always start on the front foot, you have the advantage of attacking. But even then there’s the need to avoid saying anything that looks or sounds like a specific commitment. Everything is like the best of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United: ‘Attack! Attack! Attack!’. It doesn’t matter what you attack, which wing Ronaldo runs down or who gets the ball ten yards from goal, what matters is the chance to score. And in political opposition, scoring is when the government minister is asked about the minutiae of errors that have been made in government.

All this brings us to the actual opposition in Britain which is a mess. Obviously the Conservatives face the problem that when they talk about what needs to happen the response can always be: ‘so why didn’t you do any of this when you were in government then?’ But this is to ignore the rules of the game because the target is what the current government is doing, not what you didn’t do a year or two years ago. The Conservative Party, we’re told, is fighting a battle on two fronts: against the old enemy, Labour and a new insurgent, Reform. But to frame it in these terms is to miss the point of voting and elections these days. Not just that the public isn’t paying attention to politics (it never does) but that the old tribal presumptions are long dead. There is no bloc of ‘Reform voters’ to target because Reform don’t own any voters, any more than Labour or Conservatives have blocs of voters they can win or lose.

The lesson we should take from recent politics, not just in the UK but in the US and Europe, is that the people are disgruntled. Some like Matthew Syed argue the problem is that voters demand ‘fantasy economics’ and spiralling debt thereby excusing the political system because someone like Angela Rayner isn’t going to go on TV and tell the truth. This is because the truth sounds like either ‘we are putting your taxes up to pay for the things you demand of the welfare state’ or ‘we can’t afford all the free stuff people want which means some of you are not going to get that stuff, some will have to pay and others will get less’. Unless your entire economy is on the verge of complete collapse, the voter isn’t going to vote for less free stuff. And European economies are, for all their problems, quite a long way from complete collapse.

What Syed and others have found is the central problem with democracy, one that Alexander Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee spotted way back in the 18th century:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

It is this reality (and the success of politicians who pander to voter demands) that results in the left screaming ‘fascist’ and the right going on about precious green fields and lost culture. All while offering generous bribes to favoured demographics. Plus, of course, finding a convenient group to blame for the economic problems so as to avoid telling the public that it is their selfish, short-term demands for free stuff. Reform blame it on immigrants, Labour, or at least its left, on rich people who send their kids to private school and the Tories on the EU or Liz Truss. Truth be told the problem is us, we demand unlimited funding for the NHS, a triple lock for pensions, generous child benefits, welfare benefits when we feel too sad to go to work and free care for the elderly. All while paying less tax because everything can be paid for with Scrooge McDuck’s hoard of cash.

There are really only two approaches to these problems. The first is radical reform, turning everything on its head. And the second is gradualist, treating the electorate like boiling a frog. The first option requires a war (see Labour winning in 1945, for example) or complete economic collapse (see Argentina before Milei). The second option is risky, Thatcher pulled it off at least partly because of the Falklands War, and Cameron’s ‘share the proceeds of growth’ strategy foundered on recession and coalition. I would like to see Milei’s ‘afuera’ applied to the British national government but accept that a realistic strategy would do this gradually - by, for example, devolving Ofsted and Care Quality Commission functions back to local councils from where they were taken in the first place.

On the economy everyone bar a few deluded Blairite Keynsians recognises that the big barrier to growth is supply-side restrictions. And to reduce these restrictions means doing something about the state’s regulatory functions, planning and licensing as well as the barriers (now being reimposed by Angela Rayner’s department) to employing people, setting up companies and investing in profitable activity. If the Conservatives want to find a space where Reform is weak it is around the economy. A wise party offers real planning reform, reforms to employment and equalities laws, and a housing policy that focuses on where people want to live, not on where politicians or bureaucrats want them to live. Once you’ve got the economy growing, you make the David Cameron offer again - share the proceeds of growth between investing in public services and reducing taxes.

And, I believe, now is the opportunity to tell people something they know is true but seek to ignore or deny: we can’t afford the welfare state as it stands so the emphasis has to be on healthcare, pensions and the very poorest, meaning that a raft of free goodies need to go. The neurodiversity and mental health explosion that’s driving worklessness has to be faced and a promise to get the long-term workless back to work means a promise to make access to benefits and their scale less attractive. Feather-bedded sectors like higher education (one of the big drivers of immigration) need pulling off the state’s teat - if this means closures or mergers of universities then so be it. And there should be an energy policy that doesn’t make electricity too expensive, force people into vehicles they can’t afford and don’t like, or act as a drag anchor on economic growth.

But politicians will, I fear, still think that the route to power is to make vague promises of free stuff, pontificate about values, and lie through their teeth about the real reasons for economic, cultural and social decline because they think honesty will scare off the voter. Whether it’s Reform blaming everything on either immigrants or the woke mind virus or the Conservatives and Lib Dems indulging NIMBYs, the reality of political discourse in Britain - and the reason governments don’t act to make things better - is that it consists of lies, petty gossip, moral panic and the latest media-driven campaign for a ban, law or other restriction. If we want our government to focus on what really matters, maybe we should start by thinking that the antics of a TV chef aren’t the single most important public issue. That economic and social decline isn’t down to immigrants but is down to political choices made by politicians we elected. And that Britain’s success was down to free markets and capitalism not government. We can hope.