Boris Johnson’s once dominant, now disgraced government is most likely to be remembered for his lying. Not just about his conduct and that of his cronies, but about what his government was achieving. Forty new hospitals, the fastest growth in the G7, falling child poverty, falling crime, the biggest reduction in tax for a quarter of a century, Brexit without a border in the Irish Sea: the exaggerations and fabrications came so thick and fast that his critics were sometimes too overwhelmed to effectively refute them.
All politicians lie – some of the time. The need to get out of tight corners and the contradictory desires of voters sometimes demand it. But it’s hard to think of a precedent, apart from the Trump presidency, for a government in a supposedly sceptical democracy trying to construct such a complete parallel reality, and for long periods convincing many of its core supporters and sometimes many other people. That Johnson was ultimately brought down by a lie, about what he knew about Chris Pincher, does not alter the fact that for almost three years constant lying was a strategy that served the government pretty well.
