Whatever its commercial value one item is of particular value to me. It is an 18^th century dictionary of the English language. My copy is the 21^st edition costing 6 shillings (a great deal of money at the time) published, it claims, with 2000 additional words in 1770. It was originally published in 1721 by a Stepney schoolmaster, Nathan Bailey. It is a work of considerable erudition giving not only the meaning of words but also their derivation whether from Saxon, old English, Norman French, Greek, Latin or Hebrew, as it says, each in its proper characters.

Schoolboys of my generation were taught that the first English Dictionary was written by Dr Samuel Johnson and the error has been repeated in recent days. Dr Johnson's dictionary appeared in 1755 and it is inconceivable that a work which was so popular as to have run to 21 editions and still be published 15 years after the Johnson dictionary, was  unknown to him. That is the first example of what must be deliberate misrepresentation that comes to mind but it is not the last or the greatest.

The thought occurs to me that our entire culture could be said to be founded on lies. For example the Roman Catholic Church claims to have been founded by St Peter which is manifestly not the case. In the first place the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, which is a history of the early church incorporated in the Bible, would have been aware of so momentous an event and he was not. Indeed, in his account St Peter goes off into  Asia Minor early in the narrative, having quarreled with St Mark, and is never heard of again. Furthermore it would have been impossible for a Christian Church to have existed in Rome. The Religion was proscribed.

Certainly there were Christians in Rome but they were Messianic Jews who had no need of a church as their synagogue was tolerated. There would also have been immigrants from North Africa, Asia Minor and Gaul where Christianity had taken root. They were in sufficient numbers to provide a regular diet for the wild beasts in the Coliseum.

There was no Christian Church in Rome until the Emperor Constantine the Great early in the 4^th century. He took Christianity with him from York. His immediate predecessor Diocletian had spent some 20 years in an unsuccessful attempt to eradicate Christianity throughout his empire by violent persecution.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury, in one of his more lucid moments, might well perpetuate the tale told in Canterbury that Christianity was brought to England at Canterbury in AD 597 by St Augustine. In fact what he brought was Roman Catholicism which is not the same thing. Indeed, upon his arrival, Augustine was given the use of a church which was already 200 years old. That church, St Martin's, still exists and is still in use as a parish church. It stands on a mound outside the city walls.

There is some evidence for the presence of Christianity in the British Isles during the 1^st century AD. One of the earliest historians, the monk Gildas, asserted it as a matter of common knowledge and he had access to the records of the monastery at Glastonbury (later destroyed by fire in the reign of King Henry II). A mediaeval Vatican librarian is on record as having acknowledged the existence of an early wattle and daub church at Glastonbury. The Domesday book records a grant of 12 hides of land free of tax which matches early accounts of the establishment of a religious community at Glastonbury with royal patronage. Certainly Glastonbury and Whitby were important Christian centres which long pre-dated the arrival of Augustine at Canterbury. It is known that 3 British Bishops, York, Lincoln and an unidentified diocese in the west country, attended a General Council of Christian Churches in Arles in AD 312/313. It is recorded that they were accorded precedence there as from a senior institution. That event almost coincided with the proclamation in York of Constantine as Roman Emperor. 

So those two great institutions, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, those propounders of eternal truth, are both based upon misrepresentation of the facts.

More nearly affecting the lives of ordinary people in the 21^st century, however, is the Westminster Parliament. It represents itself as the home of democracy but has never been remotely that. In its history it has been as corrupt as any institution that ever existed. Perhaps it plumbed the depths between 1721 and 1742 when Sir Robert Walpole (often regarded as the first Prime Minister) maintained himself in office by the blatant use of patronage. That power is still available to a 21^st century Prime  Minister greatly enhanced by the development of an overblown and largely superfluous Quangocracy. Recent scandals concerning abuse of an allowance system are nothing new.

It had its origins as an instrument for protecting local magnates, the Barons, and especially their wealth, from the power of the crown. That great founding instrument Magna Carta did exactly that.

There was a time when seats were at the disposal of local landowners. Some constituencies like Old Sarum had hardly any voters and were in the pocket of individuals. It was no secret. They were known as Rotten Boroughs.

As recently as the lifetime of my own grandfather, that is to say in Victorian and Edwardian times, only those owning property above a certain value had a vote. They were relatively few in number so that it was within the capacity of wealthy individuals to ‘persuade' electors by methods which would not bear scrutiny. Such an election is well described in Pickwick Papers. The Eatanswill election, as Dickens well knew, was typical of what went on.

The advent of universal suffrage in the years following the first world war changed things very little. Methods of persuasion of necessity changed but the process remained essentially the same. It became a matter of election promises. Essentially voters were bribed with their own money on those occasions when promises were honoured. Government spending is generally funded by taxation.

The process of manipulating large numbers of voters became both easier and cheaper with the development on the continent of disciplined political parties, first with the Communist party in Russia, then the Fascists in Italy, followed by Nazis in Germany. The Labour Party in Britain adopted that pattern and were followed by the rest. All that is history which culminated so far as Britain is concerned in the 1945 election and the decades which followed.

The political elite at Westminster has now hit upon a ploy which is misrepresentation par excellence and essential in the new environment created by involvement in the EU.

They have come together on what they call the centre ground. Differences between them are merely cosmetic. Anybody who disagrees with them is an extremist of Left or Right if not a racist to boot. A position has been achieved in which something like two thirds of seats are in the pocket of one party or another. At election time they engage in a pseudo squabble about the allocation of the remainder. It matters little how electors vote, the elite wins every time. Democracy is nowhere.

It is a fiction that the government at Westminster rules the UK. This will become absolute when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect.

It is a fiction that switching from one party to another at a general election will make any material difference.

The United Kingdom in 2009 can hardly be said to be an honest establishment. Government and management of the electorate depend on deception. A new master class has emerged in the form of a pseudo elected elite supported by all the organs of information and education. It can only maintain itself by deception, all of which is a far cry from an 18^th century dictionary.