How do you know when politicians are ...........

TODAY'S GUEST BLOG

Two guests in one day?
Yes, why not. It's a big house. Besides, I like political comment.

Recently read a speech by Tony Blair on Iraq where every sentence was a lie. With George Bush of course, it is impossible to remember a sentence he has ever said that contained any truth. There's an old joke - how do you know when a politician is lying? When they have their mouth open.

When I was seven my beloved grandfather died. My grandmother wrote me a letter I have always kept. The core of it was this 'Hoping in all your life to come, you will try and live your life according to your Grandad's standard of honour. Remember to never touch strong drink and never lie about anything whatever the provocation might be. Do all you can in trying to help others and always remember that right always triumphs over wrong.' He was a good man, Charles Young, a 'gentleman to his bootstraps' as my grandmother also said. A lot of talk about honesty in politics lately. One reason is that governments in recent years have become more and more ideological, more and more determined to push a policy irrespective of the facts - the Iraq war springs to mind, and global warming, and tax cuts for the rich, and social security policy, and voting fraud and .... As a result, when it comes to communicating with the public about what is being done they can't produce the real reasons, the public almost certainly won't like them, and so the truth must be bent. And this is the other process going on. Not so much outright lies, necessarily, sometimes these come back to haunt you, but spin. Politicians have become expert in recent years at giving words new meanings, of phrasing things in ways that can have two meanings, and of commanding those around them not to tell them the facts so they can deny later ever knowing what was going on.

I have heard commentators defending this ducking and weaving and playing fast and loose with the truth as just the way it has to be in politics. People like me, believing in being honest, are presented as naive for thinking it can be different. But why should politics be different to everyday life? Do you deliberately mislead your friends? If you are a nurse or teacher or a farmer or in business, do you deliberately withhold information, or tell lies to your patients or students or clients or customers? Maybe I should send a copy of my grandmother's letter to all current politicians and aspiring ones. But surely they also had grandparents who brought them up to tell the truth? Was there not a grandmother DeLay, a grandfather Cheney? Did Rumsfeld's grandparents teach him nothing? Where do these people get their morals and values from?

And how do I rate against my grandad's measure? Well, not 100% I'm afraid. I do like a drink or two.