‘The Lies of the Land’ by Adam Macqueen (Atlantic Books, 2018) is a play on the words in the expression ‘The Lie of the Land’, which means how a situation is developing. Written by a long-time contributor to the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’, it looks at how politicians have often been “economical with the truth.” Most famously used by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, in 1986, it is an indirect reference to ‘lying’.

However, the writer of this book does not actually refer to that instance. Rather, he looks at many other examples over the period from the Second World War onwards. These are mostly in the U.K., but there are also some examples from the U.S., including the famous Watergate episode in 1972. In that case, as the writer indicates, “The weirdest thing about Watergate was how unnecessary it all was. President Nixon’s approval ratings were on the up in 1972: they peaked for the year, at 62%, just a fortnight before the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. He would go on to win his second election that November by a landslide.” (p.107)  Needless to say, the most recent incumbent of the White House, Donald Trump, is not left out by the writer!

Examples from the U.K. particularly centre on some key but contrasting, events, including the Suez Crisis in 1956. That led to the resignation of then prime minister, Sir Anthony Eden, who the author describes a continuing, “to lie through his teeth about his foreknowledge of the invasion,” as when he said in parliament on 20th December 1956 that he would, “say it quite bluntly to the House, that there was not foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt - there was not.” (p.27/32). Another example in the Middle East concerned intervention in Iraq based on the claimed presence of WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). Although the author describes Tony Blair, who was then prime minister, as one of “our best prime ministers”, along with Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, he indicates a resulting effect, that “Self-belief can convince you that everyone else should believe you too. Then things like empirical truth are for the little people.” (p.5) For Blair, “Emotional truth counted for far more than historical truth.” (p.223-224)

With this edition being published in 2018, the latest issue leading to being “economical with the truth”, is Brexit, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. It particularly focusses on the ‘leavers’’ campaign which had the infamous promise to, “send the EU 350 million pounds a week, let’s fund our NHS (National Health Service) instead,” which appeared on the side of a campaign bus. This figure was much challenged. As the writer indicates, “But whichever way you looked at the sums, we sent the EU nothing like that much money.”

Obviously, it is relatively easy to criticize, but much more challenging to offer ways to overcome the perception that politicians are always lying. He offers a few ideas, including a ban on political donations, which would potentially to reduce lies related to lobbying. However, he also notes new challenges, not least the downside of the Internet and the rise of ‘truthiness’, coined by U.S. satirist, Stephen Colbert, in 2005. This means that people increasingly people believe in what, “people want to believe.” That is undoubtedly going to be a major challenge to deal with.

See the previous book which I wrote about.