Dominic Raab insists he warned voters about the risks of a no-deal Brexit while fighting the EU referendum campaign. But
@factcheck
can't find any evidence of an interview where he talks about the dangers of no deal.
Boris Johnson told
#PMQs
today that staying in the European Medicines Agency would have made the UK vaccine rollout "impossible". In fact, Britain was still bound by EMA rules when the Covid vaccination programme began. (
@FactCheck
thread)
Boris Johnson said the government sent four new mobile testing units to Leicester 'shortly' after 8 June.
@FactCheck
understands that it was ten days after that date before the first new centre was opened - and 21 days before four had been added.
Keir Starmer said today that 'we haven’t had economic growth for 12 years.' But this is incorrect: the UK economy has grown every year since 2010, except for one.
Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis tweeted that more young people are joining the party and “a record number of under-25s” went to this year’s conference.
@FactCheck
asked the Conservatives to show us the figures behind those claims. They declined.
The government failed to follow its own transparency guidelines over 200 times on PPE contracts worth nearly £6bn in total,
@FactCheck
can reveal.
Read the full analysis:
NEW: Boris Johnson said this morning that Labour would hike corporation tax to the 'highest levels in Europe' — but he's wrong.
Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis here:
Ten years ago, England’s NHS was better than Scotland and Wales when it came to the percentage of A&E patients seen within four hours. New analysis shows it’s now the worst of the three - while Scotland performs best.
@C4Ciaran
explains.
Challenged on the Covid crisis in social care, Matt Hancock said “we did not have” a list of all elderly care homes early on. But as
@FactCheck
has found, there is a list and it seems to have been online throughout the pandemic. Read the full analysis:
The Conservatives’ Chris Philp told the
#c4debate
that England and Wales now has more police officers than in 2010. For context, our
@FactCheck
analysis finds that we have fewer officers per head of population than in 2009.
NEW: The Conservatives have told
@FactCheck
that Sajid Javid 'misremembered' a statistic about homelessness this morning when he claimed it 'reached its peak in 2008 under the last Labour government, since then it's down by almost a half'.
Michael Gove just used his record on schools as an example of why voters should trust the government to deliver. But he quoted a figure that the UK Statistics Authority has criticised. A
@FactCheck
thread...
Don't forget to follow
@factcheck
and other *real* fact-checking sites for impartial analysis of the election campaign. Let us know what you want us to check after tonight's
#LeadersDebate
NEW: Boris Johnson says 'There will be no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind' for Northern Irish businesses sending goods to the rest of the UK.
But he's at odds with cabinet colleagues and the government's own analysis. Read the full
@FactCheck
:
Looks like the Conservatives have quietly updated their code of conduct to include a mention of antisemitism that wasn't there before. A
@FactCheck
thread:
The Conservatives tweeted about "better pay" — based on a 0.4% real-terms rise in wages over the last year.
And they didn't mention that average weekly earnings are actually 1.3% *lower* now in real terms than they were in 2010.
Our latest
@FactCheck
:
NEW: Jeremy Corbyn said Labour had 'strengthened processes' for dealing with antisemitism. But
@FactCheck
has seen a leaked internal document that casts doubt on the claim.
The
@FactCheck
verdict on "hatgate"
@BBCNewsnight
did place a reddened picture of Jeremy Corbyn next to the Kremlin.
But:
1. They used the same background for Defence Sec Gavin Williamson
2. The hat only appears taller because of the curved background of the Newsnight set.
@MattHancock
@Conservatives
Constance Markievicz (Sinn Fein) was the first woman elected to parliament, but didn't take her seat. Nancy Astor (Conservative) was the first woman to sit as an MP.
Mr Javid apparently meant to say that statutory homelessness peaked in 2003. This is significant because he said Labour 'was responsible for the massive rise in homelessness'. In fact, Labour oversaw all of the decline in statutory homelessness he seems to take credit for.
Boris Johnson talked a lot about his stint as London mayor in his campaign launch yesterday. But he didn’t mention these broken promises from his time at City Hall.
A
@FactCheck
thread:
@UKLabour
Hi. We FactChecked this in February.
No child currently receiving free school meals under Universal Credit will have them taken away.
As you say in the linked webpage, this is about changing eligibility for *new* families on UC.
NEW: Michael Gove said this morning that the Brexit transition period could not be extended. But that seems to be at odds with the government's own withdrawal agreement.
Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis:
The Welsh Secretary says sheep farmers should look to new markets like Japan if there's a no-deal Brexit. But more than 90 per cent of Welsh lamb exports go to the EU - and WTO tariffs are steep.
How many more border staff will we need if there's a no-deal Brexit? Yesterday the new Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak said we would get 500 extra Border Force staff, on top of "900 more border staff in place already".
@factcheck
is struggling to understand his numbers.
Last week
@FactCheck
looked at the government's "New Deal" on infrastructure spending. Despite figures of £600bn being used in parliament, new spending commitments only amounted to £5bn, "brought forward" from existing plans.
A recent tweet from Esther McVey, now deleted, suggested that all EU members will have to adopt the euro after 2020. That's not the case. Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis here:
A few political parties and others have tried to mimic real, impartial fact-checking sites over the years. We're really not fans...
#realfactchecking
please
As the home of the original
@FactCheck
in the UK we need to point out “factcheckUK” has nothing to do with
@Channel4News
it is the renamed twitter account of
@cchqpress
-
@Conservatives
no political party should be trying to cloak themselves in the guise of independent journalists
Boris Johnson told
#PMQs
today: "Nobody defends booing of the England side."
But some Conservative MPs, including several ministers, did defend fans who booed England players for "taking the knee" before their Euro 2020 matches.
Read the full
@FactCheck
:
We were in the Brexit transition period when the vaccine programme was planned, and the rollout started. It didn't matter, because EU legislation enacted into British law already allowed countries to temporarily authorise vaccines without waiting for approval from the EMA.
Boris Johnson told MPs: 'It was always right to pursue a local and a regional approach, as our scientific advisors said.' But that appears to be at odds with what SAGE told ministers in September.
Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis:
Dominic Raab told the Commons today that the conviction rate for rape “is now 69%” - but his own department has admitted to
@FactCheck
that this is “out of date”.
Earlier today,
@FactCheck
revealed that the Conservative party code of conduct did not include a single mention of antisemitism, nor the definition of antisemitism recommended by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Despite what Labour's Angela Rayner appeared to suggest last week, the government is not taking free school meals from a million children who currently get them.
@FactCheck
takes a look.
Today Boris Johnson promised "another 20,000 police on the streets". As Mayor of London, he announced a recruitment drive for 5,000 officers in London - without mentioning that these would simply replace staff lost through natural wastage. Officer numbers fell on his watch.
NEW: JK Rowling is correct to say that hormones or surgery are not required in order to legally change your gender in the UK.
Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis:
People are questioning how Michael Gove has managed to avoid self-isolating after being pinged by the NHS Covid app. GMB's Richard Madeley said: "It strikes a lot of people as a very convenient pilot scheme, which we can't all take part in... one rule for you and one for us."
The last cached version of the Conservative party code of conduct before our article was published is from 17 July (left). It makes no express mention of antisemitism.
As of this afternoon, 20 July, the same page looks like this (right).
One in eight British workers live in poverty - that's about 3.7 million people.
The economy is growing, but here's what the Conservatives won't tell you about jobs.
Theresa May said that 1.4m people were on out-of-work benefits for most of the 2000s under Labour. But she didn't mention that many of those people were on disability or illness benefits.
Channel 4 News'
@FactCheck
team takes a look.
Conservative MP and culture secretary Karen Bradley said twice this morning that the EU referendum was "binding". It may be politically inevitable, but the vote itself wasn't legally binding.
Channel 4's
@FactCheck
team takes a look.
NEW:
@FactCheck
and Channel 4 News' Target Voter team reveal that the Conservatives have spent thousands on Facebook ads that contain a basic error - which they admitted when we pointed it out.
It's day one of Boris Johnson's premiership. There are a few things already on our
@FactCheck
radar - as we launch our project to examine every public statement by the PM until the day we are due to leave the EU...
Blue passports, crowns on pint glasses, plastic bag charges, and introducing freeports.
They all feature in the government's new "Benefits of Brexit" report.
But two of them could have happened in the EU - and two of them did.
@FactCheck
takes a look.
The Conservatives have a history of publishing less information on membership than other major parties.
They’re not legally obliged to tell us, but until they start being more transparent, we can’t
@FactCheck
this type of claim properly.
In August 2021, Boris Johnson told parliament that the UK would relocate 5,000 Afghans “this year.”
But as of yesterday, the scheme in question has only resettled a single family.
Read the full
@FactCheck
analysis:
When the
#Covid19UK
pandemic began, Boris Johnson promised "transparency". But
@FactCheck
is finding it increasingly hard to get answers from the UK government on key elements of its coronavirus strategy.
The government says cutting tariffs after a no-deal Brexit would mean “lower prices in shops for consumers". Experts disagree. Read our latest
@FactCheck
:
In a recent interview, the former head of the UK's Vaccines Taskforce, Kate Bingham, shot down the idea that Brexit had helped Britain moved faster than the EU member states:
Boris Johnson said "we took about 11,000 knives off the streets of London with stop and search”. But Met Police stats tell a different story. Read the full
@FactCheck
:
Universities have seen a massive income boost from higher tuition fees. In 2015-16, they had a total surplus of £1.8bn. But only a fraction of that has gone on staff.
"Rank and file" academics have seen a real-terms pay cut every year since 2010-11.
A reminder that Boris Johnson's spokesman said he would not meet EU leaders face to face if they were not willing to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.
Health minister Nadine Dorries claims testing “won’t cut the number of deaths...or stop them catching coronavirus” - contradicting comments from the Director-General of the World Health Organization and England’s Chief Medical Officer.
Boris Johnson has said Nicola Sturgeon "replaced Alex Salmond, as far as I know, without a vote".
If the PM means that she "replaced Alex Salmond" as leader of the SNP without a vote, he's right. Ms Sturgeon was elected unopposed in 2014.
So
@alexwickham
has this story about
@BorisJohnson
pushing a plan for “free ports” six weeks after receiving £25,000 from the company that owns the port in Bristol:
NEW: Boris Johnson has today backed a Singapore-style tax free port at Bristol… six weeks after receiving a £25,000 payment from the owners of Bristol port
Cash-for-policy questions for the Tory leadership frontrunner:
Matt Hancock has said we "never had a national shortage" of PPE, citing a National Audit Office report. But the NAO said that "many front-line workers in health and adult social care reported not having access to the PPE they needed during the height of the shortages". (1/6)
The head of the UK regulator, the MHRA, said: “We have been able to authorise the supply of the vaccine using provisions under European law which exist until 1 January.”
Exclusive analysis by our
@FactCheck
team shows just how bad things are getting in Northern Ireland’s health service.
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E is now 36 times higher than it was in 2009.
@C4Ciaran
reports.
The General Election officially kicks off today. Throughout the campaign, the
@FactCheck
team will be examining claims made by all the major political parties and holding them to account.
Follow
@FactCheck
for the latest and send any dodgy claims our way...
Theresa May said today that "the number of workless households doubled under
@UKLabour
". In fact it rose by just 6.6 per cent.
@FactCheck
looks at the claim - which also tripped up David Cameron back in 2014.
The Conservatives announced 50,000 more nurses. It emerged later that this includes retaining nurses who were expected to leave the NHS. Now there's another catch. Read the full
@FactCheck
: