Why do politicians lie? Because they have to

Tony is fighting Gordon while fending off Robin and Clare and trying to shaft Geoff while Jack beats him up about David. Iain is being knifed by Michael and Vanessa, egged on by MPs who are furious that he hasn’t laid a glove on Tony and has made them vulnerable to Charlie, so that instead of Iain they would rather have Michael or Oliver or David or Tim or possibly the Central Office doorman, any of whom would achieve the instant rapport with the British voters that Iain so painfully lacks.

They all might as well not bother. The British voter couldn’t give a monkey’s. It is obvious who is going to win the next general election. The victor will almost certainly be the Abstention party. As things stand, people are going to not vote in droves.

The public is profoundly, dangerously turned off politics. They think that all politicians are serial liars. They think that all politicians are incompetent. They think that the gladiatorial combat in Parliament is monumentally irrelevant because it takes place between factions of lying incompetents. So much is a given. And as far as it goes, much of this perception is true.

But it doesn’t go very far. Why do politicians lie? Why are they so disconnected from what ordinary people want from them? The reasons surely go much deeper. The explanation that the public give for their intention not to vote is ‘They’re all the same.’ They repeat this dirge like a cracked record because it is true. Politicians from opposing parties are far closer to each other than they would care to admit.

This convergence became significant after the collapse of socialist ideology. Tony Blair promptly ‘triangulated’ by welding Thatcherite economics onto Labour egalitarianism. The Tories cried foul and wrung their hands. Then they cried fraud. Now they just cry.