Post-lies

Post-truth was announced as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries yesterday. It was defined as "relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief." The notion that desired outcomes are more important than facts was a key reason why the UK voted to leave the European Union and Donald Trump won the electoral college to become President-elect.

Post-truth Foreign Secretary

Post-truth free loader

It becomes more evident with every passing day that the Brexit frontmen: Johnston, Farage, Gove et al. made up stories that contradicted facts or else were desired wishes rather than realistic propositions. Post-truth seems a kinder adjective than the Brexiteers and much of the right-wing press deserve for their concoction of deceit that they avalanched onto an electorate who had given up believing a government that has significantly reduced the quality of life for the majority of working people.

The cheerleaders of the Brexiteers have no record of supporting the NHS, safeguarding benefits, opposing the impact of austerity measures or introducing more progressive taxation. They are firm advocates of the neo-liberal conspiracy that delegates responsibility to raise living standards to the markets. But for whom? There is a wealth of evidence that the financial and corporate establishment who gambled our pensions and savings in hedge funds and offshore tax havens, designed tax evasion schemes, indulged in mega-mergers and then increased their income through PPI selling, currency trading and higher bank charges should not to be trusted with rescuing the economy. They are the incarnation of post-truth businesses, but they have been one of the few growth industries and provide much of the advertising for the post-truth media empires. There is now emerging a strident but risible argument that the highly paid executives in the financial sector are vital to our economy because they make a far bigger tax contribution. Just like Sir Philip Green and his erstwhile friends.

Pants on fire liar

In the United States, it was notable that when the facts were checked of statements made by the two main Presidential candidates the Politifact Donald Trump scorecard showed that he had lied in 70% of all his statements, 17% were so bad that they were classified in post-truth terms as "pants on fire". Only 17% of his statements had some modicum of truth. The Politifact Hillary Clinton scorecard found she had lied in 26% of her statements, and 2% of her statements were classified as "pants on fire". 50% of her statements were in the truth categories. So Donald Trump was three times more likely to lie than Hillary Clinton but eight times more likely to tell porkies. Donald Trump, like the Brexiteers, had the temerity to appeal to the common man and achieve a democratic mandate for lies that are now defined as post-truth.

All of this leads me to believe that we need to define what should happen in a 'post-lie' world. An era that sheds the cynicism and narrative of post-truth and aims for more egalitarian values, progressive taxation, quality services for all citizens, and regulation of rogue corporations and businesses. Surely this has to be the objective as we challenge the post-truth opportunists of their collective greed and sinister involvement in trading, trafficking, warmongering and tax evasion.

It requires a commitment to a more participative democracy built at the local level, a guarantee of human rights, a global commitment to climate change measures and a universal right to education and health. A United Nations that polices global corporations as well as oligarchical regimes and a world bank that supports indigenous industry not tax advantages for the corporate behemoths. Those who dance the post-truth fandango will reject much of this for reasons that illustrate their very lack of humanity.