Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

In 1979, some intrepid explorers set off on the Transglobe expedition, circling the planet and crossing both poles.

The plan left two of the adventurers overwintering in Antarctica, in mostly dark for months.

Luckily, there were plenty of books around.

And lots of companies would like you to give genetic test kits to your friends and family

this holiday season. We take a look at the risks to consumers and the benefits to science

that these tests present.

But first, as 2019 draws to a close, our top story takes a step away from the news to examine a trend that's dominated the year.

The world is accustomed to hearing the lies of dictators.

That North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a demigod.

That America caused Venezuela's economic mess.

Or that nothing much happened on June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square.

In democracies, too, politicians have always massaged or even mangled the truth.

I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

But there's something different about the age we live in today.

What's different now is that there's more brazen and open and repeated political lying in democracies.

John Parker is the economist's editor at large.

So the best example of this, the sort of misleader of the Western world, is Trump himself.

Trump keeps saying that we're building the wall.

We're building a wall on the border of New Mexico.

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