Boris Johnson, long famed for brushing off accusations of distorting, misleading or outright lying that, far from slowing his rise, seemed to only bolster his image as an incorrigible scamp, suddenly faces potential political death over the very charge to which he had seemed immune.
Even his detractors appear surprised by the speed with which the public and political class have turned against Mr. Johnson, the British prime minister, over charges that he lied about attending parties at his official residence in May 2020 that violated his own government’s lockdown orders.
But even if some of his past fibs may have arguably been more harmful to others around him, this one hits on a particular sensitivity that, psychologists have found, holds special power to enrage.
Moral hypocrisy — behaving badly while simultaneously hectoring the rest of us to do good — evokes a level of anger that neither lying nor wrongdoing bring out on their own, studies have repeatedly found. » | Max Fisher | Saturday, January 22, 2022
