Lisbon II may be won by the side that tells the most plausible lies

The temptation for the Yes side, if it avoids attacking personalities on the No side, might be to tell its own lies to win public support. I’m sorry for any cynicism, but victory might come down to the side that tells its own lies most convincingly or which scares the voters more

SO here we go again. Mark off October 2 in your diary because that’s when you get to vote again on the Lisbon Treaty. Up until that date you are going to hear lots of the same arguments again, lots of the same voices and feel lots of the same weariness. You may even vote the same way again.

Of course, if the same people vote as who voted the last time, and vote the same way, then the referendum will be defeated again. The losing side’s hope is that it can get more of the non-voters from the last day out to vote its way, that it can persuade No voters to switch sides or, if that’s not possible, that they won’t vote at all this time. There is a big gap to overturn, given that a sizeable majority – 53% to 47% – voted No the last time. In more practical terms, the majority for the No side was more than 100,000 votes, which is sizeable.