When Is A Lie Not A Lie?

Alasdair Palmer, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, has an article on the "Woolas Situation" and in so doing raises a most interesting point.

"Gordon Brown, Cherie Blair and Charles Falconer all feel sorry for Phil Woolas. It’s hard not to. He has lost his job, his political career is in ruins, and he faces bankruptcy. All because he did what his defenders in the Labour Party (and he has many more among ordinary MPs) insist is common practice during elections: he lied.......To recap: Woolas won re-election for Oldham East and Saddleworth after defeating the Liberal Democrat candidate, Elwyn Watkins, by a mere 103 votes. Watkins thought he would have won if Woolas hadn’t told lies about him. So he sued him under the Representation of the People Act. Two High Court judges examined the evidence and found that Woolas had indeed told lies that impugned Watkins’s integrity. The Act required them to overturn the result, eject Woolas from Parliament and ban him from elected office for three years."

I have to ask whether it matters to whom the lie is made as I can logically see no difference - a lie is a lie, at the end of the day.

Both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party stood on manifestos promising certain policies would be enacted if they 'formed the next government'. Both parties are now 'formed that government' and have produced a programme on which neither of them stood - ergo both parties 'lied' to the British people.

Are not all elected politicians, of both parties, guilty of lying under the Representation of the People Act?

Just asking, you understand..............