‘We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know that they are lying. We know that they know that we know that they are lying. And they still continue to lie’ (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

‘A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth’ (Goebbels)

Well we come to the end of a momentous week of bad judgement. Unless one has been hiding under a rock, we all know about Rishi Sunak leaving the D Day commemorations early, thus missing the international gathering and the photo ops desperately needed by Rishi to shore up his international reputation in this election campaign.

 A week of two debates where Conservatives were found to have used dodgy figures that the party was advised not to use to claim Labour would place a two thousand pound further tax burden on families. Four MPs have taken the £5k inducement from the Reclaim party to vote for certain culture issues (leaving the ECHR etc) against their own Tory party line, and Gavin Williamson has allegedly ‘induced’ his Reform opponent to stand down. The new candidate in Michael Gove’s former constituency, claiming to have moved there with a photo dangling the keys, which was proved within hours to be an AIRBNB booked till the day after the election. Oh and Keith Vaz, he of white powder & rent boys is standing as an indy in Leicester.

 I suppose this blog this morning is a cry in the wilderness for a better politik, a harking back to old values that have been lost, from days perhaps seen through rose coloured spectacles.

Yes there was political skulduggery in the past, but now with the advent of the internet and social media we can see everything. Trust in politicians is at it lowest level in forty years, at 9%, down from 12% in 2022 (Ipsos, 2023) with only 2% of 25-34s considering politicians to be truthful.

It is no wonder that our society is breaking down, when we have such poor leaders in this regard.

I think and talk about Edmund Burke a lot, because he as an 18^th century father of what we know today as Parliamentary politics, got it so right. In his famous (if you are a nerd) speech to the electors of Bristol, where he talked about the relationship inherent within the role of an MP, with all of their electors. Burke mentions a number of character traits, mature judgement, high respect, sacrifice and enlightened conscience, qualities missing from many MPs. Also that it is the duty of an MP to sacrifice their personal priorities and pleasures for their constituents and to put the interests of their constituents above their own. The Prime Minister, with the emphasis on Prime which is said by the dictionary amongst other things, to be ‘of the best possible quality’ and excellence, should be a paragon of these qualities.

Not a Prime Minister who leaves Normandy for a political interview.

We need a return to expectation of calibre in our politicians, we cannot expect a cohesive country unless we have an example from the top.

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses & avoids” (Aristotle, 384-322BC)