Quote: wotsupcas "I don't know, there's been some whoppers over the years, Blair and his weapons of mass destruction, John Major and the Maastricht treaty "its a minor alteration to the wording", Dennis Healey saying inflation was 12% when it was nearly 25 and of course uncle Ted Heath and the "common market".'"
I think it is the shamelessness and routine way that Johnson lies that have normalised it, to the point where it doesn’t really cause a stir. It is just what he does and it isn’t news because it isn’t new.
Your first example massively damaged Blair’s reputation and legacy. He’d prefer otherwise but he understands it, at least. Johnson’s reputation is as a liar so it can’t be harmed much more in that regard - it is baked in and weirdly widely accepted. It seems that he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the distinction between fact and falsehood.
Big chunks of the UK and US electorates clearly see something that isn’t obvious to me in the likes of Trump and Johnson. ‘Charisma’ maybe? Or they miss something that is obvious to me. Or they just like liars now. At least Johnson is openly and transparently dishonest I suppose!