It has been ruled that Carmichael broke no laws in the course of his election campaign following the Frenchgate exploit.
That he is a cheat and a liar, no one, including him, disputed.
Remember that having won his election in the Northern Isles, he admitted that he had lied and smeared Nicola Sturgeon, the French Ambassadress and the French Consul, and lied to the Press and to the people of his constituency. He had the decency, at least, to write to the First Minister apologising for doing so.
None of that was in dispute. What was in dispute was whether smearing an opponent with fabricated allegations in the course of an election broke any electoral law.
The ruling appears to have shown that it did not.
It seems, then, to this non-legal mind, that we must accept that UK electoral law allows for Right Honourable gentlemen or ladies to use their position and access to private information on meetings with elected politicians and diplomats to smear other parties and to lie to the press, about having done it.
It allows them to waste the time of the Cabinet Secretary carrying out an investigation into the source of the smear with all the waste of time and money that that involves whilst all the time the politician knows the truth and protests innocence to his/her constituents.
It also allows them to further smear the integrity of ambassadors and consuls of other countries by implying that they too, are lying about reported conversations.
It accepts that despite the style "Right Honourable", it is OK to lie to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and an underling in their department of state, to your prospective constituents and to the United Kingdom. (The assumption is that Clegg, Cameron and Mundel knew nothing of these lies.)
It seems to allow for a person having done all that, and having been elected, to keep that position and salary for the duration of the parliament, despite the possibility that, had they known that he was a lair and a cheat, his constituents might have been less inclined to vote for him.
So now we know.
Malcolm Bruce was correct when he pointed out that all politicians lie and if they lost their seats on account of that, the Commons would be empty.
We also know that no matter how "honourable" or "right honourable" an MP is, (s)he is legally allowed to lie her/his backside off.
OK, I guess we suspected that anyway. But it's nice to have it as a statement of legal fact.
Another Great British value.
Just let's remember that at the next election.
You could be excused for thinking that you should believe NOTHING and if you assumed that, as they are legally allowed to do it, they will be lying.
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