Why is it so hard for the authorities to win public trust? Maybe because they keep lying to us | Gaby Hinsliff

If it’s not superinjunctions, it’s Epstein files or deepfakes. It’s hard not to be a conspiracy theorist when sometimes they really are out to get you

If you were to invent a scandal expressly to convince conspiracy theorists they were right all along, the story of the Afghan superinjunction would be hard to beat.

A secret back door into Britain through which thousands of immigrants were brought, under cover of a draconian legal gagging order that helpfully also concealed an act of gross incompetence by the British state? It’s a rightwing agitator’s dream. “The real disinformation,” wrote Dominic Cummings on X, a platform notably awash with real disinformation, “is the regime media.” Yes, that Dominic Cummings.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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