What is it with the Tories? They appear to be pathologically incapable of resisting the urge to lie, even when they don’t need to.

I was looking though the local paper’s guide to the candidates in the local elections. This is where we are given a mere 50 words to say what we stand for, which is about enough space for a few platitudes. My Tory opponent in Furnace Green starts with “I have lived in Furnace Green since 1957”

Now I wasn’t around in 1957 in every sense of the word. I wasn’t in Furnace Green or any other part of Crawley because I was still a fair way off even being born, so I might be wrong, but I thought that the Furnace Green neighborhood wasn’t even built then. As far as I am aware, work on it started in 1960 and it would have been maybe a year before the first houses were ready for occupation.

It isn’t a neighbourhood like Three Bridges, Southgate or Ifield where there are a few properties that pre-date the new town either. I think that everything there was built from 1960 onwards.

So either I am wrong, which is always possible, or she lived in a tent there for a few years. Or maybe she just spelled 1975 wrong.

But apart from that, there is the implication that she has been here all the time. In fact she moved down to Worthing and only moved back to Crawley in about 2006/2007. I remember it well, because she moved here and immediately stood in the 2007 elections while she was still an Adur district councillor, and then continued to serve on both councils for a while, which is unusual to say the least.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know where the idea comes from that length of residency is a qualification in itself. David Icke has lived in Britain longer than David Cameron, does that mean he would make a better Prime Minister? The truth would not be a problem so why bother lying and misleading?

Just force of habit is my guess.