The Truth Matters Campaign at the Fringe – Sunday 28th
There shouldn’t need to be something called The Truth Matters Campaign in British politics. But we live in strange times. And at the Labour conference in Liverpool a government minister is campaigning for the truth.
“You can’t have democracy without truth”, Angela Eagle told her audience at the launch of the Truth Matters Campaign.
The veteran MP and Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs said it was impossible to have democratic debate if there is not agreement on truth and values. Her audience agreed about that, which was a good start.
“And if you can persuade people to believe silly things they lose their attachment to reality and can then be trained to believe anything”, she added. And we all knew that this nightmare was already upon us.
The Truth Matters Campaign warns us all that “We’ve stopped expecting honesty. Not just from politicians – but from the whole system. We’ve been spun by governments. Flooded with fake news on social media. Fed distraction by the press. Sold half-truths by algorithms. And we’ve come to accept it. We shrug. We scroll. We move on. And, in the meantime, our services collapse, our communities divide, and nothing changes.”
The man behind the campaign, Praful Nargund, believes they have at least part of the answer. He wants reform of politics, the media and education, and independent oversight.
But in Liverpool his focus was on social media companies and the next election. He believes they can be made to keep their content accurate and honest for the duration of a six-week campaign. He’s confident the laws exist to achieve this, with sanctions available to penalise those that don’t comply.
“We have to hit their business models. They have to realise there are consequences” he said.
The initial target is a six-week period. “If they can fix that then it will show they can do it all the time”, he says.
I want it to work. It felt like the rest of his audience did too. And yet it seems a huge challenge.
Adam Chadwick – 28/9/25