GIMME SOME TRUTH

03-05-2007

How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving. So goes the old joke, but Birmingham neurologist Dr David Nicholl - currently in Boston, USA - reckons that we’ve never had it so bad. On local election day, he’s got some angry words for national politicians.

The words “leaked” and “lying” are not normally found in a medical journal, yet they appear in a letter which I have written about the government’s Modernising Medical Careers scheme that appears in the on-line version of the Lancet.

All of this information has appeared on the Stirrer over the last 2 months, yet I doubt it will have any effect - “politicians lying” is no longer a news story. There was a time when politicians would resign for lying or misleading the public.

What is sad, is how we accept deceit in our politicians. This lack of moral accountability poisons politics and, as a consequence, poisons society.

Tony Blair has called for a ‘Respect agenda’- in a sense, I agree, but respect should start at home, in this case, Westminster. I, and the public, will respect politicians who are honest and accountable. However, with the current lack of honesty and accountability in Parliament, how do politicians expect the public to turn up to vote?

I certainly don’t mean this as an anti-Labour rant, far from it. In fact I have no doubt, if any other party was in power, the same mess with regard to MMC may well have occurred. Besides, I can still remember Jonathan Aitken’s speech on the “sword of truth” when the Tories were in power. He went to jail, as I recall, for perjury.

Last week, I worried as to whether I would get into the USA for a conference. This week, my secretary joked whether I would get back into the UK! Am I bothered, no because I have based my letter on facts not hearsay. I haven’t seen the libel lawyers or anyone else battering at my door.

Frankly, there is another reason for the title of my Lancet letter - “All the President’s Men”- just like the film, I have the tapes so if anyone tried to take me down, I will bring others with me.

So in summary, “politicians lying” doesn’t make a headline any more- maybe the fact that a medical journal reports this should make headlines. As I sit in my neurology conference in Boston, I reflect back on the words of the American revolutionaries in Boston in 1750 who stated “No taxation without representation”, maybe that is what we need in British politics in 2007.