Guy Standing describes his revealing encounter with Boris Johnson in 2019 – a moment which motivated him to write his new book, Human Capital

This preface is being written in an unassuming café in the unassuming French town of Ferney-Voltaire near the border with Switzerland. The town is named after its most renowned resident, Voltaire (1694–1778), the nom de plume for an Enlightenment thinker who was an outspoken advocate of freedom of speech. His most famous work, Candide (1759), is a biting satire on religion and politics, in which the ironic oft-repeated line is that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

One of his aphorisms was, ‘Cherish those who seek the truth, but beware of those who find it’. The ancient Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle, would have concurred. Education for them was not just about doubt; it was making a virtue of it, about thinking and, in the process, learning the values of empathy and compassion; it was about having the humility to know that all our knowledge is built on the contributions of innumerable others before us.

Many say we live in a ‘post-truth’ age. Some commentators are more adamant in saying there is no such thing as ‘truth’. This can be sophistry. However, if honourably used, there is a philosophical underpinning, in that it respects the place for doubt. But this should not be used as a justification or excuse for telling deliberate lies. To doubt that a believed truth is an ultimate truth does not justify opportunistic dishonesty. The heart of an educated person should respect the pursuit of truth. An educated mind should reject the siren calls of those singing untruths. Frighteningly, in today’s online world, lies spread faster and further than truths.

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Truth and a Boris Johnson Moment

A rather bizarre and most unanticipated event was a factor motivating the writing of this book, relating to what the education commons was originally intended to be about the pursuit of truth. It involved a long unplanned conversation with Boris Johnson. In early 2019, he and I were the two foreign speakers at a prestigious conference in Delhi. We were put in a VIP lounge for several hours, mostly alone. At one point, the official cameraman came in to take our photographs, each in turn in a specially lit corner of the room.

After having my pictures taken, I returned to the coffee table while Johnson went to have his photos taken. While he was there, the official compere for the later session, a prominent Indian journalist, came into the room, and quietly asked me, ‘What should I ask him?’

‘Well,’ I replied, ‘for a start ask him if he thinks he will become prime minister.’

The journalist scribbled that down, and asked, ‘What else?’

‘Then ask him,’ I said, ‘if he has any regrets about stating that leaving the European Union would save Britain £350 million a week for the National Health Service.’

While the journalist was scribbling that down, Johnson returned to the coffee table. He had overheard the conversation, and said, ‘As for the first question, I have as much chance of becoming British prime minister as Narendra Modi.’ I could not resist saying I was pleased to hear that.

‘And as for that other statement, I never said it.’

I immediately replied that we all knew he had said it. He repeated the denial. I repeated the claim. He repeated the denial, instantly bringing to mind Peter’s thrice-stated denial of Christ.

I said, ‘Boris, I have my computer here, and it will take me one minute on Google to show you saying it.’

He again said he had not said it.

Opening the computer, within thirty seconds, a video clip came up showing Boris standing before a red battle bus and saying it into a microphone. It was his reaction that was most revealing. Waving his arm dismissively, he said, ‘Oh, that’s just politics!’

He said that without any shame or embarrassment, more as a joke, as if the whole matter had been just a game among adults. Of course, the £350 million claim was false as well. It was nonsensical.

All this would be less significant were it not for the fact that the statement had been key in the run-up to Brexit – the vote for Britain to leave the European Union, with demonstrably adverse economic consequences for millions of people – and that he went on to become prime minister and lead the Conservatives to a general election victory. Lies have consequences. But for the likes of Johnson and Trump, truth does not matter.

This is an extract from Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons (Pelican, £12.99) by Guy Standing. Buy a copy from bookshop.org here.

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here. 

A Drink with the Idler

Guy Standing is this week’s guest on “A Drink with the Idler”. He will be talking about how to revive the education industry, which today serves commercial interests rather than its teachers and students. That’s Thursday 5 March at 6pm. Book tickets here.
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