53. Integrity demands truth, but not complete openness
Integrity requires the truth because, without truth, accountability and responsibility are empty, and there is no consistency between what you say and what you know. SPs should not only tell the truth in what they say, but also in what they do not say.This does not mean that they have to be completely open. There are many situations in which confidentiality and secrecy are ethical. However, lying always infringes SPs’ integrity, because it undermines their honesty and can often be avoided.
Besides accounting for one’s responsibilities, integrity is about doing this in a responsible, honest manner. This means communicating the truth. Without the truth, accountability, and with it responsibility, is empty.
Integrity requires telling the truth.292 If we fail to do this, there is inconsistency between what we say and what we do. We pretend and are dishonest. As a result we mislead others and fail to respect them. That is why it is important to tell the truth. As an alderman aptly put it, “Those with power should tell the truth, and nothing other than the truth.”293 Even if you really want something else and even if you do not mean it. As Harry Truman said, “Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.”294
According toWill Rogers dishonesty is inextricably bound up with politics: “If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.”295 For that reason according to English actress Felicity Kendal dishonesty is common practice: “There is one sure way of telling when politicians aren’t telling the truth - their lips move.”296 In other words, politicians lie the entire time they are speaking. It may be an exaggeration to say that SPs never tell the truth, but according to a former US congressional chief of staff every US president has told lies on the job out of necessity.297 Two and a half millennia ago, the Greek philosopher Socrates said, “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live,” showing that lies and dishonesty in politics are common to all times and places.298
If dishonesty were a virtue, it would not lead to outrage. In practice it is clear that SPs have been discredited for lying. Danish minister of justice Morten Bødskov lost his position after admitting having lied to parliament about the reason why a visit by lawmakers to a notorious district had been postponed.299 Similarly the majority of a council supported a vote of no confidence against their mayor when it emerged that he had withheld information regarding the overrun of costs for building a theater, and British member of parliament Chris Huhne lost his position when it emerged that he had lied to the police, albeit 10 years previously, about a traffic offense, stating that his wife had been driving rather than himself, in order to avoid charges.300 The fact that honesty is seen as a desirable virtue in SPs is also clear from the way opponents, supervisory organizations, and journalists attempt to uncover untruths presented by SPs and to use this to show their lack of integrity and trustworthiness. If dishonesty were seen as a virtue, others would try to uncover the truths SPs told and use these to show lack of virtue and suitability.
Telling the truth, however, goes beyond honesty. It is possible to be honest and still skirt around the facts, remain silent on important matters without lying, or to leave statements open to different interpretations. For instance, in response to a question about support for a fellow party member, one president replied that people could rely on him, meaning that he would let them know; others interpreted this as meaning he supported his colleague. A member of parliament, asked whether he had assaulted an employee of the embassy in Syria, replied with a resounding no, giving the impression that he was denying the assault, when in fact he said no without further explanation because he had committed the assault in Jordan. When Bill Clinton was asked whether he had had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, he denied it under oath, because, as it emerged later, he interpreted sexual relations to entail sexual intercourse, whereas they had only committed sexual acts.301 In all cases in which people conceal things, they mislead others: they try intentionally to create or