Wales could become world’s first country to criminalise politicians who lie

24 comments

1. Instinctively you think, yes, that’s how it should be. Then you start to ponder how it would work in practice. Would a politician who pledges something in a manifesto, only for a war or pandemic to make it impossible, be deemed to have lied? What about less clear cut cases, where the politician merely claims that some external factor prevented them from fulfilling their pledge? Who judges whether that breach was in good or in bad faith?

2. Oh well, best get building megaprisons then, Westminster is going to be pretty empty.

3. MPs would put the fines on expenses and the prisons are full.

4. The politicians would get around it with phrases like “we will try to” or “at this time” or we won’t raise income tax, then put 5% on VAT.

5. I’d settle for them actually answering a question.

   There should be some consequences instead of the old line of ‘I was given the wrong information’ & ‘I had no knowledge of that’

   Lying Bastards & We just accept it. The Boris bus is a perfect example. 350m a week to the NHS.

   The cannot lie with impunity.

6. Do you guys on the island still have those prison hulks from the 18th/19th century? You should reactivate those. On the same note, can we germans send our politicians too?

7. I can agree with that sentiment but there are already ministerial codes for each of the parliaments, they just don’t get enforced properly and even then have weak penalties. Strengthening the ministerial codes and enforcement of them is likely to be much more effective since it won’t be instantly vetoed by Westminster.

8. Politicians are well known for holding themselves to account…..so I imagine this will law will deffo be passed /s

9. I don’t want to see any encroachment of the US-style of politics, where you can spout any old rubbish, or simply say that you “believed it to be true”, and it’ll get a pass. Politicians pulling figures out of their arses is an easy one to call out. If it’s been fact-checked by a reputable source, okay, but if cam from their gran’s hairdresser, then, no.

   Personally, I’d rather see politicians be forced to answer questions put to them in Parliament, rather than them be allowed to deflect, and just spout propaganda about some unrelated project. “What about the state of the NHS, Prime Minister!”. “We’ve funded a garden gnome resettlement project in Milton Keynes, that the Right Honourable gentlemen across from me voted AGAINST!”

10. And this would just lead to politicians saying nothing. If you like every answer to any policy question to be “I don’t know” or “I can’t say”, and if you like manifestos to say “we will try to improve things in non-specific ways” then fine.

11. Sounds good, but awful in practice I think. Even if it’s written in such a way that only knowing lies are criminalised (ie person says X whilst knowing it’s not true – I think criminalising anything more than that would be awful for democracy) it would still have a massive chilling effect on legitimate speech due to fear of litigation + probably a big risk of people bringing spurious claims against politicians they disagree with. Plus it’s pretty damn hard to prove someone knowingly lied unless you have evidence of them saying as much. So high risk of chilling and spurious litigation, but low chance of actually arresting anyone who deserves it. 

12. A non-lying politician… That’s a very small pool of candidates anyway.

13. I think this is a fantastic move forward, It would be like perjury but only when one is an elected official or running for a political office.

14. Now why do you suppose that the ruling class would be treat the same as those they rule? Sounds obvious to me – they’ve served their purpose and aren’t needed by the Elite class anymore. A one world Government has no need for these “things”.

15. If Conde Binface put this on his pledge, he would get elected. Anywhere.

16. Sure it will be complex and complicated to implement but at the very least there needs to be some sort of deterrent to them acting entirely without consequence to suit their own selfish needs. I hope this proceeds even if in the most imperfect way. Being a politician is a public service and there should be repercussions for those not taking that *honour* seriously.

17. >“credibility gap

    That’s waiting for a Dr Strangelove meme..

18. This is one of those things that sounds good at a glance, but the second you think about it even briefly, you realise how absolutely terrible it would be.

19. Honestly sounds like a great way to get a politician you don’t like into prison.

    Putin would love this law.

20. How about starting with banning lobbyists and corporate party donations. They wouldn’t need to lie if they didn’t need to act against the public interest.

21. Imagine getting something wrong by mistake and being thrown in jail.

22. How do you prove a lie in politics, when the vast majority of what politicians say is aspirational at best.

    Imagine a politician says ‘I will increase our grain harvest by 100%!” and then there’s several droughts during their reign so they fail to do what they said.

    Did they lie?

    Imagine a politician says ‘I will not raise taxes’ and then every hospital in the UK gets hit by lightning and burned down, necessitating a massive amount of cash to fix.. So they raise taxes.

    Did they lie?

    I would actually go as far to say there’s no such thing as a lie in politics. The entire political landscape is a group of twats, attempting to predict the future.

    There’s way too many moving parts at play, for anyone to ever say something certain.

    And in a landscape where nothing is certain, can anything be a lie or a truth?

23. We are out of room in prisons, send them all to Rwanda I think

24. May as well just put bars on the windows at the Senedd.