By Liz Lawley of South East Cornwall Labour Party

I have written before in this column about Boris Johnson’s lies. As I pointed out then, Peter Oborne, a Tory supporter, says in his book, The Assault on Truth, that “I have never encountered a senior British politician who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as Boris Johnson”. Despite clear evidence of his lies (as demonstrated in the videos compiled by journalist Peter Stefanovic and widely viewed on social media), we have the crazy situation where MP Dawn Butler was recently ejected from the House of Commons when she pointed out Johnson’s lies – but he is not held to account for them.
Given his history – don’t forget that he was sacked from previous roles in journalism and then as Foreign Secretary for lying – it should come as no surprise that pledges made in Johnson’s 2019 manifesto were also lies. Johnson is on record “guaranteeing” that there would be no rise in income tax, National Insurance or VAT under his Government; last week, we saw a 1.25% rise in National Insurance.
The justification Johnson gives for the rise is the urgent need to address the growing crisis in our health and social care provision, the Government claiming that this is needed because of the impact of the Covid pandemic. While it is true that Covid has placed further strain on services already chronically over-stretched as a result of over a decade of Tory austerity, shouldn’t we be asking why another of Johnson’s pledges – the £350 million a week that would be available after Brexit to support the NHS – hasn’t materialised to avoid the need for tax increases?
The National Insurance hike also illustrates the hollowness of another of Johnson’s oft-repeated mantras – his “levelling up” agenda. This increase disproportionately penalises ordinary working people earning over £9564 a year and small businesses (so much for the recent “after jabs, jabs, jabs it’s jobs, jobs, jobs” rhetoric from our Prime Minister). Health and social care workers will be worse off as they struggle in services already haemorrhaging staff because of low wages and low staffing levels. All this when recent figures show that the wealth of UK billionaires rose by £106,500,000,000 during the pandemic. Shouldn’t we be asking why, instead of taxing ordinary working people, Johnson’s Government isn’t introducing a wealth tax?
Ordinary people like us can’t afford to fall for Johnson’s lies any longer.