Why it is always a mistake to call someone a liar

If I want to render my Twitter account unusable for a few days, all I have to do is to repeat one of my most unpopular opinions, namely that it is a bad idea to use the words “lie” or “liar”.

My argument is that we do not have windows into each other’s hearts, and so when someone says something that is untrue it is hard to be sure they are doing it deliberately.

“Liar” is not just a factual description that is hard to prove, however, it is also an insult, making a judgement about someone’s moral character. I don’t think it should be used in news reporting, and I think it weakens commentary. Better just to state the facts and let the reader judge.

I have tested this opinion in the hardest case, namely that of the US president, so I was ready to repeat it in the case of the new British prime minister.

When Dorothy Byrne, the head of news at Channel 4, said in her MacTaggart lecture “I believe that we need to start calling politicians out as liars when they lie”, I disagreed. She also called Boris Johnson “a known liar”, which may be true but I think it was unwise for a broadcaster under a legal obligation of impartiality to say so.

And when the Channel 4 News team complained that they had travelled to the G7 summit in Biarritz last weekend to interview the prime minister only for his office to cancel, I said I was baffled that they expected him to do otherwise.

Yes, the prime minister should be interviewed by all major news organisations. But I do not think that Channel 4 News should be surprised to discover that the prime minister is “too busy” if he has just been insulted by the channel’s head of news.

I know that most people do not agree with me about this, but I ask you to consider: where does calling someone a liar get us?

Yours,

John Rentoul​
Chief political commentator