Poor old truth. Sarah Wollaston has done an admirable thing, switching her support for Brexit to Remain over Vote Leave’s misleading claims on health: “They have knowingly placed a financial lie at the heart of their campaign,” she writes in The Times. “Even emblazoning it on their battle bus, alongside the NHS branding, to imply a financial bonanza.”
Wollaston is smart. She calls out the falsehood without committing the debunker’s error of repeating it. But the thing about truth is, once you’re trying to establish it, the lie already has the front foot. Every time you say “not that, but this!” you’re repeating the false that and letting the honest this come second.