We have now been given several reasons why the Prime Minister should not, according to Downing Street, receive a fixed penalty notice from the police for breaking Covid rules. He believed the “gatherings” he attended were work events. One of them was held outside. His home is an office as well as a living space. A party might have taken place in his home, but he spent much of the time working as others drank and danced to music.
All these arguments are irrelevant when we recall the Covid rules at the time. But more than this, they are a distraction from the most important questions. Did the Prime Minister break the rules? And did he, in denying he broke the rules and claiming not to know about others breaking the rules, lie to Parliament and the public?
As many Tory MPs say, and many more say in private, it is impossible to believe Boris Johnson has told the truth. Yet Johnson insists, even if the police issue him with a fixed penalty notice for breaking Covid rules, that he will not resign. And some MPs are rehearsing the excuses – attempting to convince themselves, more than anything – as to why a fine would not be so bad.
It would be worse than bad: it would be terrible. As indeed it would be terrible, even if the PM is not fined by the police, but the investigations make clear he misled Parliament and the public about what was going on in his home and office.
Because, more than anything, the truth matters. In autocratic societies, as one chronicler of modern Russia puts it, “nothing is true and everything is possible”. Leaders lie, the public knows they lie, and the leaders know they know. The culture of deceit and distrust is pervasive. Corruption and crime, intimidation and brute force, injustice and the arbitrary use of power are facts of everyday life and are met, mostly, with a defeated shrug of the shoulders.
In free and open societies like ours, things are supposed to be different. Our whole way of life is built upon trust, and trust is built upon truth and reciprocity. We have impartial police, independent judges and the rule of law. We have a free media and institutions capable of standing up to governments and business. We have freedom of expression and the right to protest.
And – as important as laws and independent institutions are – we also have exacting norms. Politicians must not lie to Parliament. The media should not lie and smear. Those in positions of power – from police officers to prime ministers – should be held to a higher standard, because they have extraordinary powers over their fellow citizens.
At least, that is how it is supposed to work. In reality, it has never worked perfectly – there have always been abuses of power and justice is not always done – but there is reason to believe things are getting profoundly worse.
The Johnson saga is one obvious example. But the problem is not limited to him and it is not limited to this Government. Within the Labour Party, for example – where decency and truth have been subordinated to ideology and dogma – Rosie Duffield MP has faced such a campaign of harassment and intimidation that she requires special support from the police, all because she has criticised transgender ideology.
Duffield says Keir Starmer has failed to stand up to the zealots and is no better than Jeremy Corbyn. And indeed Starmer refuses to state biological facts – for example that only women have a cervix. We do not know if this reflects his beliefs or fear of radicals in his party, but the refusal to respect truth has consequences: Labour wants male criminals who say they are women, including sex offenders, to serve time in women’s prisons.
We live in an age where your view of the truth, and who is telling the truth, is contingent on personal loyalties, political support and ideology. In America, the majority of Republicans still believe that Donald Trump won the presidential election. But are Democrats any better? They insisted the 2000 and 2016 elections were stolen. Before the last election there, some Democrats said they could not trust the Covid vaccine because they could not trust Trump.
The former president, of course, was never faithful to the truth. And his example shows how quickly things can spiral downward when leaders and institutions abandon norms of decency and honesty. Republican politicians were intimidated by activists and their president into complicity, institutions and laws were subverted, and Democrats became more convinced that their own virtue – never something they underestimated – justified their own dishonesty.
We already live in a world where big businesses such as banks and manufacturers like Volkswagen have been caught lying and cheating. We have hostile foreign governments trying to exploit our open societies and democratic institutions. We know that polarisation causes people to put partisanship over propriety. And social media and the fragmentation of news mean a lie can reach many millions of people without the truth ever catching up.
There have always been disputes about truth, but this is different. For some, warped ideology means there is no single truth, just different discourses and lived experiences: hence “my truth” and yours. For others, social, political, institutional and technological changes merely give them a chance to lie with a reasonable expectation that they might get away with it. Many believe their cause, or their tribe, or sheer narcissism means the ends justify the means.
But it is all horribly corrosive. In politics a lie justifies another lie, a deceit prompts a cheat. And in our wider society untruths chip away at trust, fuelling corruption and crime and undermining our sense of responsibility to one another. Societies without truth and trust are more dangerous, less prosperous and unhappier.
If we want something better we need strong laws and institutions, but restored norms, too. You cannot claim to stand for truth unless you call out lies on your own side, and in circumstances when your side might pay a price for such honesty. In the end, it is incumbent on all of us to stand up for what is right.
