So, where has the lying stopped, and just how many ministers are implicated?

It seems as though the Secretary of State for Brexit may have been wilfully inaccurate in his statements to Parliament, to the media, and to the public. Either impact assessments have been made, as he claimed on multiple occasions, or they haven’t, as he claimed before the Brexit Select Committee yesterday morning. Both statements cannot be true, unless one stretches the definition of truth in the manner of saltwater taffy.

Fine, it should be a hanging offence, especially for a Government whose assertions of taking back control emphasise the importance of Parliamentary sovereignty. And whilst the Conservative/DUP majority can prevent a formal censure, if David Davis fails to do the honourable thing, and isn’t sacked, the level of misconduct required to end a ministerial career reaches new depths. Given that it seems almost impossible to get sacked by Theresa May, that’s going something.

But, it leads to the question, “who else is lying?”. After all, various junior ministers in DExEU have referred to these mythical sectoral analyses, claiming to have read some, or part, of them. Theresa May herself has apparently read some, or part, of them. And yet they don’t exist.

Perhaps the likes of Steve Baker, Robin Walker and, yes, Theresa May, should be called in and asked to swear, under oath, to the veracity of their earlier statements. Because, whilst lying about policy is one thing (morally and ethically unacceptable though it might be), on the grounds that you don’t necessarily know what the impact of any particular decision might be, telling people something that you know to be untrue undermines our demos to the point where the public have every right to loathe politicians even more than they purport to do currently.

The referendum was won on the basis of a series of big lies - £350 million per week for the NHS, Turkish accession to the European Union, remaining in the Single Market, to name but three - and it seems as though there are elements of the Government who have lied their way through the negotiations.

Yes, they may win the war in terms of Brexit, but if you were a potential trading partner, or a regional bloc, could you really negotiate a trade deal with a country whose senior politicians demonstrate such disregard for the truth? You might, with the right safeguards, but you’d be very cautious.

This Government has, in two years, trashed our reputation in the wider world. Increasingly, our friends think that we’ve lost our collective marbles, and our enemies relish our discomfort. We will pay a price for that over time, although I suspect our poor and vulnerable will bear much of the cost. But, as I’ve often said in the past, credibility is hard won and easily lost, and you wouldn’t fancy Boris and David to help that much.

So, we’ll see if the truth comes out, and what the punishment will be, if any. For the Conservatives have to understand that, if you allow your people to show such disregard for the truth, you can hardly be surprised when your enemies do the same thing. And complaining is unlikely to meet with much sympathy…