As a general rule I prefer the stupidity theory to the mendacity concept of politics. That is, if a politician says something obviously wrong it is more probably because they are thicker than mince than because they wish to deceive the public. There are some exceptions to this usual rule but, most of the time, dumb beats cunning.
Occasionally, however, dumb can also be cunning. Consider this statement from Angus Brendan MacNeil, MP for the Western Isles, as recorded by Hansard:
Now Mr MacNeil, bless him, often fumbles his way towards wishful thinking but this will not quite do. The Vow, no matter how ballyhooed it may be these days, said precisely nothing about Full Fiscal Autonomy. We know this because, helpfully, it was splashed on the front page of the Daily Record.
Not that Mr MacNeil is alone. Paul Monaghan, the new SNP (of course!) MP for Caithness nobly decided Mr MacNeil should not zoom alone, tweeting: 
Or to put it another way, It’s disgraceful that the Labour party did not support SNP policy even though The Vow said nothing like what we now claim it did.
There is, I concede, a difficulty with terms here.
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