Lies

A few weeks ago I made a fuss in this series of blogs at the behavior of one of the contestants in the television show, The Apprentice. That was Lee McQueen, who went on to win the show, despite the fact that he was discovered to have falsified part of his history in his resume applying to appear on the Apprentice.

Should we all feel free to sprinkle future job applications with white lies, is there a cost to lying in our modern society?

McQueen claimed that he attended Thames University for two years when he’d been there four months.

"I'd call it information that was miscommunicated, rather than an outright lie," said McQueen, the 30-year-old winning Apprentice.

At the beginning of this weekend the Deputy Mayor of London, Ray Lewis, resigned, despite protesting his innocence of accusations that he had falsified his history when he was enlisted to his job. It turns out that he this man had proven to be unreliable when dealing with other people’s money, according to the Bishop who had been his boss, amongst others.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that he was also a vicar? This same man, it is alleged by a social worker, had also relieved a parishioner of some of his money. It is further alleged that this same chap, undaunted, when vicar in the Windward Islands, managed to write dud checks.

This seems to be the perfect person to be selected as a Deputy Mayor of London. You are left to ask what’s going on. I know that when I fill in any official document to do with anything remotely official or governmental is that you are supposedly strictly vetted. This was the case when I was simply doing some hourly lecturing and had to undergo a full criminal records check.

So how, if this is so, does this joker walk straight past this entire system as if it doesn’t exist? How does our much discussed, very recently elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson hire and praise this man to the heavens, without apparently having the results of any kind of checking process. David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, also praised Ray Lewis in the past, which only reinforces the question marks about the efficiency and judgment surrounding the leadership of that party.

Whilst we question the efficiency and honesty of the Conservatives let us not forget that the Labour party is still wallowing in its own cesspit of smelly and corrupt misuses and abuses of expenses. It seems that the only major party not tainted by these types of irregularities might be the Liberal Democrats, for which we must commend them. However this is tempered somewhat by the fact that no one cares about them as they have no realistic chance of winning a general election.

I think the American slang term, employed by their military during the Second World War still applies. SNAFU they would say about both our leading political party’s, by way of an appropriate acronym. It stood for Situation Normal, All F…ed up!

At this point I should declare a special interest regarding London’s new Mayor, Boris Johnson. He looks exactly like a chap who haunted my past when he stole my identity and later admitted that he had been undergoing long-term psychiatric care, including medication. He caused me and mine great aggravation and was Boris’s physical twin. I therefore cannot look at Boris without fear and loathing permeating every fiber of my being. Irrational, of course, but then again my nutcase did look exactly like Boris.

“I’m very sad that Ray Lewis has had to resign” said Boris “we won’t solve the difficulties of this city by hiring antiseptic guys to deal with the knife crime and gangs.” The Mayor explained, after Lewis resigned.

Boris, your man is a liar and a villain and he had to go. What you need, what our wonderful city demands, is efficient and honest policing, being run by incorruptible politicians.

It all comes back to a simple truth; there can be little or no tolerance for misleading your colleagues because it will inevitably lead to disaster. When the guy lied to the people on The Apprentice he should have been thrown out rather than humored. It wasn’t shaving the truth, it was a lie. How do you ever know if you can trust him again?

If society accepts one lie from one person, what’s the difference when a second person covers up a few inconvenient facts?

We simply don’t have any moral certainties any more. Our compass telling us what is wrong and right has been discarded in the pursuit of wealth. We will never be happy or content until we regain our core values and self- respect. We have to re-learn, as a society, the difference between the truth and lies and the importance of absolute values. It is time to stop walking by and shrugging our shoulders when we see something is wrong. If we don’t the consequences will always be bad.

You don’t have to be priest or a moralist to insist that we will sacrifice civilization itself if we don’t clean up the mess this moral vacuum is creating.