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Even Gavin Barwell says that was a shit tactic, and he was instrumental in doing almost the same after Theresa May's vote.

There was an interesting video doing the rounds of a Finnish intelligence colonel giving a lecture on Russian war doctrine and political psychology. He explains the Russian equivalent of double speak, where the speaker says something that is clearly not in line with objective facts.

His explanation is that there’s a cultural understanding in Russia that there’s no need to tell the truth to your opponents, and it’s expected that you’d lie to preserve the interests of your group. When Putin says the little green men taking over Donbas aren’t Russian soldiers and when Russian assassins used a radiological weapon in England, we expect him to tell the truth because there’s mountains of evidence. The colonel says any Russian listening to Putin would understand that he’s using strategic lying, or tactical truth, and they wouldn’t consider him a liar for it because he’s lying to people outside the group, who don’t really matter.

I’ve come to believe that this exact thing happens here, and probably everywhere, except that the intended recipients are the working classes. Any person from the elite in group would see through the PM and friends, and realise that their lies are designed to placate the workers, while their actions actively screw the workers over and give ever more power to the elite. It’s beyond mere propaganda or cultural conditioning, it’s gas-lighting.

Sadly, most of us struggle to accept we’re being lied to, despite our lying eyes.