Tainted legacy of Campbell the liar
He’s lauded Boris Johnson’s Brexit brinkmanship. But now PETER OBORNE warns his No 10 aides to beware the . . .
Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I listened to a sermon in my local church and had a light bulb moment.
Convinced that then-prime minister tony Blair had misrepresented the truth and lied to Parliament so as to make the case for an illegal war, I decided to write a book on the culture of mendacity in politics. My focus would be on Blair and his notorious spin-doctor, Alastair Campbell.
I believed an epidemic of lying had infected No 10 over Saddam hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the legality of the invasion, the death of that brave government scientist David Kelly and many other things besides.
When it was published, the book was titled the rise of Political lying, with a substantial section devoted to those told by Campbell.
Sixteen years on from the Iraq War — in which 179 British servicemen and women were killed — Campbell is a senior adviser in the People’s Vote campaign.
I have no doubt the flawed presence of a man who has changed his twitter name to ‘Alastair PEOPLE’S VOTE Campbell’ helps to explain why the remainer cause has failed to put across its point of view convincingly.
how can the remain argument benefit from having as a mouthpiece someone who, though unelected, used his huge power to manipulate the government machine as a propaganda tool to sell the case for an illegal war with Iraq?
the world lives with the consequences of that appalling behaviour.
Worryingly, there are signs that his leave opponents are guilty of lies, too. I am now planning a new book, probably to be called the triumph of Political lying.
PRINCIPALLY, the guilty men, I believe, are No 10’s top strategist, Dominic Cummings — who, like Campbell, is unelected — other Downing Street spokesmen and some Cabinet ministers. And, I am afraid to say, Boris Johnson himself.
tony Blair’s successors, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and theresa May, were hardly saints. But, since Johnson became Prime Minister, I have been collecting a dossier of his administration’s lies.
they range from the small to the great. At a lesser level, bizarrely, they have involved food.
For example, there was Johnson’s nonsensical claim during the tory leadership hustings that Brussels enforces the use of plastic ice pillows for transporting smoked kippers.
And this week, there was his untrue, but headline-grabbing, claim that America prevents imports of Melton Mowbray pork pies because of ‘ some sort of
Food and Drug Administration restriction’, whereas countries such as thailand and Iceland happily import them.
there have been several untrue statements about the NhS, police numbers and matters concerning Johnson’s private life.
But most egregious are Downing Street’s comments about Brexit — and they follow similar falsehoods propagated by Johnson and Cummings during the Vote leave campaign in 2016.
Whereas some in Westminster dismiss this as simply part of the modern political ‘game’, I profoundly disagree.
If the public is fed misinformation and, therefore, votes in elections and referendums based on false premises, then this is a perversion of democracy.
During the 2016 leave campaign, anti-EU voices claimed that the UK gave Brussels £350 million a week. the true figure, after a rebate is taken into account, is closer to £267 million.
Such distortions and sophistry are being employed again. last Sunday, a newspaper reported that the Government was considering proroguing Parliament.
respected BBC correspondent Iain Watson asked Downing Street whether this was true and was told: ‘the claim that the Government is considering proroguing Parliament in September in order to stop MPs debating Brexit is entirely false.’
And yet, on Wednesday, the Government did announce the proroguing of Parliament.
For good measure, Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the suspension was ‘certainly not’ a political move to undermine those MPs opposed to Brexit. No wonder critics cried foul. Even more so when Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was overheard admitting that the real reason Boris Johnson had prorogued Parliament was because he had ‘no majority’ and would lose any debate.
MEANWHILE, at last weekend’s G7 summit, Johnson told Sky News: ‘We can easily cope with a No Deal scenario.’
however, only two weeks previously, a government document about operation yellowhammer ( its No Deal contingency plan) was leaked. It revealed that Britain could face three months of chaos at ports, delays to medical supplies, clashes with EU fishing vessels, a crisis for social care, shortages of fresh food and public unrest.
Downing Street dismissively claimed that these forecasts were the work of the previous administration, out of date and showing a worst-case scenario.
Gove, the minister in charge of No Deal preparations, insisted it was an ‘old’ document.
In fact, the report had been produced just 17 days earlier.
Shamelessly, Downing Street claimed the document had been ‘deliberately leaked by a former minister in an attempt to influence discussion with EU leaders’.
Fingers were pointed at former Chancellor Philip hammond.
Unsurprisingly, a furious hammond demanded an apology from No 10 — particularly as the operation yellowhammer report was produced after the end of theresa May’s Government.
I find it deeply distressing that British politics should be infected again with a culture of lying.
If anyone doubts the importance of honesty in politics, they should ponder the terrible consequences of the lies told by tony Blair and Alastair Campbell.