Wales to ban lying in politics. Good luck, they’ll need it

When this idea was first floated we were all in favour of it for the joy and amusement that would follow. Who wouldn’t want to be able to jail someone for the usual political lies - sorry, that’s economies with the actualitees.

But just think of the joy to be had here.

“Inequality is increasing” - no, the usual measure, the Gini, is lower than it was in 2008.

“Renewables are cheap” - have you even looked at the varied prices being paid under CfD and so on?

“Building more houses won’t make them cheaper” - What?

Now that they’re actually trying to follow up on this there is still that joy but two really rather large dangers:

Elected politicians who deliberately lie could be forced from office under proposals designed to put Wales at the forefront of the “global challenge” to restore trust in politics.

Radical changes suggested by the Welsh parliament standards committee would also make candidates in elections liable to criminal prosecution for making any false statement to win votes.

….

If a member was caught lying, the committee said they should be asked to retract the falsehood and the correction would be placed on their profile on the Senedd website.

They could also face suspension and, in extreme cases, be “recalled and removed” by voters and replaced with another member of their party.

Ah, no. We went through all of this with John Wilkes. Who can be in Parliament is a matter for the voters and no one else at all. The one and only qualification is that majority. And that’s it.

Anything else is a step to that Soviet system in which sure, anyone can be voted into office but of course only party members can stand.

The second problem is that it will reinforce groupthink - not something we currently suffer from an absence of. For who is going to be defining what is a lie in politics? Say, for example, renewables are cheaper? Is this a lie? Well, it depends, doesn’t it? A kW of solar electricity is pretty cheap at noon on a sunny day and has an infinite cost at midnight. What about the grid, the backup required and so on? Is our Sec of State to be banned for lying or not?

Well, obviously enough, given what the general set of beliefs are in politics these days, that’s not going to be classified as a lie. Well, we can imagine someone trying to insist that saying renewables are not cheaper is a lie but not the other way around.

Which means that only those who sign up to what current politics currently believes is the truth get to be a politician. We’re reinforcing groupthink - that thing we currently have no shortage at all of.

Back to all of that Wisdom of the Crowds stuff - the only way out of groupthink is that everyone gets to say whatever. Truth, sensibility and connection with reality be damned.

So, despite all that joy at being able to jug politicians for electioneering this isn’t going to work. It won’t work on practical grounds - we have to maintain the ability of people to challenge the current groupthink after all. It also won’t work on basic constitutional grounds either. The only people who get to decide who is in the legislature are the voters. There is no ideology test and nor should there be.

Tim Worstall