Here’s the truth about lying, Mr Cameron

The extracts and interview with David Cameron which precede his memoirs remind us that he is a sensible man. He can admit his mistakes, see the other person’s point of view, and usually avoid being consumed by bitterness (though he is certainly not fond of Michael Gove). History will judge him a decent prime minister, though not a great one.

Yet even the moderate Mr Cameron takes up the cry that, in the referendum campaign, “Leave was lying”.

“Lie” is – or ought to be – a big word. It does not mean being careless with facts. Nor does it mean saying untruthful things, such as “The food is delicious”, out of politeness. It does not even mean fibbing to excuse yourself, such as: “I’m sorry was late: I was held up in traffic.” A lie is a deliberate untruth told with bad intent, something which makes the person who utters it dishonourable. That is why the word is classified in the House of Commons as “unparliamentary language”.

In absolutely all election and referendum campaigns, both sides say things which are not strictly true. They do this chiefly by suppressing the virtues of the other side’s case or the disadvantages of their own. In 1979, for example, Mrs Thatcher campaigned to cut income tax. She carefully avoided saying – though it was the natural concomitant of the policy – that she would have to put up VAT. She was not lying, but neither was she telling the whole truth.

Similarly, I remember William Hague saying in the 2001 election that we had 15 (or whatever) days left to save the pound – absurdly hyperbolical, but surely not mendacious. I recall, with a wry smile, George Osborne’s 2007 announcement that the Conservatives would get rid of inheritance tax. Politicians argue for victory: I’m afraid they have to, because otherwise they don’t win.

The idea has gone round the world that the Leave campaign lied with its £350million a week saving for the NHS painted on the side of a bus. It didn’t: it grossly oversimplified in the much the same way as the Remainers, abusing government information provided by the Treasury, warned of instant recession if we voted Leave.

Mr Cameron fastens in particular on Leave’s campaign warnings about Turkey joining the EU. This was “ditching [the truth] altogether”, he says. Actually, it wasn’t. It was an exaggeration of the true fact that both the EU and (which he does not directly admit) Britain itself had a policy of eventually admitting Turkey.

In politics, to say that the other side are liars is always the pot calling the kettle black. Better – indeed, more truthful – to leave the word out altogether.  It was moving to see Hong Kong people protesting outside the British consulate in Hong Kong yesterday. In their view, the 1984 Sino-british Agreement which created “one country: two systems” to safeguard Hong Kong after its re-absorption by China in 1997 is now dead. It has been killed by China’s recent oppressions of the territory.

The protesters are right that Britain has a moral responsibility and treaty obligation to Hong Kong. One way of fulfilling these would be to give proper British passports to those who hold British National (Overseas) passports. If they knew they could escape if necessary, they would be more confident in staying.

One must pray they are wrong that the agreement is dead. As China spreads its power round the world, it holds up the Hong Kong model as the key to a harmonious future in which human rights, legality and economic freedoms are guaranteed in territories which fall under its influence. If China cannot behave in Hong Kong, its first big test on this, what chance is there that it will behave properly anywhere else?

Under British rule, this tiny territory never achieved full democracy. But it did achieve liberty, the rule of law, prosperity and, perhaps surprisingly, an impressive identity of its own. If the West, especially Britain, lets this be snuffed out, we shall be looking at a bleak future for many other parts of the world, even in our own Continent.  The green, green grass of home is more and more often artificial, thus damaging the environment, says the Royal Horticultural Society. This is observably true. Why might it be happening?

Probably the main factors are a lack of time and space. The first is caused by the growth of single-person households and of households where both partners work. The second is caused by absurdly high land values. If you have two cars, but only 50 square feet of garden, you cannot park them on real grass without destroying it.

Actually, the problem is worse, because even natural lawns, unrelieved by other planting, are not biodiverse. A garden which is nothing but a grass monoculture will not attract much wildlife or nurture wild flowers.

I am lucky enough to live in the country, where lawns and plants have room to coexist, but when I look out on back gardens from the train, or front ones walking along city streets, I notice that more and more are uncultivated – artificial grass or unrelieved lawn, paved areas for cars instead of earthy ones for plants.

“Our England is a garden” begins one of Rudyard Kipling’s famous poems. It ends: “And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!” Only if the people of England still wish it so.