Until the end of 2020 I had never encountered the concept of the ‘virtuous lie’. I had only heard of lies, plain and simple. Of course, there are circumstances where deception, by means of lying, is surely justified. For example, to mislead an enemy into making a wrong move as exemplified in Operation Mincemeat whereby false information was sold to the Germans about Allied intentions in the Mediterranean. And I would lie if a band of thugs was threatening to attack my family and wanted to know where they were. In these situations we are dealing with enemies and thugs, respectively. But now we have two examples of virtuous lies told, in the first instance, to the British public and in the second instance to the world.
My first encounter with ‘virtuous’ liars was with Whitty and Vallance, the Chief Medical and Chief Scientific officers to the British government, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding that nearly everything related to the pandemic was a lie, Whitty and Vallance were caught and questioned before MPs about deliberately exaggerating the severity and likely case fatality of Covid-19 with the intention of spreading fear among the population and ensuring that people would follow the disastrous and deeply damaging lockdown policies. In consequence they were dismissed from their posts and are now both serving lengthy prison sentences…we wish. In fact, they both retained their jobs and Vallance was knighted!
It did not take long for the next virtuous lie to become apparent, and it was committed by former Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmila Denisova, when she deliberately and greatly exaggerated the severity of damage being inflicted by the Russians on Ukrainian cities and, especially, the extent of human rights abuses by Russian troops. This was done to convince governments in the west, principally the UK and the USA, to send more arms to Ukraine. It worked, but she was caught and admitted it to her own government and has, as a result of a huge vote against her by Ukrainian MPs, been dismissed. I must say that I am impressed with Ukrainian MPs who, in the middle of a war which is surely taking its toll on their infrastructure and young men in the military, are equally concerned about the truth. Our own MPs and, especially, our mainstream media—which trumpeted the lies fabricated by Denisova—could take a leaf out of their book.
There is no telling where the next virtuous lie will come from. We have no shortage of blatant lies such as Covid vaccines being 95% effective and 100% safe, face masks being effective and not damaging to individuals and the planet is going to be under water if we don’t all buy electric cars. These lies are told for a purpose—mainly to subjugate the population—and nobody has yet admitted to telling them or why they are telling them. Lies become ‘virtuous’ it seems only when we can get someone to admit to them, usually under pressure. The lies continue, just witness the barrage of nonsense to which we are being subjected over monkeypox; the parallels with Covid-19 are striking. Maybe monkeypox lies will be someone’s undoing. Only time will tell.
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