The record needs to be corrected, says Barbara Veale of Boris Johnson’s mistruth during PMQs, while Cherry Weston remembers a time when lying used to be a sackable offence
“The Assault on Truth” continues. Your recent review of Peter Oborne’s book with the aforementioned title highlighted how Boris Johnson now tells lies with impunity (3 February). This cannot be allowed to continue. The prime minister “misspoke” at Wednesday’s PMQs when he said, several times, that Labour had voted against a NHS pay deal (Untouchable Boris? Bluster-busting Starmer could well put him on the back foot again, 10 March). At the end of the session, Jonathan Ashworth raised the matter with the Speaker as a point of order. He accepted what Ashworth said as a point of clarification. It has to be more than that. The Speaker must uphold the convention that ministers give accurate information to parliament, “correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity”.
Johnson’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, later declined 12 times to accept he had been wrong. Parliament and the public deserve to be told the truth and when that does not happen the record needs to be corrected.
Barbara Veale
London
