There are four main reasons why politicians lie.

The first is when they do not know the truth but feel they have to say something.

The second is when their party is pursuing a stupid policy which requires "white lies" to keep it going.

The third is when the media force a lie from someone, because the game would not allow the politician to tell the truth.

The fourth is the deliberate lie by the dishonest politician who thinks he will get away with it.

The first requires more politicians to say occasionally they do not know, or to decline the media request because they know they will be skating on thin ice.

The second requires parties to be more careful in the policy they choose. Both main parties have presided over fixed or "managed" exchange rates. In each case these have broken down leading to a devaluation. When the currency is near to cracking Ministers have to say "We are not going to devalue". They then look silly or dishonest when the currency does fall.

The answer is to admit governments cannot fix exchange rates, to avoid putting Ministers into such a position. There are many other cases where Ministers claim to be in charge of things where they are unlikely to be so. It??is wiser, for example, to say "I will do my best to prevent such a disaster in future" than to say as some do when defending another mess up in government "We will make sure this will never happen again".

The third case overlaps with the second. A favourite trick of the media is to ask questions which by convention politicians are not allowed to answer honestly. Most senior Labour figures knew they were heading for an electoral disaster in 1983, and again in 1987. Most senior Conservatives knew we hadn’t a hope in 1997 or in 2001. Had any senior figure in either Shadow Cabinet or Cabinet said as much on the TV or radio, they would have been accused of the gaffe that lost their party the election. As a result some??decided to fib by saying Yes they were going to win. Others used side stepping words like "We are going all out to win", "We want to win", "We can win" etc. The Liberal Democrats, struggling to be credible contenders in many seats, reguarly claim they are going to win seats where independent polling tells us they have no chance. This debases the currency of political prediction further. Voters shrug their shoulders about all of this and say "He would say that, wouldn’t he"

The safest course is to say "I never make public predictions of ??election results - that’s the job of commentators and pollsters." The aim should be to get the interview back onto what your party will do for people if elected, rather than sterile discussion of who will win. If you do this you have to be consistent. I?? refuse media requests to predict my own result in Wokingham, as well as the result elsewhere. If I did not the media would be able to put more pressure on me to predict the national result. I also think it presumptious of those seeking office to be too sure of the result before the electorate has spoken.

The fourth type of lie can only be made less likely by eternal vigilance of press, public and the other political parties. If politicians discover they are likely to be found out when they lie, they will do it less often.

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