Abstract
On the morning of the US election results shambles, Sir Malcolm Rifkind told listeners to Emma Barnett’s show on Radio 5 live that most of what Donald Trump said was “either doubtful or literally untrue”. This didn’t seem to surprise anyone. (A few moments later, two Americans, one pro-Trump, one anti, were arguing about his merits – both agreed that he couldn’t be trusted with facts, but the Trump supporter said she felt safe with him, nonetheless). A listener called in to say the courtly Rifkind’s remarks were typical of the sort you’d expect from a “stuffy elite” that hasn’t realised the world has moved on.
Evidently, it doesn’t matter that Trump is a liar. Clever people tell us we live in a “post-truth” world, whatever that is. Readers of the BJR won’t need reminding of the many terminological inexactitudes (to use a phrase from his hero Winston Churchill) Boris Johnson has used to weasel out of tight corners in his unforgiving rise. But please can we oldies be indulged just a little?
There is nothing more gratifying for a journalist than writing the word “liar”, confident that no lawyer or sub-editor is going to query it. After months preparing a story, tiptoeing around writing about ministers with “apparent contradictions” “facing questions” about their “incomplete answers”, the explicit nailing of mendacity is positively thrilling.
One of my most memorable days in newspapers was when we ran a huge front-page headline “How Mandelson lied to the Standard”, when we were able to reveal his dishonesty over the large house he bought with Geoffrey Robinson’s money. It was one of those “game, set and match” moments that make chasing a story worthwhile, if not quite as good as The Guardian’s “he lied and lied and lied” after the truth emerged about Jonathan Aitken’s dealings with the Saudis. Just imagine the air-punching that must have gone on. Jeffrey Archer was another who selflessly donated what was left of his reputation to the cause of making journalists feel a little more righteous.
So I can recommend the therapeutic qualities of the word “liar”. Sir Malcolm did not get where he is today by bandying around such terms. A wise lawyer, like a spy, always checks for a way out. Yet, as he suggests, he would be on safe ground with Trump. He might find it liberating. Also, the day might dawn on the post-post-truth era, when integrity and telling the truth does matter to more than a handful of old-timers.
And if that happens, I shall be applauding Gary Lineker, who has the temerity to call a spade a spade. He tweeted “Please. Stop. Lying.”, following a Boris Johnson briefing on the coronavirus. It’s not even his job. He gets no cathartic kick out of it. He’s just old-fashioned enough to think the truth matters. Yet, though not involved in news and current affairs, he was hammered for it by newspapers who think he should stick to groin strains.
Which goes to show that, in truth, the L-word still has potency. Laura Kuenssberg got into enough trouble for implying Jeremy Corbyn had not told the truth when he claimed he watched the Queen on TV on Christmas Day. Emily Maitlis suggested that whatever he claimed, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings broke the lockdown rules and “the country can see that”. Neither actually used the word “liar” – and quite right for skating round it. But how confident can we be that the BBC will use the L-word when the chips are down? This May, Maitlis got into enough hot water with the right-wing papers when Newsnight retweeted something Donald Trump’s former director of communications Anthony Scaramucci said (“You didn’t think you were going to be in a situation where you had a pathological liar as the President of the US.”)
The BBC’s new boss Tim Davie has been at pains to show he wants impartiality from his presenters and reporters. “How employees of the BBC conduct themselves is vital to maintaining trust,” he says. No doubt he means it, while hoping his new-broom impartiality signalling will help staunch the complaint calls from Downing Street (Newsnight’s excellent Lewis Goodall comes up a lot, I’m told.)
Much as we all have to play the hand we are dealt, personally I prefer that attitude of Dorothy Byrne, now editor at large at Channel 4: “I believe that we need to start calling politicians out as liars when they lie. If we continue to be so polite, how will our viewers know that politicians are lying?”
In this of all ages, with this of all prime ministers, isn’t that the issue, rather than the Daily Mail fretting about social media? These supposedly embarrassing tweets, after all, did not reveal partiality – however much the Mail calls Maitlis “left-leaning” – but journalistic judgment. Still the BBC seems to struggle to tell the difference.
