In an age of fake news, social media, and mass data, citizens should be able to rely on their representatives to give it to them straight.
In 1947 an MP called Gary Allingham was expelled for alleging that other MPs were selling information to newspapers when he himself was the culprit.
Most famously, in 1963 the secretary of state for war John Profumo resigned as a minister, a privy councillor and an MP when facing a"grave contempt" motion for lying to the Commons that he had not had an affair with Christine Keeler, who also had a relationship with a Soviet military attaché. A subsequent investigation by Lord Denning found that national security had not been endangered.
In 1995 Jonathan Aitken kept it away from parliament. He resigned as a minister while fighting a libel action"against the cancer of twisted journalism with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play". The GuardianAitken was no longer an MP when he was sent to prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Other officials and ministers have sometimes played teasingly with the notion of lying. In a famous exchange in an Australian Court with the barrister and future prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Mrs Thatcher's cabinet secretary Robert Armstrong denied telling"a straight untruth", while admitting"perhaps being economical with the truth".
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