Blair on Brexit : he learned it from Cicero

A discussion on lying reminded me of something. Here's a snippet from one of Tony Blair's anti-Brexit speeches :

It's like a house swap. They said, "Yep, we wanna swap our house." But they hadn't seen the other one. They'd had one group of people tell them, "This other house is fantastic, you should definitely move there", and another group of people saying, "No, it's a really idea, I wouldn't do that." So what do they do ? They heard two people, they decided to go with the person who told them it's fantastic. Well here's the thing - now they're gonna go and see it. Now they're gonna go and visit the neighbourhood. Now they're gonna go and test the structure. Now they're gonna go and see whether it's the type of move they really want to make. The idea that in those circumstances if they decide, "You know what, I think this is not such a great neighbourhood, I'm not really liking this structure, don't think it's really got the right bedrooms for us, and other facilities... it's gonna cost too much to do it up... err, what, they can't change their mind ? "No, you made your decision, you've just got to do it, nope, stop debating it, don't think about it any more"... what is... ? Who made that rule ?

And here, if you want a more ancient and established authority, is Marcus Tullius Cicero :

Suppose that an honest man wants to sell a house because of certain defects of which he alone is aware. The building is supposed to be quite healthy, but is in fact insanitary, and he is aware that it is; or the place is badly built and is falling down, but nobody knows this except the owner. Suppose that he does not disclose these facts to purchasers, and sells the house for much more than he expected... Anyone can see the sort of concealment this amounts to - and the sort of person who practises it. He is the reverse of open, straightforward, fair and honest : he is a shifty, deep, artful, treacherous, malevolent, underhand, sly, habitual rogue... Misrepresentation is the equivalent of criminal fraud... Our legislators have added suppression of the facts to the indictable offences, ruling that even if the seller has not declared all the defects he must make them good.