Do we encourage politicians to lie?

“Being righteous after the event” is easy

The latest COVID inquiry — examining the behaviour of the UK government during COVID — began earlier this month and will run to December.

A big part of this is the performance of the government, not least in regard to so so-called Party Gate” scandal”, where Boris Johnson was found to have misled the House of Commons by insisting that all COVID rules were adhered to at Downing Street. Or he had the line that “he had been assured” that all rules were followed and he apparently didn’t know any different.

But how much of this evasion and deceit is down to the character of politicians, versus the huge pressure on politicians to perform in public?