When lying is the best way to the truth

As I am always anxious to provide work for the unemployed, I am very glad to announce today that I have taken on Piers Morgan, late of the Daily Mirror, as my new guest columnist. He has agreed to start work today as our resident agony aunt, to tackle all your emotional problems in his own inimitable and sparkling way.

As I am always anxious to provide work for the unemployed, I am very glad to announce today that I have taken on Piers Morgan, late of the Daily Mirror, as my new guest columnist. He has agreed to start work today as our resident agony aunt, to tackle all your emotional problems in his own inimitable and sparkling way.

All yours, Piers! Let's have the first problem...

Dear Aunty Piers,

I have been married happily for years and years, and my husband and I have raised three children very happily, but recently I have become convinced that he is having an affair. Should I tax him with it? Or should I just overlook it as a passing misdemeanour, and pretend that nothing has happened?

Aunty Piers Morgan writes: You don't say what leads you to the belief that he is having an affair. If it is just a hunch, it is very dangerous to believe in something without the evidence to back it up. So I would advise you to come up with concrete evidence that he is actually having an affair.

But there again there is a danger. If you are anxious to convince yourself that he really is having an affair, then you are likely to believe any evidence which comes to light, even though it is not really evidence at all. You might, for instance, find a receipt for an expensive dinner for two which he hasn't told you about. You suspect he has taken a woman out. But it is just as likely that he has taken a business contact out. Or he might even have collected someone else's receipt to claim as his own expenses!

Believe me, it is all too easy to be swayed by what seemed like good evidence at the time.

My advice: give him the benefit of the doubt. I only wish it had happened to me.

Dear Aunty Piers,

My daughter wants to marry a soldier. I tell her that married life in the services will be miserable. She won't listen to me. What should I tell her?

Aunty Piers Morgan writes: British soldiers are the salt of the earth. You won't find a finer fighting outfit anywhere. I would defend them to my dying day. On the other hand, some of them are cheating conniving yobs whom I wouldn't trust further than I could throw. They would do anything underhand just to earn £5,000. Have nothing to do with them. Bastards.

I trust this answers your question.

Dear Aunty Piers,

I am quite happy in my present job, but my wife says that one should change occupation every now and then, just to keep the juices flowing. What do you think?

Aunty Piers Morgan writes: I quite agree with your wife. A change of post is no bad thing. But it is always good tactics to have another role in reserve. If, for instance, one works in the printed media, it is no bad thing to make appearances on TV from time to time, so that one could make the transition to TV if one had to. In the old days, newspaper editors retired when they gave up editing, and nobody heard of them again. Now it is merely a springboard to another career. It is hard to imagine that BBC political expert Andrew Marr was once the editor of this very paper, or that Janet Street-Porter also used to run something or other. Oddly, newspaper editors now seem to get younger when they leave, instead of older as they used to.

I enclose a signed photo of myself.

Dear Aunty Piers,

Is it ever justifiable to lie in a relationship?

Aunty Piers Morgan writes: It is always justifiable to lie. Lying is the quickest way of getting at the truth. Even if you are telling a lie, there is a bigger truth out there waiting to be revealed. Through lies we come to their opposite. Sometimes, when we have been telling lies, it turns out that we having been telling the truth all along. Lying is the best way of telling the truth...

Miles Kington writes: I am sorry. Mr Morgan is having one of his little turns. I am afraid we will have to dispense with his services. To be sacked twice in a week may seem tough, but it's hard at the top.