It never ceases to amaze me how worked-up people get about people telling lies. Scarcely a week goes by without new allegations that a politician, business person, legal eagle or even a sports star has been telling porkies. Terms such as "sleaze" are bandied about. The alleged liars are usually announced and denounced in the papers in tones of incredulous amazement - "He lied and lied and lied" springs to mind. Yet, really, we're all at it, every day of our lives, lying through our teeth and not even noticing we're doing it.
From playground days, lies have been considered a cardinal sin. "Liar, liar, your pants are on fire" was a terrible slur - nearly as bad as "Tell-tail tit, your tongue shall be slit" and much worse than the marvellously un-PC, "Indian-giver". Dick and Jane, and their Irish cousins, Pol agus Maire, were forever learning life-lessons about the inadvisability of telling lies, which inevitably resulted in them not going to the party to eat sweet cake. In the childhood lexicon of evil, lies are just about as bad as it gets, a reputation they seem to bring into the adult world. To call someone a liar is to light a touch-paper - just retire to watch the fireworks.
Lies really should hire themselves a better public relations consultant, someone who could point out to the world at large that, as far as lies go, we're all guilty. I bet you've probably told a couple of lies already today - I know I have and I don't think I'm particularly devious. Lies are a part of everyday life, in the same way that milk cartons or cranes or guilt are. They're neither good nor bad, they're just there.
Let's think of the whole taxonomy of lies. First of all, there's all the little polite lies we tell each other; the small courtesies that are the equivalent of saying "God bless you" after someone sneezes. When a friend rang at a perfectly reasonable hour last weekend, waking me out of my comatose state, I lied and said: "No, no, you didn't wake me, I was just reading the papers." It meant she didn't feel guilty and I didn't feel irredeemably lazy. These are the white lies, the ones Quentin Crisp called "the building blocks of good manners".
Then there's the lies we tell to those we love or who we want to love us. Think of that advert on the television, in which beautiful girls trot out all the lines men want to hear (in this case, because the boys' deodorant is so damned appealing); "I could listen to you talk about football for hours"; "Oh well, if she didn't mean anything to you, then of course I forgive you"; "No, really, if I wanted foreplay I would have asked". If you're trying to make someone love you, you invariably tell them what they want to hear, about yourself or themselves.
I remember plucking up the courage to walk across a crowded pub to talk to a boy I was mad about, who was standing by the opposite door. When I got there he looked a little confused and said: "Sorry, did you want to get through?" I lied and said: "Yes, marvellous", walked out of the pub and had to wait for ages outside before I could go back in to join my friends. It wasn't a big lie, I just fancied him too much to do anything other than agree with him. All courtships are different, but there will always be times when you create yourself to suit someone rather than presenting the bare facts of yourself and to hell with the consequences.
When you're in love, the lies often continue, despite your promises to always tell each other the truth. If she asks whether you've ever felt like this about anyone before, do you say: "Yes, if I remember rightly, this is exactly how I felt about my last girlfriend"? If he says: "Do these trousers make my legs look short?" do you encourage his needless fears about his body or do you blithely lie and say the trousers give him legs to rival Sinndar's? The lies win every time.
Less selfless but just as common are the lies we tell to save our own skins. Sometimes it's a good idea to 'fess up and admit you've made a big mistake, at work, at home or wherever. But then there are the times when it just sounds so much better to say: "I didn't get your message until today", or: "The fax never arrived". Lies can be a handy shortcut. There might be a perfectly good, but very long-winded reason for why things are not as they should be, whereas a small lie will explain, and at the same time excuse, much quicker.
Then there are the times when we don't really feel we should be getting the blame or the times when a lie which won't hurt anybody else has the power to save us a lot of trouble, or the times when a lie is the only thing that stands between us and a minor catastrophe. These lies are the ones which lurk in a much greyer area than the lies told out of politeness or love. These lies are mistruths, but to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are guilty of using them. When we tell them, we have the same reflex that, as children, made us squawk; "It wasn't me, I didn't do it."
Of course, there's a big difference between these lies, these small discrepancies of fact and fiction, and the massive, all-embracing untruths which public figures have been coming out with of late. Far be it from me to excuse the monumental dishonesty which we have witnessed in recent months by saying "Sure, aren't we all liars anyway?" This would be like saying "Sure, we're all killers, aren't we?", when some of us lay mousetraps and some take human life.
I remember my mother, who is very down on lies in any shape or form, tortuously trying to explain the difference between bad lies and white lies and tying herself up in terrible knots as two small and devious children glimpsed the huge possiblities of lies which are a good thing. In the end she brought the discussion firmly to a close with the words, "A lie is always a lie", and of course she was right. If you say something that you know is not true, it is of course, a lie. Yet, increasingly as I grew, I felt the need to create a personal pecking order of lies. Life is too full of complexities and people are too full of contradictions to make a hard and fast promise not to lie. You won't keep it.
Instead, it's important to establish some kind of internal morality to your lies; to realise for yourself that certain occasions call for lies while others call for the truth and to realise that lies which cause harm to others, be it financial, emotional, or a matter of public faith are rarely excusable, even if they're sometimes understandable.
There's no point being astonished that people in positions of power are liars, because that naive amazement ignores the different causes and effects of the lies themselves. Instead, we need to condemn and understand in equal measures so that the really bold liars get censured more than the small-time fibbers. Just think how satisfying it would be if we could gather all the naughty boys and girls involved in the Moriarty, Flood and Haemophilia tribunals as well as in the lingering O'Flaherty affair, into the one classroom to say "Now, we think that some of you are lying, but if you just own up and say why you did it, we'll do our best to understand." It would certainly get the truth out in the open quicker than just stand around looking horrified and shouting "Liar, liar, your pants are on fire."