Full coverage of UK politics
Ferdie Mount has a great review of David Runciman's Political Hypocracy: The Mask of Power from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond, in the August issue of Standpoint. Hypocracy, he argues, becomes the cardinal sin of modern politics, rather than actually getting things wrong.
Over the 'dodgy dossier' case he notes that 'what Blair's opponents were keenest to prove above all else was not that he was a hotheaded war mongerer, but that he was a liar." This was not the case in earlier ages:
Hypocrisy was no problem for Hobbes. Sovereigns must be prepared to dissemble, cheat and lie if necessary to preserve the peace and security of the state. The rule puts on his mask of power; he 'personates' the Commonwealth. Just as 'hypocrisis', putting on a mask, is a term borrowed
...