Why is it OK for politicians to lie?

StevieJ

Malthusian wrote: »

Firstly, an ASA-type organisation would have approved the Leave bus. The ASA rules on the accuracy of what an advert actually claims. Unlike a politician, they would be able to see that "We send £350m a week to the EU. Let's fund the NHS instead" is not the same as "We send £350m a week to the EU. Let's spend that on the NHS instead." The second sentence is deliberately worded so that it does not refer back to the £350m figure. Like everyone else I agree the poster was ill-advised but only because we know there are so many people willing to pretend to be illiterate if it puts their opponent on the back foot.

The £350 million a week is incorrect in itself irrespective of the NHS claim , that infers a payment £18 billion to the EU, when in fact we send 18 - 5 (Thatcher rebate) = £13 billion to the EU of which £4.5 billion is returned leaving a £8.5 billion net.

justme111

£8.5 billion a week?:eek:
Why nobody in the media seem to celebrate this money woul be saved and plan how it could be used instead of doom and glooming ?

Malthusian

StevieJ wrote: »

The £350 million a week is incorrect in itself irrespective of the NHS claim , that infers a payment £18 billion to the EU, when in fact we send 18 - 5 (Thatcher rebate) = £13 billion to the EU of which £4.5 billion is returned leaving a £8.5 billion net.

Considering the Remainders have been saying for years that it's unfair that the UK should get a rebate and we should be good Europeans and stop being so selfish and pay our fair share, I find it ironic that they've now decided it was guaranteed and set in stone forever.

Instead of a "rebate" they could just have reduced the UK's contribution to £13bn, in which case Farage wouldn't have been able to talk about £350m a week. However, it was structured as a rebate because that way it would be easier to take it back from the UK at a later negotiation with a more pliant Prime Minister than Thatcher. Unfortunately that act of extreme cleverness rather blew up in their faces and now they're taking it out on a poor defenceless bus.

System

justme111 wrote: »

£8.5 billion a week?:eek:
Why nobody in the media seem to celebrate this money woul be saved and plan how it could be used instead of doom and glooming ?

A year, and because relatively speaking 8.5 billion is about the same as buying a packet of fruit gums.

Malthusian

In fact I've found myself wondering if the use of the £350m figure wasn't a rather cunning trap set by Leave.

Leave: We send £350m to the EU a week! We could spend *mutter* an unspecified part of that *mutter* on the NHS!

Joe Bloggs: £350m a week? :eek:

Remain: Aha! Gotcha! *turns to Joe Bloggs* He left out the rebate so actually we only send them £250m a week!

Joe Bloggs: £250m a week? :eek:

Remain: I know! Chump change eh. Chicken feed. About the same as buying a packet of fruit gums.

Joe Bloggs: ಠ_ಠ

Remain: Just £250m a week. Bargain. Tony Blair's offshore trust is worth less than that. They should be charging us more.

Joe Bloggs: (What planet are these people on?)

Every time Remain banged on about how we were "only" sending £250m a week and Farage was a liar and should be prosecuted for daring to suggest it was £350m and blah blah they put another bullet in their foot and made themselves appear more out of touch. However I am probably giving Farage and co a bit too much credit for wondering if this was what was intended.

mwpt

To put the EU figure into perspective. We spend roughly 11.5 times as much on pensions per week. That is, £2.9 billion per week on pensions. On healthcare we spend £2.5 billion per week.

Europe was never the problem with our finances. The problem is that we do not collect enough tax money to cover our growing health, welfare and pensions bills (pensions being by far the highest, and there are not many immigrant pensioners). We can borrow to cover this, but we'll just sink under the debt eventually. We could borrow to invest in infrastructure to try to achieve some more GDP growth (GDP growth generally means more tax money) but, well, you can do your own research on how well that is working in the modern world. Basically, we achieve very low rates of return from borrowing to grow recently.

The problem was not immigrants stealing jobs or worsening your services. Immigrants increased our tax take. Nor was the problem the EU making laws about bananas. The problem is, the world is changing and developed nations are going to have to find a way to alter the way we pay for the standard of services we're used to.

People voted against this changing world but... good luck with that.

wotsthat

Malthusian wrote: »

In fact I've found myself wondering if the use of the £350m figure wasn't a rather cunning trap set by Leave.

Leave: We send £350m to the EU a week! We could spend *mutter* an unspecified part of that *mutter* on the NHS!

Joe Bloggs: £350m a week? :eek:

Remain: Aha! Gotcha! *turns to Joe Bloggs* He left out the rebate so actually we only send them £250m a week!

Joe Bloggs: £250m a week? :eek:

Remain: I know! Chump change eh. Chicken feed. About the same as buying a packet of fruit gums.

Joe Bloggs: ಠ_ಠ

Remain: Just £250m a week. Bargain. Tony Blair's offshore trust is worth less than that. They should be charging us more.

Joe Bloggs: (What planet are these people on?)

Every time Remain banged on about how we were "only" sending £250m a week and Farage was a liar and should be prosecuted for daring to suggest it was £350m and blah blah they put another bullet in their foot and made themselves appear more out of touch. However I am probably giving Farage and co a bit too much credit for wondering if this was what was intended.

Yes too much credit to this being a cunning plan.

£350m makes a big splash, is eye catching and catchy and so attractive to the media.

When you start talking about rebates, grants to Wales and Cornwall etc. Well you lost most of the public at 'rebate' and the media will consign an analytical refuting of the numbers with the tumbleweed.

Why do politicians lie? It works.

jaydeeuk1

All the referendum shows is that democracy doesn't work. When you have morons who barely know how to spell EU being able to vote leave, it makes a mockery of the system. There needs to be some sort of formula based on the educational level and net tax contribution of voters that determines their weight. Labour would be f*cked, mind.

CLAPTON

wotsthat wrote: »

Yes too much credit to this being a cunning plan.

£350m makes a big splash, is eye catching and catchy and so attractive to the media.

When you start talking about rebates, grants to Wales and Cornwall etc. Well you lost most of the public at 'rebate' and the media will consign an analytical refuting of the numbers with the tumbleweed.

Why do politicians lie? It works.

I fully condemn the lies about 350 million per week as we actually directly send only 250 million per week (immediate Thatcher rebate)
and we have stuff spend by the EU back in the Uk (some wasted and some not)
so the net is about 165 million a week

what really surprises me is that the remain campaign didn't run lots of adverts saying we only pay £165 million each week to the EU.
That would have been really helpful and honest data

Indeed I have to say I can't remember the remain supporters on this board constantly reminding us, it was only £165 million a week so as to avoid people with feeble minds being needlessly misled

reehsetin

Supporting Independant organisations like https://fullfact.org/ is the closest we will probably get right now. I'm really proud to have supported them in the last election and the referendum.

I wish they were present during the TV debates etc too without live fact checkers to hold them accountable they feel a little pointless.