Tag Archives: mislead

Sunak is reported to statistics watchdog for misleading the public about poverty increase

Rishi Sunak: misleading on poverty.

Here’s another lie from the Party of Liars:

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been reported to the UK’s statistics watchdog over Labour claims he misled the public by saying the number of people in poverty is falling – at a time when internationally recognised measures show it has risen by 1.5 million under Tory rule.

Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Bridget Phillipson said the “cowardly” chancellor was corroding public trust by trying to cover up the truth on “appalling” inequalities which have seen the numbers of children in poverty rise to 4.2 million.

Boris Johnson has been repeatedly rapped over the knuckles by the watchdog over his claims that poverty has fallen under the Tories, with Office for Statistics Regulation chief Ed Humpherson issuing a formal warning to Downing Street only last month that the prime minister’s cherry-picking of statistical measures was getting in the way of public understanding of the problem.

Sunak will escape without any real punishment, no matter how severe his offence.

The fun is in finding out how ridiculous his excuse will be.

Source: Rishi Sunak facing probe over use of poverty statistics | The Independent

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Boris Johnson misleads Parliament AGAIN. Why did the UK ask for a liar to be prime minister?

Every day when I wake up and remember that Boris Johnson is prime minister, I wonder what went wrong.

It was bad enough when David Cameron was in charge, with his backwards ideas about benefits and the economy, and his concern for the Conservative Party above the nation that led to the EU referendum.

Then it got worse when Theresa May took over and proved incapable of doing anything apart from victimising people of minority ethnic origin.

Now we have Johnson, who appears to be incapable of uttering a factual accuracy and whose government is therefore – not unsurprisingly – marinating itself in corruption.

Today’s howler was his claim, in Prime Minister’s Questions, that Keir Starmer had voted against a promise of a 2.1 per cent pay rise for nurses – that his own government is breaking.

The plan was in the NHS Funding Bill last year – which passed without a formal vote because all the main parties supported it. Starmer didn’t need to vote, but if he had, he would have supported the Bill.

It will be interesting to see how Downing Street mangles the English language in order to pretend his claim is accurate.

After he said there would be no funding cut for the body tasked with improving transport in the north (he’s taking away 40 per cent of its funding), Downing Street tried to suggest he had been talking about transport generally for the north of England.

And after he claimed all Covid-19 contracts had been published and were “on the record” – only to be contradicted by the High Court – a minister said all CANs – Contract Award Notices – had been published. They are not the same thing.

This time, he has declared – on television – that the leader of the Opposition took part in a vote that did not take place, and in doing so, voted against a Bill he supported.

I’d wish Johnson’s Downing Street advisors the best of luck finding a way out of that – but I want them, and him, to fall flat on their faces.

Source: Boris Johnson accused of misleading Parliament for third time in three weeks – Mirror Online

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Gove rebuked for fiddling the figures on post-Brexit trade

The UK Statistics Authority has delivered an official reprimand to Michael Gove and his Cabinet Office for faking the figures on post-Brexit trade.

The Road Haulage Association published the results of a survey in February, showing that the volume of exports to the EU fell by more than two-thirds (68 per cent) in January, immediately after the UK finally severed its membership of the European Union.

Gove’s Cabinet Office then pretended that the RHA was wrong, stating that “inbound and outbound flows (across all UK ports) were close to normal, at 95% outbound and 96% inbound, in spite of the impact of Covid lockdowns on trade.”

The UKSA’s reprimand pointed out that the Cabinet Office’s response contained “claims based on unpublished data, and as such these figures cannot be verified”.

Worse still, it referred only to “flows” of lorries, and not to the amount of freight they were carrying.

It is entirely possible that the number of lorries going out to the EU was almost as high from January 1 onwards as they had been before.

But the claim that exports had dropped by two-thirds is also likely to be true if most of those lorries were empty – and they were.

Gove has been caught trying to mislead the public over this important issue. By rights he should resign. But does anybody think he will?

Source: UK Statistics Authority rebukes Gove over Brexit figures | Brexit | The Guardian

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Covid-19 deaths: Corbyn would have done so much better. The media double-standards are shocking

Jeremy Corbyn: he would be right to look askance at us all. A majority of people believed the lies about him published by the Tory-supporting media and voted a massive Tory majority into Parliament. Now more than 100,000 of us are dead as a result. He would have tackled Covid-19 differently – and some of our relatives might still be alive today.

Here is much of the problem with UK politics, rolled up in a single tweet:

It’s applicable to any situation but very clear at the moment because Boris Johnson has failed so badly and 100,000 people are dead as a result.

Jeremy Corbyn, who was vilified by the press, would have acted differently. We know exactly how, because he told us. See for yourself:

He also said this:

But the general public had been hoodwinked by the Tory press into thinking he was a menace.

And now?

This is still happening:

But it seems the tide is turning:

And:

This Writer is willing to wager that a lot of mainstream media hacks should be mainlining Ms Harrington’s medication.

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MPs – including Tories – demand Universal Credit uplift retention after misleading Tory tweet

The Big Lie: Labour won a vote calling on the Tory government to extend the £20 Universal Credit uplift – and this is the tweet the Conservatives sent before the debate.

MPs on both sides of the House of Commons have urged Boris Johnson to extend an uplift of Universal Credit beyond its planned end date.

The non-binding Labour motion passed by 278 votes to none, with six Conservatives defying a Tory whip to abstain.

They were Robert Halfon, who appeared on TV vowing to support Labour’s motion…

(He has some strange ideas about the so-called ‘benefit’ but he did the right thing so we’ll cut him some slack this time, right?)

… along with former Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, Peter Aldous, Jason McCartney, Anne Marie Morris and Matthew Offord.

Personally, This Writer thought their decision was more impressive when contrasted with the behaviour of whoever writes the official @Conservatives Twitter feed.

Before the vote, a message appeared there, saying

Keir Starmer wants to scrap universal credit, withdrawing vital support from millions of people.

Experts say Labour’s plan would would [sic] be disruptive and cause chaos.

Conservatives are investing £7.4bn to help those who need it most.

It is a sickening distortion of the facts, as Peter Stefanovic makes clear:

But wait! The plot thickens:

He is.

That’s like paying them the uplift for 25 weeks, all at once – and it’s a dangerous thing to do.

The people receiving it are in dire straits financially. That’s a given, because otherwise they would not be on benefits.

They probably got into debt while waiting the mandatory five weeks before payment of UC began, and probably took out the advance loan of UC that is offered to people in that situation.

This means those who did this have been receiving less than even the government says they need on which to live, because they have to pay off that loan.

Now suppose they get that £500 payout. What do you think they’ll do with it?

They’ll pay off their debts and treat themselves with some – or all – of what’s left, most likely. It’s a relief reaction: “We’ve got some money; let’s enjoy it.”

And then they’ll find themselves back trying to make ends meet on UC – with £20 a week less on which to live. In fact, if they do pay off the debt, they’ll probably be in more or less exactly the same position as they are now.

And let’s just put this into context:

That’s right. The sum we’re discussing is less than one-third of the amount a member of the House of Lords gets, simply for turning up.

Finally, let’s be clear about what Universal Credit is.

Grateful?

That would be hugely overstating the obligation, considering we all fund UC with our taxes. And what do claimants of the so-called benefit get in return?

See for yourself, if you can bear it:

Labour does want to scrap Universal Credit – because it is a diabolical travesty of social security.

But Labour wants to replace it with something better. That can’t happen at the moment because we have a Tory government, with ministers who put forward the view of it that Robert Halfon expressed (above).

Retaining the £20 per week uplift is the least those Tories can do.

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You can’t trust the Tories. But did their lies manage to convince you at the election?

He hasn’t actually said this: but Boris Johnson definitely DID lie to you in order to win the general election, and now we all know it. How can he expect us to trust him or his degraded party?

The Tories lied blatantly to win the 2019 general election, according to research from King’s College, London.

Tactics to mislead the public included  altering a video of Sir Keir Starmer and posing as a fact-checker on Twitter during a leaders’ debate.

The clip was edited to show the current Labour leader, then shadow Brexit secretary, failing to answer a question on the EU when in fact he had responded to it in a live television interview.

The report said the Tories also deliberately shared “poorly formatted and low-quality” posts on social media, including a widely-ridiculed tweet using the comic sans font, to gain attention through critical coverage.

After a public information campaign highlighted five ways of spreading false information last year, the Tory campaign was found to have used four of them.

Fact-checking organisation First Draft found that Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats all published misleading advertising during the campaign – but the Tories were by far the worst.

First Draft said 88 per cent of their most shared online adverts between December 1-4 contained misleading information, compared to 6.7 per cent for Labour.

King’s College researchers said the Tory government’s – let’s not beat around the bush – lies created trust issues for the public, at a time when the governing party is trying to convince us it can be trusted to tell us the facts about Covid-19:

“It wants citizens to believe the message that it is ‘succeeding’ in controlling the epidemic, despite its recent electoral record of using disinformation tactics and admitting it unapologetically.”

The Tories have – unsurprisingly – denied everything, even though they had previously admitted altering the video footage, unapologetically.

And their spokesperson added a few more statements you might consider to be stretching credibility:

“We are delivering on the promises the British public elected us on, getting Brexit done, investing in our public services and levelling-up across the country.“

It’s a good question, isn’t it?

Would Tory voters have done so if they knew how much disinformation the party was using in its campaign? And do they believe what the Tories are saying now?

Sadly This Site can’t do a poll about this – there’s no way of ensuring that only Tory voters would respond.

Source: Conservative Party used disinformation ‘with new level of impunity’ during 2019 general election, report finds | The Independent

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Boris Johnson lied when he said all Covid-19 tests were carried out within 24 hours

One day soon, a Mastermind contestant will do a round on “the life and lies of Boris Johnson”.

There will be a lot of material from which to choose questions. This Writer is thinking of running a daily column. I’ve already got another piece lined up.

This case concerns the following claim, made on June 3:

“We already turn around 90% of tests within 48 hours. The tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile test centres, are all done within 24 hours, and I can undertake to him now to get all tests turned around in 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that.”

The claim was – of course – untrue, as Full Fact explains:

When this was said, on 3 June, 19 per cent of tests at regional testing sites and five per cent of tests at mobile test centres were done within 24 hours.

In fact, it turns out that even by the end of June – four weeks later – the government was still failing to turn around every test within 24 hours.

Here‘s the Mirror:

NHS Test and Trace data shows that in the final week of the month only around a quarter of tests carried out at hospitals and care homes were turned around this quickly.

When it came to tests at regional drive through and mobile testing sites nine out of ten tests saw results delivered on time.

Turning around times for home testing performed even worse with just 2% of people getting results in 24 hours.

You may be wondering why the 24-hour turnaround is important. Here’s the reason:

The 24 hour target is key to allowing tracers to get hold of contacts before they start spreading the virus to others.

So one lie leads to another. When Johnson says his contact tracing projects are running at 100 per cent efficiency, you’ll already know it isn’t true.

And of course this means the Tories aren’t controlling Covid-19 – no matter what they say in their press conferences.

Source: New data reveals PM’s testing speeds claims as wrong – Full Fact

‘Build, build, cut’? Or did Johnson simply announce continuation of Budget promise?

Caught out again: but if anyone demands clarity from Boris Johnson, isn’t this the best response we can hope to get?

Boris Johnson seems to have painted himself into a corner with his claim to be putting more money into building affordable homes.

Read this:

Boris Johnson’s claim to “build, build, build” his way out of the coronavirus pandemic was thrown into confusion amid claims that he appeared to have cut funding for affordable housing.

As he delivered a speech in Dudley, No.10’s website suggested that £12bn would be spent on housing over the next eight years – even though the Ministry of Housing said after the Budget in March that the same amount would be spent over five years.

The PM faced fresh claims that the Tory party was doing favours for its “housing developer mates” after he unveiled sweeping planning reforms to allow high street shops to be turned into housing.

A government spokesman insisted there had been no cut to funding and that the eight year timeframe was a reference to the delivery of the new homes, rather than the five-year allocation of cash for them.

“This is in line with what was announced at Budget – there has been no cut in funding or delay in delivery.”

If it’s in line with what was announced in the March Budget, then Johnson isn’t offering any extra money.

And in fact, it seems he’ll be giving cash to his “housing developer mates” to do cheap conversions of shops into housing.

So it seems clear that Johnson’s speech was, if not riddled with lies as such, at the very least misleading.

It’s what we’ve come to expect from the Tories – and from Boris Johnson in particular.

You can’t ever take him at his word.

Source: Johnson ‘Build, Build, Build’ Pledge Under Fire Amid ‘Cuts’ Confusion | HuffPost UK

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Is Rachel Riley deliberately misleading people or does SHE not understand libel?

Take a look at this:

That’s right – after a neutral judgement on the meaning of words Rachel Riley claims are libellous, she misled the public: “Today I had the 1st judgement of a handful of libel cases. The verdict supported my claim to have been defamed by Laura Murray.”

It didn’t. Ms Riley had launched proceedings over a tweet by Ms Murray and in a neutral judgement, Mr Justice Nicklin said the first and second sentences were statements of fact while the third was an expression of opinion – and all may be considered defamatory in common law.

That’s not a ruling that Ms Murray had libelled Ms Riley. The trial hasn’t happened yet.

But look at her response to Mark, who tweeted: “This is excellent news Rachel. I remember saying on here many months back that you’d almost certainly win your libel case against Murray, and I got a great deal of stick off some know nothing Corbynites, some of whom told me you’d get laughed out of court. Delighted you’ve won.”

She replied: “Turns out many of them don’t have that strong an understanding of libel law. Who’d have guessed. Thanks for your support.”

It seems to me that it’s Ms Riley who doesn’t have that strong an understanding of libel law. Otherwise she would know she hasn’t won the Murray case.

And that’s strange, because she has a solicitor who should be advising her of that. In fact, it is his duty to do so, if she has misunderstood.

But it’s more than a week since her reply to Mark and I haven’t seen any retraction or correction.

So, is she deliberately misleading her fans? I sincerely hope not.​

Of course, Laura Murray isn’t the only person facing a libel lawsuit from Ms Riley. She’s suing me too – and my case has been misreported in the national press.

Unlike Ms Murray, who I understand is well-funded, I could lose my case due to lack of funds. As I’ve said many times, I believe Ms Riley is hoping I will run out of cash – and if I can’t afford to defend myself, I’ll automatically lose.

Considering the implications of her dialogue with Mark, I don’t think you’d be happy to let that happen.

So please…

Consider making a donation yourself, via the CrowdJustice page.

Email five of your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking your friends to pledge.

On Twitter, you could tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

On other social media platforms, please mention the campaign there, quoting the appeal address.

There’s only one way to stop this nonsense, and that is to win.

And I can’t do that without your help.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Don’t be fooled: Rachel Riley has not won any of her libel cases

I received an email message today from John Gorniak, courtesy of CrowdJustice.

It said: “The Guardian are running a story that Riley won her case. Is this so and how is it that if she has not they are running this line?”

I think many people may be just as confused as Mr Gorniak at the latest developments.

For clarity: Rachel Riley is suing three people, to my knowledge – myself, Jane Heybroek and Laura Murray. The Guardian report refers to the case against Ms Murray.

It says that Ms Riley has won the first round of her High Court libel claim because a judge had stated that words tweeted by Laura Murray were defamatory in common law, in a judgement on the meaning of the statement.

That is not a ruling that Ms Riley has won her case. Ms Murray will now provide defences that one part of her tweet was true and another was her honestly-held opinion and there will be a trial.

While it is true that the judge upheld Ms Riley’s version of the meaning, the difference between it and Ms Murray’s was minor.

It is the interpretation of the facts that matters.

But it is hardly surprising that Mr Gorniak is confused. Consider Ms Riley’s own tweet about the ruling:

 

She made it seem that the judge had delivered a verdict on the case as a whole, and that is not true.

It is also not the first judgement. That came in December when the same judge – Mr Justice Nicklin – said that my article, which Ms Riley claims is libellous – was a “classic expression of opinion”. He went on to say that there were some statements of fact that I would have to support and I do not expect to have any problems there.

But the Daily Mail (for example) then reported the ruling thus: Countdown star Rachel Riley was wrongly accused of being responsible for death threats sent to teenager, libel trial hears.

It wasn’t a trial – just a hearing – and that wasn’t the verdict, but it did hear that claim.

You see how easy it is to subvert the facts?​

Ms Riley clearly has the media on her side. And she has lots of cash with which to pursue these hugely expensive libel cases. Laura Murray is lucky enough to have some wealth of her own.

I don’t.​

That’s why I have to campaign to raise the money I need to fight her claims about me, which aren’t even as accurate as the tweet pictured above.

If any of the above has made you angry about the way a media darling can twist the facts to suit herself, please do as much as you can of the following:

Consider making a donation yourself, via the CrowdJustice page.

Email five of your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking your friends to pledge.

On Twitter, you could tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

On other social media platforms, please mention the campaign there, quoting the appeal address.

These cases are making a mockery of British justice. Don’t let Ms Riley get away with it.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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