Dave - Bending the truth is not the same as lying. Plus you have to prove that he knew that what he was saying was flatly contradicted by what he knew he was told. He may have heard what he wanted to hear, he may simply have misunderstood what he was told. If we haven't all done the former, we all know someone who has; does anyone want to deny they've done the latter? ;-)

I'm not the slightest exercised over the fact that a politician may have bent the truth, found a set of statistics that suit, cherry-picked their facts to suit their views instead of moulding their views around the facts. I expect that. Whatever they believe, they are there to toe the party line (the whip exists for that reason), and then there's the old, old joke - "How do you know when a politician is lying". The surprise, always, is a politician being honest & direct. Lying & evasion ("Before I answer let me just..." spout my party dogma...) are practically compulsory requirements for an MP, whatever ideology they espouse.

So Boris the Clown resigns or is sacked? So what? One politician is replaced by another politician who may (no pun intended) or may not be more able, more truthful, or whatever. Unless you've some personal beef against Johnson, it makes no bloody difference who is Foreign Secretary.

Steve - I'll get back to you. At this point, all I would say is, if you're going to play Devil's Advocate (done it many a time), suggest a credible alternative. Russia's "Oh, the UK did it to provide a distraction from..." not only is not credible, it also looks like a blatant attempt at diversion. Which smacks of guilty conscience. If Russia didn't, who plausibly might have?