Fine line between spin and lies

Spin is putting the best face on something for your own benefit or for the benefit of your client (if you are a spin doctor by trade). If you resort to lying, it is no longer spin, and in the end you will be found out, as with WMD and the dodgy dossier.

They were not spin. They were lies.

M0nica Spin is not lies, it is putting the best side of any issue forward. Weapons of mass destruction [non-existent] less than an hour away [from Cyprus not the UK] and the dodgy dossier [cribbed from the internet] were definitely spin but I don't think there was a best side about them.

Spin is not lies, it is putting the best side of any issue forward. It is what we all do all the time in our ordinary lives without even realising. We do it not to hurt people, to protect ourselves, to impress, all sorts of reasons, but we do it continuously. Spin can become lies, and in politics too frequently does.

Is the intention to deceive always unethical? Next time DGD offers to help me do something should my reply be. 'No, darling, go away, you will only get in the way and slow me up' or should I say, as I will 'Thank you sweetheart that would be really helpful'

Spin, lies, whatever you call it, what we are talking about is the intention to deceive, which is ethically insupportable. As for 'truth' there is no such entity as 'THE truth', we each hold our own truth which is how we honestly perceive things, and even these do not all match. A little different from deliberate deception, which has become endemic, from fiddling expenses to cheating in exams to lying on CVs to political spin, all of which are becoming acceptable ways of behaviour. I despair.

I'm quite sure you're right, Penstemmon. Media Studies offered its students a variety of ideas and opened a lot of minds. Not all politicians welcome a well informed electorate. Many remember that it was a well informed and largely self educated electorate that voted in the bloodless revolution of 45. We met one another in the forces, in factories, in air raid shelters and in my case in the many schools I attended. The Beveridge Plan was widely disseminated and had a profound influence on us. If it weren't for the fact that we have to be anonymous I could point you to a website that you'd really enjoy.

Spin is not what you say but the way that you say it.

^The bad news is that all schools will become acadamies and all come under the control of central government.

The good news is that all schools will become acadamies and be freed from local authority control.^

Both are true. The second is 'spin'

bear I always say that is why successive politicians have undermined Media Studies. They do not want an informed and educated populous able to deconstruct their propaganda.

The pernicious work of Goebbels was well orchestrated and we all need to be on guard as to how that type of brainwashing can happen.

Spin is saying

'Local government have prioritised front line services' which sound eminently sensible but the reality is e.g. that local government has cut the time they will pay carers to wash and dress people with disabilities and used the small savings for keeping another service going.

Lies are when they say "No one is suffereing as a result of the restucture of our service" !

It is perhaps relevant to remember that Hitler persuaded the majority of the German people that the Jews were a) untermench, b) the cause of all Germany's problems, and therefore 3) deserved to die. He did it by skilful and incessant propaganda. The Minister of Propaganda, Dr Goebbels, said ''If you're going to tell a lie tell a big one' And even more tellingly 'If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.' I think I prefer the definition of truth used in our courts of law, where we promise to tell, 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Spin is when you only reveal part of a picture. For example, by only showing part of a graph (maybe just the good years), it's possible to prove different points of view. Lies are completely falsifying the evidence.

As for the difference between spin and lies, I'm amazed that George Osborne's nose hasn't grown as long as Pinocchio's for telling downright lies at the beginning of the budget speech. Nicky Morgan's claims about academies on 'Question Time' last week were lies. I can't find the YouTube video now, but I expect people will remember IDS being faced with facts and saying that he 'believed' the opposite.

And, no, it's not just the Conservatives who lie. I haven't forgotten Blair and his master spin doctor.

Monica, What you say about pensioners is quite interesting. As far as I can tell, the pensioner vote has always been split almost evenly been Conservative and Labour. However, research by *Ford and Goodwin has shown that the pensioner vote is going to UKIP. Younger voters are tending to vote for other parties (not Conservative) and in Scotland are voting for SNP. I think it's a numbers game and it is true that older people are more likely to vote than younger ones. I think both main parties have tried to keep pensioners onside, particularly Conservatives, who know that they're not so likely to pick up 'younger' voters. (Hope that makes sense.)

I actually do think that working age people, especially younger ones, have a case when they complain about the imbalance of benefits payments and the fact that wealth is increasingly owned by older people. However, I suspect the spin we're getting now is to exploit that resentment and 'prepare' pensioners for some cuts. It's been obvious for some time that working age benefits can't be cut any more without producing beggars on the streets. There is no alternative if the government insists on sticking to austerity plans.

*Sorry to quote a source, but I think it's important in a serious discussion.

It depends where we get our information from and even if we were listening to it live in parliament, we would only hear what we wanted to hear to support our opinion. Each side of the argument would only be telling us what they wanted us to hear to support their view.

Then there is all the behind the scenes manoeuvres and the power games.

We don't really stand a chance of getting the real truth as I am not sure if anyone knows that.

As far as I am concerned, spin and lies are exactly the same

Some of the problem is to do with manipulation of data/figures. Reference the EU debate the same figures can be used to prove we should stay in and leave. Truth no longer exists + they can't say they've no idea!

I quite agree Nonnie. I have never been in the position of voting for a party where I agreed with every aspect of its policy, nor have I ever been in complete disagreement with every policy put forward by the mainstream parties I would not vote for.

One of the things that has irritated me in recent discussions is the way commentators keep saying that the Conservatives favour pensioners over the poor because pensioners are more likely to vote for them than those on limited incomes. I am pensioner, one of the fortunate better off ones, and I have never voted Conservative in my life, before or since I became a pensioner.

The BBC interviewed a Conservative MP who said that better off pensioners in her own constituency, and she said she had quite a few, were all criticising the government for being over generous to them when their children and grandchildren were suffering from all the cut backs. They might be Conservative voters, but do not necessarily support all their policies.

Funnily enough, bearing in mind discussions on anther thread re anti semitism the big aspect that I have had trouble with the Labour party was its reluctance to speak out against Zionism! Otherwise I would have been a member a long while ago!

Pen I feel like that too, can't understand how someone can totally agree with one party and hate all another party says or does. I think we just have to choose what we feel is best for the country overall but I fear many just vote for what they think is best for them as individuals.

I agree MOnica, but perhaps I would make it 10 years.

I think the problem is that politics has become a profession. You enter it straight from university and pursue it as you would any other profession. It applies to both main parties.

Unfortunately, unlike many other professions where your work brings you into contact with ordinary people of all kinds, politicians and would-be politicians seem to live in a hermetically sealed world where every one they meet and socialise with is a politician or works in politics. Even MPs at constituency level mainly associate with their constituency party organisations so most of the people they meet are activists who see the world from the the same standpoint.

The result is that they lose any understanding for the lives of people living outside their little (powerful) bubble. We no longer really count other than as ticks in a box at election time. They have a contempt for us and feel that it doesn't matter what lies they tell us in order to get us to tick the right box on election day.

In an ideal world anyone wishing to stand for Parliament would need to show that they had worked for at least five years in a job not related to politics. In other words 5 years as a full time advisor in a union, or politically orientated think tank would not count. Nothing would stop them being active in their party at constituency or local government level, but that should be a 'hobby', not how they make their living. It wouldn't matter what they did, barrister or barristo, as long as they had breathed the complicated and polluted air of the rest of the population, not just the rarified and filtered air of Westminster.

I think the IDS resignation is typical of Parliamentary polictics and 'spin'. It does not matter the Left/Right/inbetweeness of the characters..it has always happened.
We can usually 'agree' with a political party's broad agenda but when we look at the detail we see some bits we disagree with. I guess that happens with senior poiticians too and, if the gap gets too big between your opinion and the rest, and you feel your opinion has been sidelined, you might get a bit stroppy! It might be a genuine point of principle that tips a politician over the edge or it might be strategy, who knows? Like you thatbags I quite enjoy watching it all playing out. Robert Peston the commentator is quite fun to watch too!

Are you referring to the resignation of IDS as the "actually happened" in the OP, ww? I feel I have a reasonably clear picture of what actually happened from what I've read today. IDS resigned by letter which annoyed Cameron. IDS says his resignation is about the disability cuts. Some people think it's about other things too. Various commentators in the media and on GN have speculated about what will happen next with regard to the 'civil war' within the Tory Party and who/what will benefit from whose actions, etc,etc.

Okay, that's not very clear but it's clear enough for my purposes, which is mainly entertainment (and real interest in the politicking). I find all the speculation amusing on the one hand and a bit silly on the other. We'll just have to wait and see what transpires.

Sorry if that's not what you meant.

The experience of anyone here, who are not left wing or very left wing, is that they get bombarded with links to left wing journals, masses of statistics and frequent aggressive comments, which is why very few members of Gransnet even bother looking at the politics threads.

All governments use spin, always have done, even before it was called spin.
lies, economical with the truth etc. Some truth, some lies, some good intent which doesn't get realised once in power.Would the general public even want the unvarnished truth, and nothing but the truth?

Oh that's OK then.

nonnie you know we tend on GN to fall into one camp or another, and I find it fun to debate vigorously on my side which as you know is left wing. What I will never do -or if have have done it is in error- is to personalize my arguments. I never reply to anything which would clearly spiral into a personal debate, and hopefully this stops any nastiness as I am useless at that and find it upsetting. I try very hard not to upset anyone whatever their views, -do as you would be done by- . I am not a saint far from it, but I do try to keep to my personal code. So don't get upset -stand back and depersonalize your very valid arguments. I am sure it would help