Vladimir Lenin: 'A lie told often enough becomes the truth.'
The Quotations Page

George W. Bush: 'See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.'
White House Press Release (May 24, 2005)

Who do you believe? The very word believe has a lie at its heart.

This morning I heard a report on BBC Radio 4 about levels of crime in the UK. The Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has just lent his support to accusations that the country is slipping into anarchy. Ken Jones, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, when challenged by John Humphrys on the Today Programme, stated emphatically that he didn't recognise such an anarchy scenario in the UK. He quoted Home Office Crime Statistics showing that the risk of being a victim of crime has fallen significantly over the last 10 years.

So why do two-thirds of people still believe that crime is rising, with half of those believing that crime has risen 'a lot' over the last 2 years? Part of the answer must be that people believe what they are told... by David Cameron, by their mates at the pub, by the newspapers. Readers of national tabloids are twice as likely to believe that crime is rising than readers of less sensationalist media.

People are more likely to believe what they are told when they are told the same thing many times by different sources, and especially if the message agrees with their current framework of belief. Women are more worried about violent crime although men are far more likely to be the victims of violence. Men are more inclined to believe they are invincible than women are!

At the end of the day, good information from a reliable source is the only way to counteract the lies. The quote from Lenin, with which I started this post, is widely attributed to Lenin but I haven't found a reliable, definitive source. It could well be that it is apocryphal, in which case it is a great example of its own message!