In an election of mistruths, the lie is spread too far before it can be debunked

Now the country has headed to the polls for the third time in five years - fourth if you count the Brexit referendum - the voter fatigue has been palpable. For reporters hitting the streets to try and get the feel of a town or city, many were met with absolute indifference to who ended up in No 10.

So it’s been a bad election for voters, but it’s not been much better for the truth.

Every election is full of some degree of fibbing, stretching the truth, manipulating the data.

A voter leaves Woodlesford Methodist Chapel polling station in Yorkshire, as polls open in what has been billed as the most important General Election in a generation. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

But this has felt worse than most. So here are just some examples.

The Conservative Party editing a video of Keir Starmer; the Liberal Democrats dodgy bar charts, election material masquerading as local newspapers; the Brexit Party ad saying five million Labour voters wanted to leave the EU; a Labour Party post on the NHS and Donald Trump; Brexit Party candidates in Doncaster saying one of them was driven off the road when the police said no such thing happened; the claim Matt Hancock’s adviser was punched by a Labour activist; that Boris Johnson hid in a fridge to avoid questioning; that the NHS would be getting 50,000 new nurses; that 40 new hospitals would be built.

And breathe.

First draft, a non-profit organisation which works on debunking fake news, looked at paid-for Facebook ads and found 88 per cent of them from the Tories had been flagged by independent fact-checking organisations as not correct or not entirely correct. The Lib Dems also featured hundreds of misleading ads. Labour ran no misleading claims in Facebook ads.

So it’s no wonder voters feel betrayed, confused, tired.

For two of those mistruths I was there. Boris Johnson did not hide in a fridge during a visit to West Yorkshire on Wednesday, and the Health Secretary’s aide was not punched outside the LGI.

I know, because I was there. But before you know it the story is the new normal and no amount of rational, on-the-ground testimony will stop it.

It is similar to what happened with the four-year-old boy on a pile of coats on the LGI floor.

The proliferation of fake news, vitriol, and politicising that surround this little boy’s suffering sums up what this election has been about, and it represents a loss of our collective humanity.

Whatever is in store next for our country, if politicians want the respect of voters and expect them to turn out to lend them their vote, they have to stop lying, stop taking them for fools, and our political system needs a shake up.