There is currently a joke

going around that goes something like this. 

A man goes to heaven. He is waiting for St Peter to fill out the paper work at his desk. He looks around the office and sees all the clocks on the wall.

"What are all the clocks for?"

"Oh, they are the lie clocks," St Peter tells him.

"The lie clocks?"

"Yes, if they move then we know people have told a lie."

"Oh. Whose is that one there?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. It has never moved. She never told a lie."

"And that one?"

"That's Abraham Lincoln's. He only ever told two lies."

"Can you tell me where the one belonging to Donald Trump is?"

"Oh Jesus has that one in his office. He uses it as an air conditioner."

Yes, funny but it could also be applied here to our Prime Minister and his Cabinet, particularly his Treasurer. We have, believe it or not, just been told that "Lying is how you build trust." 

Apparently you lie to the public and then, gradually over months and years, you lie to them so that they come to believe that their policies are necessary and the changes are necessary. They tell you "the situation has changed", that an external event or some natural disaster has made the change in policy necessary. It is not true of course but this is how they handle policy changes.

There are some changes coming up in the Budget that will do a great deal of economic harm. They are being made with an eye to a third term in government. They will appear to be giving to "struggling" families who are finding it hard to make ends meet. 

A retired bank economist tried to explain to me yesterday that the proposals being discussed in the press will raise rents by around twenty percent. They will not add to housing stock and may make it more expensive to actually build houses. We already have a housing shortage. This will add to the problems. But.... it sounds good. 

By the time the next election comes around this will almost certainly be blamed on the war in the Middle East and the fuel shortages. Will the government be held to account? It is unlikely. We will just see more solar panels and wind turbines on agricultural land and be told that this is how we reach the magical "net zero".