• Séimhe (sé / é)@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    The law would not come into effect until 2030 at the earliest and will not apply to May’s elections.

    It seems like a very targetted law that could work well. If I understand correctly, the law about lying is specifically for during the time of elections. The misconduct part still applies at other times.

    I’d like to see this here since the leader of my country is a documented liar.

    • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It’s better to have the law than not as the threat of prosecution can change behaviour.

      However, I do think that it is very easy to avoid telling a lie while still misleading people. It’s a thing that politicians do so much it’d be a required skill listed in the job ad if one was posted.

      The infamous Brexit bus only implied that we would be able to increase NHS funding by £350 million per week if we left the EU.

      Even if you do say something that’s untrue it’d have to be proven that you knew it to be untrue at the time that you made the statement.

      I think that you’d basically need to admit to lying or say something so ridiculous that it couldn’t possibly be true to get caught.