Amber Rudd has been playing fast and loose with the facts again, according to a response to a Freedom of Information request.

Ms Rudd told Parliament on January 7: “I have had an opportunity to visit many different jobcentres since being appointed, and I find universally that the people who work in them are enthusiastic about Universal Credit and passionate, caring and compassionate about the claimants they work for.”

But after John Pring of Disability News Service contacted the Department for Work and Pensions to check her claim, he reported the following response:

“Her department has now admitted that at the time of making that comment she had visited just four jobcentres in two months, and two of those were in London.

“The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said Rudd had visited London Bridge jobcentre on 22 November and North Kensington jobcentre on 27 November.

“She then waited more than five weeks before visiting another two Midlands jobcentres on the same day, 4 January: in Yardley, Birmingham, and Longton, in Stoke-on-Trent.”

Those visits can not provide enough evidence to suggest that “universally… the people who work in them are enthusiastic about Universal Credit and passionate, caring and compassionate about the claimants they work for”.

There are around 600 job centres in the United Kingdom – 150 times as many as Ms Rudd had visited when she made her statement.

Of course, it is difficult to check to veracity of the DNS story as the DWP has released absolutely no Freedom of Information responses since the beginning of the year. In fact, it seems none have been released to the public since March, 2017.

So much for Freedom of Information!

As for Ms Rudd – she has a history of misleading Parliament, and resigned as Home Secretary after these lies were exposed (although her withdrawal from the Cabinet was a transparent tactic to allow the real culprit – Theresa May – to continue as prime minister).

Normally a misdirection like this would not be enough to encourage the removal of a Cabinet member.

But Ms Rudd has a history of throwing in the towel now, so you never know. Fancy getting in touch with her, to give her a little boost along her way?

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