British Politics is undergoing a revolution. It started with the Leave Brexit Campaign of lies, cheating and subversion , in 2016, with a hefty pinch of Russian and Cambridge Analytica interference.
Boris Johnson saw an opportunity to realise his personal ambitions and did a complete U turn, although he had always hated Europe, even as a Brussels correspondent, because the EU would stand in his way and not let him perform his dirty tricks and get away with it.
Johnson, thinks rules do not apply to him. He thinks he is elite and can do what he likes. He thinks he is roared on by the crowd, who want the same things as he does, because he has fooled people into thinking he is there for their betterment, whereas the reality is Johnson is there for his kudos only and that of a few rich acquaintances that finance his endeavours, again for personal gain, at the expense of the population and the nation. Instead of a Public servant serving the people, Boris Johnson’s personality disorder stops him serving the people and instead having disdain for them.
Like any dictator in history , he surrounds himself with sycophants to do his bidding and keep him in power.
No more so than Thérèse Coffey , the Work and Pensions Secretary, who stated on Sky News to Kay Burley that people like Boris Johnson, she is proud to serve him and people don´t worry about lies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyf5h1DYpMo
This, is the crux of the matter, and why we are witnessing the Boris revolution. It started with Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove, but now, Johnson is full speed ahead and pretty much invincible. The problem is in the Houses of Parliament , people are working to the old rules. They do not realise that the Eton rifle has stormed the building and ripped up convention. He is light years ahead of them, and treats them not as an Right Honourable Gentlemen, but as stupid fools. So when a Labour MP calls him out for lying, the establishment throws her out, instead of throwing out the culprit and Johnson gains another victory like a Dennis the Menace school boy. It is the same with the other 649 MPS, who do not know how to stop Johnson, even though most of them do not want to. They still on the face of things refer to right and honour and gentleman. Wrong, Johnson is not right, has no honesty and integrity and is a scoundrel, a bounder a charlatan, as well as being deluded and inept. The only way to take on Johnson, is on his terms and pitch, play dirty, fight, and not give in.
I remember the Hartlepool market trader who said on BBCTV May 5th, he would “vote for Boris because he was a character, unlike the others”. A character yes, but for all the wrong reasons. The Kray Twins were characters, Al Capone was a character, Stalin, Hitler , Mussolini , Franco, Napoleon, were all characters. What a strange way of thinking that a person wants such characters to run their lives for them. A way of thinking, that shows ignorance and stupidity, a lack of education.
And so we come to the belief in a proven serial habitual liar and adulterer, a man with no empathy, no morals, a showman, who needs to be liked and whose bullshit, would be better served as a used car or doubling glazing salesman.
Boris Johnson’s flirtation with dishonesty has cost him at least three jobs and damaged his standing with the people of Liverpool and London, if not the world.
And while he once told The Independent that his mistakes “are too numerous to list in full”, here is our roundup of his most notorious untruths. Johnson tells more lies than a machine gun fires bullets, so on a daily basis he deliberately makes it hard to be fact checked. He learned this trick from President Trump, who left journalist in his wake, trying to check lie one, when Trump was on lie 4,5 and 6. So too Johnson.
Here are the most important lies, though Boris and the Tories would say no lies matter . I do not profess it to be totally inclusive, as I said Boris makes it deliberately hard to follow the trail. Many of the lies are said in waffle and bluster, plucking out figures that sound good, out of thin air, with no basis whatsoever. Like when at Eton Boris never turned up to rehearsals so performed Richard the III using post it notes stuck around the stage. Johnson is lazy, has no attention to detail, and basically makes it up as he goes along, tells people what they want to hear, never mind the facts here is the story. Like the analogy with the used car salesman, “ a one owner, fully serviced, low mileage” turns out to have had 3 owners, never been serviced, and the mileometer had been turned back!”
The made-up quote
Boris Johnson was sacked from his job at The Times newspaper over allegations he fabricated a quote from his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, for a front-page article about the discovery of Edward II’s Rose Palace.
“The trouble was that somewhere in my copy I managed to attribute to Colin the view that Edward II and Piers Gaveston would have been cavorting together in the Rose Palace,” Johnson claimed.
Alas, Gaveston was executed 13 years before the palace was built. “It was very nasty,” Johnson added, before attempting to downplay it as nothing more than a schoolboy blunder.
Fake news from Brussels
After leaving the Times, Johnson moved straight to The Daily Telegraph, working as the publication's Brussels correspondent between 1989 and 1994. So much for a CV check and references.
His articles, like those in several other Eurosceptic newspapers, contained many of the claims widely described as “Euromyths”, including plans to introduce same-size “eurocoffins”, establish a “banana police force” to regulate the shape of the curved yellow fruit, and ban prawn cocktail crisps.
When later questioned about them in parliament, he denied suggestions they were a figment of his imagination.
“There is a great deal of effort being made to deprecate those who think we should leave the EU and everything we say is somehow mythical”, he replied.
Misrepresenting the people of Liverpool
Mr Johnson became editor of the Spectator in 1999 after telling owner Conrad Black, who was later convicted of fraud, that he would not pursue a political career. This promise was broken in 2001 when he won election as Conservative MP for Henley in Oxfordshire.
Three years later he was forced to apologise for an article in the magazine which blamed drunken Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and suggested that the people of the city were wallowing in their victim status.
“Anyone, journalist or politician, should say sorry to the people of Liverpool – as I do – for misrepresenting what happened at Hillsborough,” he said, much later .
The extramarital affairs
Michael Howard gave Boris Johnson two new jobs after becoming leader of the Conservatives in 2003 – party vice-chairman and shadow arts minister. He was sacked from both positions in November 2004 after assuring Mr Howard that tabloid reports of his affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt were false and an “inverted pyramid of piffle”. When the story was found to be true, he refused to resign. His multiple affairs have led to abortions, child birth and decree nisi (2).
Broken promises
Johnson's fondness for fallacy continued as London Mayor. Having promised in his 2008 manifesto to ensure there would be manned ticket offices at every train station, he agreed to widespread closures to pay for a 24-hour tube.
He promised to eradicate rough sleeping by 2012, only for it to double during his leadership. He was also accused of telling “barefaced lies” after he stated that police numbers would increase in London despite government cuts. He squandered taxpayers money on water cannons and a garden bridge over the Thames that was never built.
The lies on the red bus
Launching the Vote Leave bus tour, Mr Johnson returned to the scene of his earlier falsehoods by repeating his old allegations that the EU was setting rules on the shape of bananas.
He also backed the infamous claim on the side of the bus that the UK was sending £350m a week to the EU, followed by “let’s fund our NHS instead”.
The UK Statistics Authority issued an official statement in May 2016 describing the claim as “misleading”, but Mr Johnson repeated it in an article in the Telegraph in September 2017.
The article has since been taken down and Johnson faced a private prosecution over claims he deliberately lied during the campaign. However the judge was acquainted with Johnson through a private members club, threw the case out.
The MP's lawyer told a court: “I should make it clear that because of the interest in this case that it is absolutely denied by Johnson that he acted in an improper or dishonest manner at any time.”
‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey joining the EU’. FALSE
Boris Johnson claimed he did not mention Turkey during the referendum after it was suggested he falsely claimed 80 million Turks would come to Britain unless the UK left the EU.
In fact, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control”. The Vote Leave campaign also produced a poster reading: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”, adding “David Cameron wants Turkey to join the EU. How will our NHS cope?”.
Johnson, whose great-grandfather was the Ottoman politician Ali Kemal, was also quoted as saying “I am very pro-Turkish but what I certainly can’t imagine is a situation in which 77 million of my fellow Turks and those of Turkish origin can come here without any checks at all. That is mad – that won’t work.”
Johnson’s Turkish cousin commented: “He doesn’t strike me as being very honest about his views.”
Since Johnson launched his Tory leadership bid he has lied and misled his Party, Parliament and the public well over a 100 times. So many times it is difficult to assess all of them.
To navigate his many and varied untruths here is a handy interactive timeline.
Johnson is frequently dishonest and has a habit of repeating his favourite lies over and over again, to convince people it must be true. So to make it more manageable for you (and for us!) I have only recorded each lie once.
December 2019
Johnson's campaign slogan, "Get Brexit Done", is a lie. The Northern Ireland protocol problems, mean that Brexit is far from paid for and far from being done, as Johnson now wants to renegotiate it, and rip up international treaties, that are getting in his way.
A top UK diplomat has quit because she was fed up with political leaders not being honest with citizens when it came to leaving the UK. 'Lying is no longer a sin': Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador .
However, Johnson crossed one of his own red lines in order to reach the deal, thereby creating a ‘division’ between NI and GB. “No Border in Irish Sea, No paperwork, if anyone hands out paperwork send them to me”
1 December 2019 Austerity
This country has suffered from a decade of austerity under successive Tory governments.
Johnson claimed that councils which “manage their finances” have been able to open new libraries. FALSE
As the UK Library Association made clear, for many councils it is “less to do with sound financial management and more to do with the cuts of c.30-40 per cent handed down to them by the previous Conservative Government.”
November 2019
In his first speech as PM, Johnson promised to “fix the crisis of social care” with “a clear plan we [the Conservative Party] have prepared”.
The Conservative’s do not have a “plan” to fix social care, and their own manifesto admitted as much when all it said was: “We will commit to urgently seek a cross-party consensus to bring forward the necessary proposals.”
Boris Johnson claims that he has never told a lie.
28 November 2019 ITV News
Where to even begin with this….Scroll up and down to see why he is lying! Habitual, pathological liars, often cannot tell the difference, between fiction and fact. Johnson has to lie to cover up his numerous mistakes and his previous lies. It becomes perpetual.
The Conservative Party claim that the policy to retain, recruit and train 50,000 nurses will cost £879m in 2023/24.
27 November 2019 Conservative Manifesto
Even without adding training costs, 50,000 nurses at pay band 5, cost the NHS in the region of £2.8 billion a year based on this estimate.
The Conservative manifesto pledged 50,000 more nurses, plus bursaries.
27 November 2019 Conservative Manifesto
This is a lie and also incredibly misleading because the 50,000 figure includes 18,500 of existing nurses, who will be encouraged to not retire.
Johnson claimed he is putting "the biggest ever cash boost into the NHS”.
22 November 2019
But the average per cent increase under the Tories (3.4 per cent) will be even lower than the 3.7 per cent average rise seen since the NHS was established.
In 2017, Johnson claimed that it was important to recognise ‘Russia have attempted to interfere in our elections.’
20 November 2019 FactCheck
However, in response to a question regarding the delay of the JIC Russian intelligence report, Johnson claimed that “there’s absolutely no evidence that I’ve ever seen of any Russian interference in UK democratic processes.”
During the first head-to-head debate between Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, CCHQ changed their press account to “FullFact”. The Tories and individual ministers are heavily reliant on significant donations from Russians.
19 November 2019
Johnson claimed that a Labour Government would raise corporation tax to the highest in Europe.
18 November 2019Source: Channel 4: Fact Check
Outright lie. Labour will raise corporation tax to 26 per cent by 2022. France, Germany, Japan, Portugal and Belgium all have higher rates of corporation tax than this.
During the Tory leadership contest, Johnson claimed that “every time corporation tax has been cut…it has produced more revenue.”
However, Johnson subsequently announced that he was shelving plans to cut corporation tax from 19 per cent to 17 per cent in order to save £6bn.
Johnson previously claimed that the Conservatives had not done a deal with the Brexit Party.
15 November 2019 However Brexit Party MEP, Ann Widecombe, claimed that No.10 offered her a place in the Brexit negotiations if she agreed to stand down.
Johnson once again claimed that the murder rate fell below 100 for several years during his tenure as Mayor of London.
However, official figures show the number of murders in the capital only fell below 100 once during his time as Mayor, dropping to 94 in 2014. In 2015, his last full year in office, there were 119 murders.
During his 5 Live Q & A, Johnson also claimed that stop and search increased when he was Mayor of London.
15 November 2019
This is not true either. In Johnson’s first year as Mayor there were nearly 800,000 and fell to just over 130,000 in 2017/18.
Johnson repeated a claim that the current Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was responsible for £17m of Garden Bridge funding.
15 November 2019
This is a lie. Johnson first mentioned this claim back in June, when he was running to be leader to the Conservative Party. A construction contract worth £21m was rushed through before Boris Johnson left office in order to keep the project afloat. The £17m is a chunk of that, which was signed off by Boris Johnson.
The Conservatives have produced figures on Labour’s spending plans over the next five years.
11 November 2019
These figures are the work of pure fiction. Or as Full Fact states: “many of the figures behind this estimate are uncertain or based on flawed assumptions.”
Johnson said that he will not enforce customs checks, including paperwork, between NI and GB as part of his sell-out Brexit deal.
8 November 2019
This is a lie and contradicts his own Brexit Secretary, who conceded that there would need to be enforcement in the form of “exit summary declarations”. Johnson’s Brexit introduced red tape and barriers to trade.
Johnson claimed that the UK is “forecast in our lifetimes to become the largest and most prosperous economy in this hemisphere”.
2 November 2019
However, The Telegraph was forced to issue a correction stating that the figures related to an OECD forecast for Europe not ‘this hemisphere’. Furthermore, this forecast “did not predict that the UK’s GDP will surpass Germany’s…this was the columnists [Boris Johnson’s] own extrapolation.”
When asked, if he would sack a Tory assembly candidate who was accused by a judge of deliberately sabotaging a rape trial, Johnson stated that he would not comment as the case was ongoing.
30 October 2019
This is a lie. The case had concluded.
Johnson suggested that “there will be no checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain”
23 October 2019
However, Treasury documents reveal that this is a flat out lie. The documents reveal that there will not be unfettered trade between GB and NI. Not to mention his Brexit Secretary, Stephen Barclay, and Lord Frost confirmed Northern Irish firms would have to submit declaration forms on goods entering the rest of the UK. Now it has led to shortages and many companies refusing to supply N Ireland because of red tape.
As Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole made clear, Johnson “got rid of the backstop by making it the front stop”. What was once an insurance policy has become a permanent part of the deal. Following the publication of alternative arrangements to the backstop, Johnson addressed Parliament and stated that there would be no customs checks at the Irish border or “indeed at any other place.” In a letter to Jean-Claude Junker he said that there would need to be a “very small number of physical checks” at traders’ premises or points in the supply chain.
Johnson said that “7,000 or 8,000” police officers were being recruited this year.
14 October 2019
This is a lie. The Government’s own timetable says that “up to 6,000 additional officers” will be recruited by the end of 2020 to 2021. Also Tories made 20,000 officers redundant , closed 600 Police Stations, sold off court houses to developers in austerity measures.
Remarkably, the politician who claimed that wind farms “failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding” was Boris Johnson himself.
During his speech to Conservative Party Conference, Johnson stated that the fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were “on the verge” of being able to deliver virtually unlimited zero-carbon power.
However, the organisation responsible for generating electricity through fusion technology said it would not be available for at least 30 to 40 years.
Johnson claimed that Canterbury would get a new hospital.
1 October 2019: Kent Online
This is a lie. The Department for Health and Social Care confirmed that Canterbury would not be getting a new hospital.
September 2019
Johnson insisted that the Tories don't do deals with other political parties, in response to questions about a possible pact with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
This is a ridiculous claim. The Conservative Party went into coalition with the Lib Dems between 2010 and 2015. Furthermore, in 2017, after Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority, she agreed a £1bn ‘confidence and supply’ deal with the DUP.
Johnson declared that his government would build 40 new hospitals.
This is simply untrue. Only six hospitals have been earmarked for immediate work. The remaining 34 hospitals will not be able to apply for funding until 2025.
Johnson suggested that one of the reasons why he wanted a Queen’s Speech was to pass the Domestic Abuse Bill.
This is completely misleading. The Domestic Abuse Bill had its First Reading in July 2019. If Johnson had not unlawfully prorogued Parliament then the Bill could have continued its full passage into law. A Queen’s Speech would not have been required.
Johnson repeatedly justified calling the the European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 the ‘Surrender Act’ because he claimed it would take away the power of the government to determine how long the UK would remain in the EU and give that power that power to Brussels.
25 September 2019
This is simply not true. The European Union (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019 does not transfer any powers to the EU. It was the UK Parliament, not the EU, which passed the Act to extend the withdrawal date in the event of a No Deal. Furthermore paragraph 3, subsection (3) of the Act makes explicitly clear that the decision to extend the exit date beyond 31 January 2020 lies with the House of Commons.
During a debate in Parliament, Johnson was urged by one of his Conservative colleagues not to use the words “surrender” or “betrayal”. Johnson insisted that he had “not used those words”.
25 September 2019
This is a flat out lie. He used both “surrender” and “betrayal” only minutes before in the same debate.
Johnson insisted that proroguing Parliament was not an attempt to undermine democracy.
24 September 2019
The Supreme Court ruled that Johnson’s suspension of Parliament was unlawful.
Johnson claimed that UK socks face tariffs of 19 per cent in the US, as well as being required to meet other rules on how fire retardant they are.
However, a British sock firm - Corgi Socks - responded by saying that U.S. regulations do not present a problem for their business.
During a visit to an East London hospital, Johnson was challenged about NHS staffing levels and why he was coming to the ward “for a press opportunity”. Johnson claimed there were no press accompanying him.
18 September 2019
This is a lie. The exchange was filmed by the BBC.
Johnson denied that he said police forces were “spaffing money up the wall” on historic children abuse investigations.
13 September 2019
This was a lie. In March this year, Johnson said “£60 million I saw was being spaffed up the wall on some investigation into historic child abuse”
Johnson had previously claimed that Brexit would lead to “cheaper food.”
12 September 2019
But Operation Yellowhammer documents, that the government were forced to publish, show that the Government expects food prices to increase and warns of shortages as 30% of food is imported from EU. .
Johnson claimed that as London Mayor the initiatives he introduced to end homelessness were “successful”.
11 September 2019
In 2009, Johnson promised to end rough sleeping in London. By the time he left office in 2016 homelessness had doubled.
Boris Johnson claimed that an extension to Article 50 would cost £1 billion a month.
9 September 2019
It is deliberately misleading to say an extension costs the UK taxpayer, when the OBR has been clear it does not change the amount the UK is legally required to pay to the EU. The OBR predicts it would cost around £30 billion a year in extra borrowing alone from 2020 onwards. “We hold all the cards, negotiations would be easy, there are only Brexit benefits. “
3 September 2019
Johnson repeatedly said that he was “not attracted to archaic devices” like proroguing Parliament.
Johnson suspended Parliament on the basis that a Queen’s Speech was needed to introduce “new legislation" to invest in public services and cut the cost of living.
Since becoming Prime Minister, Johnson has announced a number of weak domestic policies relating to public services and the cost of living, without mention of the need to introduce accompanying legislative changes.
Johnson claimed that his Government planned to hire 20,000 frontline officers for neighbourhood/street policing.
27 August 2019
A leaked letter from the Home Secretary to the Mayor of London said that up to 7,000 officers promised will not actually end up on the frontline.
Johnson said that any trade deal with the US must cut red tape to enable the export of UK pork pies, as is the case with Thailand and Iceland.
The Chairman of Melton Mowbray confirmed that their products are not exported to either Thailand or Iceland.
A Downing Street source suggested that a “former minister” was responsible for leaking Operation Yellowhammer.
The former Chancellor, Philip Hammond, demanded Johnson apologise over “misleading” claims about Tory ex-ministers.
The Government claimed that the leaked Operation Yellowhammer documents were ‘out of date’.
This was not true. The documents were dated August 2019.
Boris Johnson claimed that he was investing new money in the NHS.
19 August 2019
However, the Health Service Journal revealed that the money will come from cash reserves already held by NHS providers, and therefore would not be classified as ‘new’ funding. Source
In a People’s PMQ session, Johnson repeated a claim that as London Mayor he took 11,000 knives off the streets through stop-and-search.
14 August 2019
This was a lie. Only 4,500 knives were recovered through stop-and-search.
July 2019
Johnson stated that it was necessary to restore the public’s faith in the criminal justice system and cited figures which revealed the number of people convicted of multiple offences who were spared jail, rose between 2007 and 2018.
27 July 2019Source:
Whilst the figures were correct, this is because the overall number of reoffenders has increased under the Tories. Furthermore the number of ‘super prolific’ offenders who were sent to prison in the last decade also rose.
Johnson agreed to enshrine the rights of 3.2 million EU nationals living in the UK, into law.
26 July 2019
However, Johnson’s spokesperson later confirmed that the Prime Minister will not pass new legislation, breaking his pledge to EU citizens living here.
During Johnson’s first statement to Parliament as Prime Minister he claimed that “crime is…down”.
25 July 2019
However, just 17 minutes earlier he admitted that there was a “rising tide of violence”… Violent crime has actually more than doubled under the Tories, including record levels of knife crime.
Johnson claimed that the last time he cried was when his bike – which he nicknamed “Bikey” - was stolen outside Parliament in 2016.
18 July 2019
However, Johnson clearly said in 2014 that “Bikey” was “dead, killed by – the weather”.
In the final hustings event of the Tory leadership contest, Johnson claimed that EU regulations meant a smoked kipper from the Isle of Man had to be transported on a “plastic ice pillow”.
17 July 2019
However, this was an outright lie. EU regulation only covers fresh fish. The regulations Johnson was referring to are in fact UK rules. What’s more, the Isle of Man is not even in the EU.
Johnson claimed that financial services bring in £72 billion in tax.
12 July 2019
The House of Commons Library stated that financial services contributed £29 billion in tax in the UK in 2017/18.
Johnson repeatedly claimed that Crossrail 2 would provide 200,000 homes on brownfield land.
11 July 2019
A report on Crossrail 2 makes clear that only around one third of the 200,000 homes would be built on brownfield sites.
Sugar Tax In a watering down of previous comments, Johnson said he had an “open mind” about the sugar tax and would wait to see the evidence about extending the measure to milkshakes.
11 July 2019
On 28 June, Johnson said he would not back the measure but as Mayor of London he introduced a sugar tax at City Hall. It was also revealed that Mark Fullbrook, director of Johnson’s leadership campaign, co-runs a company that lobbies on behalf of a major flavoured milk brand that contains more sugar than Coca-Cola.
During the ITVs Tory leadership head-to-head debate, Johnson refused to say whether he would keep Sir Kim Darroch in his role as the UK’s Ambassador to the US, after emails of his views of the Trump administration were leaked.
10 July 2019Source: BBC News
The next day Sir Kim Darroch’s resigned and Johnson falsely stated that he had supported him.
During the Tory leadership contest, Johnson repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether he supports fox hunting.
6 July 2019
Johnson has consistently spoken in favour of fox hunting. In 2005, Johnson joined a hunt for the day, saying that he ‘loved’ it. Concluding that “if a hound picked up a fox, then so be it.” Source
Johnson referred to the Vote Leave campaign bus as the “historic bus of truth”, in response to remarks about whether the model buses Johnson claimed he makes have slogans on the side of them.
6 July 2019
The Chair of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary stating the £350 million per week figure was a “clear misuse of official statistics”, and that he was “surprised and disappointed” that Johnson had chosen to repeat the claims. 5 years on Johnson is still using the figure. Source
During a hustings event, Johnson claimed that the North East of England was “the only net exporting region in the UK”.
5 July 2019
The last time the North East was a net exporter was Q1 2018.
Johnson repeated his claim that in the event of a no deal, the UK would have “an additional £39 billion” of the divorce settlement to spend.
4 July 201
The UK has financial obligations to uphold and if the Government refused to pay, the Institute for Government claims that the EU could seek redress in the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Johnson claimed that he was “bitterly opposed” to the Withdrawal Agreement, describing it as a “terrible moral blackmail”.
2 July 2019
However, Johnson voted for the Withdrawal Agreement when it was brought back to the Commons for the third time.
Once again, Johnson failed to show up to the Sky News debate which had already been postponed after his previous refusal to attend.
1 July 2019
Johnson had previously said leadership debates were “essential” and the “public does need to see interchange between their potential leaders”.
June 2019
Johnson said that the investigation of HS2 investigation chaired by Doug Oakervee wouldn’t cost any money.
29 June 2019
There are at least administrative costs associated with Government reviews. For example, this year a similar size and length review into auditing cost £210,000.
Johnson said that he would reverse education cuts made by the Tory Government since 2015.
29 June 2019
The latest Institute for Fiscal Studies annual report on education spending shows that per pupil spending on schools will be lower in real terms in 2022/23 than it was in 2009/10. Source
When asked whether he would support the extension of the ‘sugar tax’ to milkshakes, Johnson said that if he were to become Prime Minister the proposal “wouldn’t live long enough to get on the statute books.”
28 June 2019
However, as Mayor of London, Johnson approved of the sugar tax and even introduced one at City Hall. It was also revealed that Mark Fullbrook, who directed Johnson’s leadership campaign, co-runs a company that lobbies on behalf of a major flavoured milk brand that contains more sugar than Coca-Cola.
Johnson agreed, along with all the other Tory leadership candidates, to back a full investigation into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
27 June 2019
However, this pledge has been abandoned. The investigation has been downgraded to a general inquiry into all types of prejudice, rather than a specific focus on Islamophobia, as promised.
In defending his policy to raise the threshold for the higher rate of tax to £80,000, Johnson repeated his claim that nurses were among those public servants who were currently paying higher rates of tax on earnings above £50,000.
27 June 2019
The mean average basic salary for nurses and health visitors is £32,385.
Johnson suggested that he would scrap the current Withdrawal Agreement and use the implementation period to negotiate a free trade deal.
22 June 2019
However, the implementation period is part of the Withdrawal Agreement which Johnson said must be scrapped. He later conceded that the UK and the EU are “going to need some kind of agreement” in order to ensure that there was an implementation period.
During the BBC Tory leadership contest TV debate, Johnson claimed that his previous comments as Foreign Sec about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed in Tehran in 2016, didn’t “make any difference”.
19 June 2019
However, Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, disputes this, saying that Johnson’s comments enabled a “propaganda campaign” to be run by Iran against Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
During his first TV debate appearance of the Tory Leadership contest, Johnson said he still had “grave reservations” about a third runway at Heathrow.
18 June 2019
When Johnson was faced with the decisive vote in Parliament on Heathrow, he avoided his responsibility by flying to Afghanistan, having previously said that he would “lie down in front of bulldozers” if the expansion went ahead.
Johnson was the only candidate in the Tory leadership contest not to take part in the lobby hustings event.
Johnson was the only candidate not to take part in in the Channel 4 Tory leadership debate when he was replaced by an ice cube representing global warming.
16 June 2019
Johnson had previously said leadership debates were “essential” and the “public does need to see interchange between their potential leaders”.
At his leadership launch Johnson claimed that as London Mayor, he built 100,000 more affordable homes than the previous Labour administration.
12 June 2019
This is entirely misleading. The definition of affordable housing was broadened in 2011 so the figures are not comparable. Johnson actually reduced the target for affordable housing in 2011 from an average of 23,300 a year to 13,200 a year. The supply of homes let as “social rent” or on “London Affordable Rent” also fell from more than 10,000 a year to just 500 under Johnson.
https://insider.labour.org.uk/factcheck/boris-johnson-lies/
222 LIES, DECEITS AND SCANDALS BY BORIS AND HIS TORIES.
https://costofjohnson.com/
NHS spending rise is the 'biggest in modern memory'
The Tories indeed pledged £34bn in cash terms by 2023/24 - a 3.2% real terms rise. But the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank makes clear this is still less than it used to rise under Labour - and comes after years of Tory cuts.
He'll get Brexit done within 100 days, "get it out of Parliament" and people will stop talking about it after January. Not so. Empty Shelves, Brexodus of cheap labour, N. Ireland. Brexit Benefits non existent as Farming Fishing, Music, Finance, Cars Parcel delivery businesses all crippled.
The Conservatives pledge 50,000 "more" nurses for the NHS
The prime minister was forced to admit just 31,000 of the “more nurses” pledge would be new. The 50,000 figure includes an estimated 18,500 existing nurses who will be encouraged to remain within the NHS, or attracted back after leaving. Tory austerity saw 200,000 nurses less, and 70,000 doctors, Brexodus has further increased the vacancies.
“We’ve got a huge new Towns Fund which is going to be giving £3.6 billion altogether”
According to Channel 4's FactCheck, only £1.3 billion was new money, a fact that came from the government’s own press release. The Towns Fund is only new in the sense that it amalgamates two pre existing funds and tops them up with additional money.
The point is not that he makes mistakes: who doesn't? It's that he makes so many and never tries to put them right.
June 16, 2020: 'I talked to Marcus Rashford earlier today to congratulate him on his campaign, which to be honest I only became aware of very recently – well, today.'
For more than 24 hours, the news had been dominated by the Manchester United footballer's campaign for free school meals to be continued through the summer holidays. Ministers initially rejected the idea, only to give in. Challenged afterwards about his U-turn, Johnson insisted he had been unaware of the campaign throughout the previous day. We are asked to believe that while politicians and journalists were talking of little else, and ministers were sent to radio and TV studios to say why Rashford was wrong, Johnson was oblivious to the storm raging around him.
January 31, 2020: 'This country has reduced CO2 emissions already by 42% on 1990 levels while the economy, under this Conservative government, has grown by 73%'
The figure for emissions is broadly correct, but that for economic growth is wrong. Assuming that 'this Conservative government' refers to the period since 2010, the true figure is around 20% (prior to the current pandemic). The 73% refers to the whole period since 1990, 13 years of which were under Labour governments.
June 23, 2020. 'Yes of course it's perfectly true that it would be great to have an app, but no country currently has a functioning track and trace app'.
Johnson was replying to Keir Starmer in parliament, who raised 'very serious concerns about the gaps in the current system [for tackling Covid-19], including the absence of an app'.
As the Full Facts fact-checking website said at the time, track and trace apps were being used in France, Germany, Australia, Poland, Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Italy.
June 10, 2020. '97% of the [primary] schools that have submitted data are now seeing kids come back to school'.
This was Johnson's response to Starmer's accusation that 'parents have lost confidence in the government's approach' to school reopening. The Department for Education has since put the number for that day at 69%. In other words, 31% of primary schools had not reopened – 10 times the 3% indicated by Johnson. Twelve days later, Full Facts reported that it had 'asked Number 10 where Mr Johnson's 97% figure came from, and we have not heard back'.
October 29, 2019: 'It is a week since this parliament voted, yet again, to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1bn a month'
Twice Johnson told parliament that the delay in Brexit from last October to this January would cost the UK £1bn a month in extending its subscription to the EU. However, as the BBC's Reality Check pointed out at the time, his figure 'excludes any money the government gets back from the EU in grants for things like regional development or supporting farmers. When you factor these in, the figure comes down to about £744 million a month.'
More to the point, Johnson's own deal with the EU required the UK to continue paying its EU membership fee until December this year, when the transition phase ends. Parliament's decision to defer Brexit by three months did not delay the end of the transition period and hence made no difference at all to Britain's financial commitment to Brussels.
May 21, 2020: Starmer: 'Does the prime minister think it is right that careworkers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge… to use the NHS themselves?' Johnson: 'Those contributions help us to raise about £900m. It is very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources'
Many immigrants from outside the EU currently pay an annual surcharge to use the NHS. It's currently £400, rising to £624 . Johnson's £900m is the cumulative total of all such payments from all applicable immigrants, whatever their job, over the past four years.
How much would it cost to do what Starmer wanted? At the last count, 237,000 careworkers came from outside the EU. Many have settled in the UK and don't need to pay the surcharge. Suppose half of them do, and were now to be exempt. This would cost the government £47m a year at the current rate, and £76m a year from October.
December 6, 2019: 'There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB'.
A leaked Treasury document listed the checks and controls that would apply to much of the trade across the Irish Sea once Britain had left the EU and after the transition phase was over. These included tariffs, customs union declarations, rules of origin and regulatory checks. HM Revenue and Customs says the extra paperwork alone will cost £15-£56 per consignment.
June 3, 2020: 'Of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile centres, they're ALL done within 24 hours.'
Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the House of Commons Health Committee, had asked Johnson to 'tell us how many of the tests [for Covid-19] are currently being turned round within 24 hours'. Johnson's reply was contradicted by the NHS's official statistics, which found that in the week to June 3, the proportion of people in England receiving their tests result within 24 hours was 19% at regional tests sites, 5% at mobile testing units and 6% at satellite test centres.
June 17, 2020: Starmer: 'A report last week from the government's Social Mobility Commission concluded that there are now '600,000 more children living in relative poverty…'' Johnson: 'He is completely wrong in what he says about poverty. Absolutely poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government and there are hundreds of thousands – I think 400,000 – fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.'
The most widely accepted definition for poverty, not least in government reports, is where household income after housing costs is below 60% of the national median. This was used by the government's Social Mobility Commission, which said that the number of children living in poverty had risen by 600,000 since 2011.
What about Johnson's alternative figure? Downing Street has not provided a source. The BBC's Reality Check Team says it was 'unable to find any evidence for his claim that there are 400,000 fewer families living in poverty than in 2010'.
Anna Feuchtwang, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition complained to the government's own watchdog, the Office for Statistics Regulation. On July 30, the OSR replied. It agreed that Johnson's statement was 'incorrect' https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/boris-johnson-top-ten-lies-2020-and-89768 https://boris-johnson-lies.com/
Fri 30 Apr 2021 13.28 BST
It was a jaw-dropping moment. This week the SNP Commons leader, Ian Blackford, asked Boris Johnson a question in parliament that was unsurprising and yet somehow extraordinary. “I can’t possibly call the PM a liar in this house,” Blackford said, beaming in remotely from Scotland. “But … are you a liar, prime minister?”
There was an awkward silence. It was as if Johnson – facing off at the dispatch box against the Labour leader, Keir Starmer – was genuinely mulling an answer. The Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, intervened, chastising Blackford for his unparliamentary remark. MPs were not allowed to accuse each other of lying, Hoyle said, even if this was what appeared to be going on.
There is Johnson’s reported quote that he would rather “let the bodies pile high in their thousands” than order another lockdown.
And there is Wallpapergate: the ongoing saga of who paid for £58,000 in lavish renovations to Johnson’s No 11 flat. Johnson says he did. But he refuses to clarify whether the Conservative party initially stumped up the cash, via the millionaire donor and Tory peer Lord Brownlow.
These questions have clearly rattled Johnson. The refurbishment story combines money and his private life – two subjects about which he is notoriously touchy.
And while Downing Street has said the “bodies” quote is untrue, to its frustration, the BBC, ITV and Daily Mail have reported it anyway, citing sources who were allegedly in the room at the time.
An exasperated cross-party group of MPs went to see Hoyle. Their message: the parliamentary protocols drawn up in Victorian times no longer work. “We need new rules for this Trumpian era of British politics,” Green MP Caroline Lucas told the Radio 4 Today programme. The MPs want to be able to call him out – and the charge sheet against him is long. Dawn Butler was right to call Boris Johnson a liar, says Keir Starmer. Starmer backs Labour MP who was ejected from the Commons
Under the ministerial code, an MP who makes a false statement to the Commons is supposed to correct the record. Johnson has repeatedly ignored this obligation, making a litany of inaccurate claims which he subsequently fails to fix. Seemingly, Erskine May, the sideburned baron who established parliamentary procedure, did not envisage a PM like Johnson.
Is any of this cutting through to the voters? Yes and no.
A video by Peter Stefanovic has now clocked up 25m views online. It lays out the occasions when Johnson has made false statements on the record. The range is impressive: CO2 emissions; relative poverty; nurses’ bursaries; and the government’s “record” NHS investment, actually less than funding under Labour.
“The film has resonated with millions of people,” Stefanovic said. “My mum and dad were stoically honest. They didn’t lie. This is true of the overwhelming majority in this country. Now with Boris Johnson we have someone at the top who lies with impunity. Those below him are then emboldened to do the same. The whole system is becoming rotten.”
The counter-view is that Johnson’s deceit is “priced in”. The public has accepted he plays fast with the facts, and yet support him anyway – look at the 2019 general election, when he won a big majority, and the 2016 EU referendum. He is an entertainer, rather than a norm-bound politician, the argument goes, a soap opera character who exists in a half-real, half-fictional realm.
Johnson’s wayward claims do not disqualify him from high office, his admirers say. Instead, they are received as proof of his sincerity, even if they are not quite accurate.
Labour doesn’t agree. A spokesman cited a “pattern of behaviour where at the very least Johnson’s not been totally straight”. If not “outright dishonesty” then “a colourful mischaracterisation of the truth”, the party said.
The historian Anne Applebaum – whose husband Radek Sikorski was in the Bullingdon Club with Johnson at Oxford University – said the PM hasn’t changed. “He was always exactly as he is now. It’s more the case that the times have caught up with him,” she said. “It’s only in this era that Johnson could be elected prime minister. The electorate now doesn’t care if you lie.”
In her book Twilight of Democracy Applebaum recalled Johnson’s “penchant for fabrication”, together with his “all-consuming narcissism” and “equally remarkable laziness”. She acknowledged his political and intellectual gifts. They include an “uncanny form of charisma”, which puts people at their ease, a “sort of genius quality” that makes him attractive.
That Johnson lies is a matter of record. At the start of his career the Times fired him for making up quotes. In Brussels for the Daily Telegraph he invented stories about the EU. In 2004 Michael Howard sacked him from the shadow cabinet after he lied about an affair. Johnson reportedly told Howard: “It’s my private life. I have the right to lie about my private life.”
And then there was the Brexit referendum – won, according to Applebaum, by lying, social media games and brazen attempts to awaken English nationalism. Previously, Johnson’s deceptions mattered little – unless, of course, you were a wronged spouse. Now, though, his post-truth method has dangerous consequences for the future of democracy, she argued.
Despite all this, Johnson is no Trump, Applebaum said. “Johnson has a firmer grasp of reality, even when he’s not being truthful.” And while Trump was an outsider, Johnson is a classic establishment member. The UK has not – yet – gone the way of Hungary or Poland, where independent media and the judiciary have been squashed. Instead, Johnson uses complicit tabloids as a way to dodge accountability, she said.
Ian Leslie – the author of Born Liars – said it was more accurate to accuse Johnson of a “kind of slipperiness” than of actual lying. Lying requires intent, he says. “It’s what the Jesuits call equivocation,” he told the Guardian. “I don’t see him as a strategic Machiavellian liar. I see him as someone who believes his own bullshit. A liar knows what the facts are. This is worse.”
History tells us that Johnson is not the first PM to have a casual relationship with the empirical world. One comparator is Disraeli, who was “persistently careless with the truth”, in the words of his biographer Douglas Hurd. Disraeli even faked a line of ancestry. In his biography, Johnson enthusiastically reports that Churchill admitted lying in time of war.
Johnson’s errant behaviour has appalled some ex-allies. Rory Stewart – a junior minister when Johnson was foreign secretary – dubbed him an “amoral figure” in a bleak age. His lies included “error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial” as well as “the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie”. Not to mention “the weasel word, the half-truth” and other classifications, Stewart wrote.
Ferdinand Mount – a former Spectator colleague – added that mendacity, untruthfulness, has a “strange fascination for intellectuals”.
Plato and Friedrich Nietzsche both thought great men lied in order to show their indifference to conventional morality – and hence their superiority.
Commentators agree that having a liar as prime minister is bad for the body politic. The journalist Peter Oborne is a one-time admirer of Johnson turned passionate critic. He describes the PM as the most prolific fabricator he has encountered in three decades as a political reporter. In his damning book The Assault on Truth, Oborne argues Johnson has betrayed the solemn contract between “rulers and ruled”.
Brexit and the pandemic offer a chance to reshape Britain. But Applebaum and others worry the country is being moulded into a less democratic form. Authoritarian states such as Russia have grown adept at propaganda. They see truth as irrelevant. What matters, the Kremlin argues, is ‘narrative’ – with lying justified if it is done in the interests of a higher sovereign purpose.
Some of this postmodern thinking has washed over into our own populist politics, she suggests. Johnson and his allies interpret their victory in the Brexit referendum as a sweeping mandate to cleanse existing institutions of liberal ‘bias’: the courts, civil service and the BBC. Using occasional distortion to get there is legitimate, the reasoning goes, since the goal is a noble one.
Still, Stefanovic is cheered by the fact that his video calling out the prime minister has been shared so many times. “It’s a wake-up call,” he said. “I’m saying: ‘Hang on, these are bare-faced lies. Boris Johnson is crossing into outright fantasy’.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/30/accusations-of-lying-pile-up-against-boris-johnson-does-it-matter
And so the lies continue unabated, unchecked. Britain’s Government has descended into a cesspit of a moral vacuum. Religious Leaders are silent about apparent sinful ways of life, and role models that show our children that it is ok to lie. If so where does it end, in total anarchy?
How can people really know what has and is going on, if they cannot believe the Prime Minister. How can people vote for a man they cannot trust, who is in it for himself. How can people be so uneducated and gullible.
One reason could be it is so hard to pin Boris down to deception. This pull together was not easy, taking nearly 8 hours, by someone who is used to fast ways of conducting research. What hope for the individual, and I wonder how many busy people in a fast moving lifestyle have got this far reading.
Those that have now have the evidence to tell others. Some lies are more important than others. If lies change a country’s constitution, win votes, lower people’s standard of living, cause death and destruction, I for one do not countenance it .I hate liars and cheats who prosper.
In my view Boris Johnson is guilty of the common law offence of wilful misconduct in public office, triable on indictment and even conspiracy to commit those acts.
Allan Sharpe
Founder, former law enforcement officer, and former Current Affairs TV Producer/Director.
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