Liars, loans and women who feel they need a lift

Who can you trust now transparency is everything? Even as the week revealed the truth about liars, webs of deceit were being spun faster than a spider could invite a fly into its parlour. Amid the panic, you couldn't help thinking that Tony Blair and George Bush must be wishing they'd never heard of Iraq.

Nothing was more hilarious than watching the US president dodge the year's most pertinent question at a press conference: "I didn't want to invade Iraq," he spluttered. No siree, he didn't want to; he had to. And he had to on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be either wrong or fabricated. It's why he's very nearly as unpopular as our prime minister, whose every move is now examined in light of its ulterior motive, which we all expect will be dishonest or lowly whether it is or it isn't.

His problem - everyone's problem from now on - is that transparency demands disclosure, and disclosure, frankly, isn't always convenient. Refusal to disclose, on the other hand, reeks of turbidity so the accountable person must find a way around it, which it is now our hapless burden to decipher.

David Cameron, for instance, on the matter of loans to the Conservative party, went very silent. While the Labour party tackled the horror of donations from rich men whose interests could at best be called vested by squabbling and going public, he refused to name names. His party's loans had been made on the understanding that the donors remained anonymous because they feared that if word of who they were got out they'd never win any contracts from a government that was malicious and untrustworthy. That's what his office told us.

In the absence of disclosure, he attacked. And this was the man who promised no uncalled-for mudslinging in case anyone slung mud back and parliament became this gloopy sea of mud and the nation said to hell with the lot of them. Which of course the nation by and large now has.

To hell with them and to hell with estate agents, whose dirty tricks were exposed on BBC1's Whistleblower, to our shock and horror. Not really. There was some horror but almost no shock. It was scary to find that an agent could supply a false passport and three monthly payslips to get his client a mortgage because then you thought, what if his client was a bomber? And it was repulsive to watch an agent at another outfit negotiate a 10 grand fee so a developer could buy a property for 60 grand beneath its market value. But who, honestly, was shocked to find that the industry manipulates the market? It's why houses cost what they do.

Agency foot soldiers rely on commission, and the way they earn most is by inflating or deflating prices according to what their buyers can stand. At Foxtons, where basic pay is £200 a week, they're under enormous pressure to meet ridiculous targets.

"Never, never, never mention the fee," said the poor girl in charge of lettings, even as the company's owner, the impossibly rich and greedy Jon Hunt, claimed that transparency was central to his business operations. The problem is that the industry is as regulated as fundraising for political parties is, so the bosses can fire their wretched employees and carry on regardless.

It was more shocking to find the growing number of middle-aged women resorting to face and neck lifts to keep their jobs. Maybe it's wrong to call plastic surgery a tissue of lies but how pathetic, really. How pathetic to be living in a climate that causes women to think they have to trick everyone into believing they aren't 57 because if you are 57 and look raddled everyone will assume you are addled. In October, EU legislation will make it illegal to discriminate against workers on the basis of age but there's no legislation to discriminate on the basis of a wrinkled face and a neck that's turned into chest.

The truly frightening truth is that the face-lifted and estate agents aren't the only workers besides politicians who believe deceit is essential to survive. Really, who doesn't? Thank God Dr Samantha Mann from Portsmouth University has worked out how to spot liars. Forget nose touching, fidgeting and blinking. Liars look you in the eye and remain very still apart from expansive hand gestures and pointing. Now we have transparency, they probably also wear T-shirts saying Trust Me Ha Ha Ha.