Corrections Log

This is a record of corrections we’ve made in the past 3 years.

• 29 Oct 2024 Is Labour right to claim there’s a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances?
  This article incorrectly stated that £13.9 billion of the additional pressures identified were offset by reserve funds and other allowances. The correct figure is £13.4 billion.
• 17 Oct 2024 Video shows coral farm not HAARP research facility around Florida
  This article has been updated to correct the name of the British Geological Society to the British Geological Survey.
• 17 Oct 2024 HAARP research facility was not behind recent UK Northern Lights sightings
  This article has been updated to correct the name of the British Geological Society to the British Geological Survey.
• 17 Oct 2024 No, the Northern Lights aren’t caused by HAARP
  This article has been updated to correct the name of the British Geological Society to the British Geological Survey.
• 13 Sep 2024 'Unelected' Prime Ministers: common or not?
  We've updated this article to clarify that ten of the 28 time the role of Prime Minister changed hands followed an election where they led the party which gained the most seats rather than votes.
• 14 Aug 2024 NHS performance: how do the four nations compare?
  We made it clear that a chart showed outpatient cases specifically, and that Northern Ireland has not published comparable waiting list data since September 2023.
• 25 Jul 2024 Social media image showing ‘Muslims paying tribute to Keir Starmer’ is not real
  This article has been updated to include the response from an X account that shared the image.
• 19 Jul 2024 NHS performance: how do the four nations compare?
  A section on comparisons in cancer care was removed in response to information about upcoming publications from the ONS.
• 28 Jun 2024 Crime statistics explained - is it rising or falling?
  Corrected full name of CSEW
• 25 Jun 2024 What is a parliamentary ‘supermajority’?
  This article was corrected on 25 June to clarify that in the US it is a conviction in an impeachment trial, rather than impeachment itself, which requires a two-thirds majority.
• 13 Jun 2024 Is the tax burden at a 70 year high?
  This article originally stated that the ‘tax burden’ in 2023/24 was 36%. We’ve corrected this to reflect the accurate figure of 36.1%.
• 10 Jun 2024 Conservative political broadcast claims on tax and mortgages need context
  We corrected a mistake in this article, which previously said that the government had reduced the basic rate of income tax. In fact the government announced a plan to do this in 2022, but later reversed the decision.
• 10 Jun 2024 Is Labour right to say families are £5,883 worse off under Rishi Sunak?
  This article previously referred to the OBR as the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and has been corrected.
• 10 Jun 2024 No good evidence for numerous claims about energy drinks
  Image resized
• 31 May 2024 Spring Budget 2024: fact checked
  Clarified the level of earnings associated with the greatest tax savings.
• 20 May 2024 Defence secretary repeats claim about £75 billion increase in defence spending
  Corrected date of X post in story
• 9 May 2024 HS2 has not cost £100 billion to date
  This fact check was corrected to clarify that the eastern leg of HS2 linking Leeds and the East Midlands, not Leeds to Manchester, was cancelled in 2021.
• 9 May 2024 Emissions camera in Edinburgh is not linked to fines or points
  A previous version of this article said EDAR devices could not detect acceleration, speed or number plates, which was not correct. We changed the rating from partly false to missing context.
• 7 May 2024 Were 99.75% of people able to cast their vote when voter ID was first introduced?
  We’ve corrected two typos where we previously said the true proportion of voters who were “unable” to cast their vote may be less than 99.75%. We should have said—as is now above—that the true proportion of voters who were “able” to cast their vote may be less than 99.75%.
• 15 Mar 2024 Photo of busy train carriage is from Cairo, not Sweden
  This article has been updated to amend a typo in the headline.
• 15 Feb 2024 Has the government failed in its pledge to grow the economy?
  We’ve corrected this article to make clear that the definition of a recession is widely taken to be two consecutive quarters of negative growth, not GDP growth decreasing in consecutive quarters.
• 6 Feb 2024 Video does not show electric bus on fire in London
  We updated this article to correct a typo in the claim box.
• 26 Jan 2024 MailOnline corrects ‘fiscal headroom’ headline
  We’ve corrected this article to make clear that the misleading headline appeared in and was amended by MailOnline, not the Daily Mail.
• 28 Nov 2023 Widespread confusion over number of ‘people’ on NHS waiting lists
  We corrected a mistake in the Welsh waiting list data and added inpatient and day case data for Scotland.
• 15 Nov 2023 No evidence clip of Sadiq Khan supposedly calling for ‘Remembrance weekend’ to be postponed is genuine
  The article was updated to correct a typo.
• 9 Nov 2023 Fluoride levels in toothpaste aren’t toxic when used as directed
  We corrected a description of the claim to clarify it was ‘misleading’ to suggest that the fluoride found in toothpaste is "toxic" and not "safe". We also updated this piece to include more information on the recommended daily amounts of fluoride.
• 27 Oct 2023 Website homepage
  We made a small change to the homepage of our website to remove a line that said we’d asked 57 MPs to correct themselves in 2023. There was an error with the way this figure was automatically calculated. It should have said we’d asked MPs to correct themselves 53 times in 2023.
• 12 Oct 2023 Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party conference speech: fact checked
  We corrected a percentage calculation in this article to 45% instead of 55%
• 20 Sep 2023 Hoax posts about ‘missing’ man called Gerald spread across UK
  This article has been updated to correct an error in the headline.
• 1 Sep 2023 Windowless cars in Maui aftermath pictures don’t mean fires were caused by weapon
  A previous version incorrectly referred to glass burning in the conclusion. We have changed this to melting.
• 24 Aug 2023 Comparison of benefit fraud and tax avoidance losses is inaccurate
  We’ve corrected an earlier version of this fact check which referred to a £100 million increase in the amount estimated to have been overpaid due to benefit fraud in 2022/23. It was actually a decrease.
• 10 Aug 2023 Are GP numbers rising or falling?
  We updated the 'Full disclosure' information to clarify when funding from the Health Foundation began.
• 10 Aug 2023 How much of the rise in ‘economic inactivity’ is due to long Covid?
  We updated the 'Full disclosure' information to clarify when funding from the Health Foundation began.
• 10 Aug 2023 Four claims about GP numbers fact checked
  We updated the 'Full disclosure' information to clarify when funding from the Health Foundation began.
• 10 Aug 2023 Government fails to back up PM’s claim that A&E patient flow is 'faster than ever'
  We updated the 'Full disclosure' information to clarify when funding from the Health Foundation began.
• 10 Aug 2023 Do Rishi Sunak’s claims about hospital discharge funding stack up?
  We updated the 'Full disclosure' information to clarify when funding from the Health Foundation began.
• 9 Aug 2023 Food study didn’t show that later breakfasts raise diabetes risk
  This article has been corrected to clarify that the article was from MailOnline, not the Daily Mail.
• 9 Aug 2023 Post about missing uncle in Sunderland is fake
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Fake alerts for missing pensioners are circulating online
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Facebook posts claiming man with dementia is missing with his dog are false
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Post about man with dementia missing with his dog is a hoax
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Hoax posts about ‘missing’ man ‘Martin Jones’ recirculating on social media
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Hoax alerts for missing pensioner shared thousands of times
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Facebook posts about missing woman with dementia are hoaxes
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Man pictured with caravan has not gone missing in Grimsby
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Facebook post does not show a missing man with dementia named ‘Mr Jones’
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Plea to help find missing grandma on Facebook is a hoax
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 9 Aug 2023 Hoax post about missing six-year-old girl shared on Facebook
  This article has been corrected to clarify who silver alerts apply to.
• 3 Aug 2023 Injured dog hoax uses photo of pet recovering from surgery
  This article has been corrected due to an error meaning the wrong text appeared in the “what was claimed” box instead of the Facebook post’s actual claim.
• 3 Aug 2023 Having a sharia-compliant mortgage doesn’t mean stamp duty isn’t paid
  This article has been edited to reflect the fact that Andrew Bridgen is an MP for the Reclaim party, not Reform UK.
• 26 Jul 2023 Newspapers and health minister understate junior doctors’ pay demand
  This article has been corrected to show that the Nuffield Trust calculations used CPI, not CPIH.
• 21 Jun 2023 Police can’t automatically track your location if you press 55 during a 999 call
  This article has been corrected to amend a spelling error.
• 16 Jun 2023 The WHO has not declared the Covid-19 pandemic over
  We have removed a reference to Covid guidance on the UK Government website as this appears to predate the WHO's recent announcement.
• 17 May 2023 Government website makes percentage error on National Insurance rise
  The word “tax” was deleted from the ‘our verdict’ box to make it clearer that many people will face a 10% rise in the amount of National Insurance they pay, not their tax bill as a whole.
• 25 Apr 2023 Advice to ‘NEVER’ give babies water is missing context
  This article was edited to clarify the wording in the subheading, and to remove a rating on a social media video.
• 25 Apr 2023 The UK is not being flooded with contaminated drugs
  We corrected the description of 'men' to 'males' when talking about leading causes of death across the UK.
• 24 Apr 2023 Buzz Aldrin didn’t ‘admit’ he never went to the Moon
  This article has been updated to amend our reference to the amount of photographs and video footage gathered during Mr Aldrin’s time on the Moon’s surface.
• 13 Apr 2023 The Government is not expecting tree planting to almost halve by 2025
  We’ve corrected this piece to show that we received comment from the DEFRA, not the DESNZ.
• 16 Mar 2023 Research on long term effects of childhood infections misreported
  This article has been corrected to say that the most recent count of pneumonia deaths is around 40 times the figure the Sun originally reported. This article had initially reported it as being over 10 times larger.
• 6 Mar 2023 Oxford residents won’t require a permit to ‘leave their district’
  This article has been corrected to clarify that the proposed 15 minute neighbourhood plan is being considered by Oxford City Council, not Oxfordshire County Council.
• 2 Mar 2023 PA Media corrects error in reporting on research for prostate cancer test
  This article previously said that the PSA test did not have a high “false positive” rate, but this should have read “false negative”. We have corrected the name of PA Media, which is no longer called the Press Association. We had previously stated that the published scientific article had been updated, but this is not the case. This article has also been updated to confirm the Daily Mail has now made a correction.
• 11 Nov 2022 MPs' vaccine debate fact checked
  This article was updated to correct a misspelling of Andrew Bridgen's name.
• 8 Nov 2022 ‘New’ UK trade deals don’t account for ‘over £800 billion worth of new global trade’
  This article has been corrected to say £814 billion, not £816 billion, was the value of bilateral trade between the UK and countries it has a trade deal with in 2021.
• 27 Oct 2022 How might the Retained EU Law Bill affect our right to watch the Olympics for free?
  We’ve corrected this piece to clarify that while the power to designate listed events is protected as primary domestic legislation, the list itself may fall under the scope of the REUL Bill.
• 19 Oct 2022 Wigan ‘diaper give away’ seems not to be genuine
  This article has been updated to clarify that the Facebook post did not give a time for the event.
• 20 Sep 2022 Did several billion people watch the Queen’s funeral?
  We’ve updated this fact check to reflect the fact that the 5.1 billion estimate was used on BBC Radio Stoke on 20 September, after the figure began circulating online. Many thanks to the Full Fact reader who alerted us to this.
• 6 Sep 2022 Boris Johnson’s kettle comments taken out of context
  We’ve corrected this piece to state that Boris Johnson’s speech was made on 1 September.
• 26 Aug 2022 Out-of-date map showing high GB electricity prices compared to Europe re-emerges
  We’ve updated this piece to reflect the correct abbreviation of megawatt hour (MWh)
• 26 Aug 2022 The EU has not set lower gas price cap than the UK
  We’ve updated this piece to reflect the correct abbreviation of megawatt hour (MWh)
• 19 Jul 2022 Rishi Sunak pledge to review ‘2,400’ remaining EU laws doesn’t tell the full story
  This article has been corrected to clarify that 2,006 is the number of EU laws which the government dashboard shows as remaining unchanged—ie, they have not yet been amended, repealed or replaced.
• 14 Jul 2022 Poll saying 5% of Northern Ireland trusts UK government is about protocol specifically
  The headline of this article previously said the poll said 5% didn't trust the government, which was incorrect. We've now corrected it.
• 14 Jul 2022 Claim two-thirds of child asylum seekers are actually adults is false
  This article has been updated to highlight the misleading headline used by the Express and to explain more fully the potential issues with statistics on age dispute cases.
• 13 Jul 2022 The EU did not completely outlaw use of imperial measures in the UK
  The name of the European Economic Community was corrected.
• 12 Jul 2022 What payouts do ministers receive when they leave office?
  This article has been corrected to account for further errors that we have since identified in the Liberal Democrats’ analysis.
• 1 Jul 2022 Average salary of workers involved in RMT national rail strike is not £44,000
  We have corrected this piece to reflect that a small number of drivers were balloted and did participate in the RMT strike.
• 15 Jun 2022 War in Ukraine has contributed to global shortages of certain products
  We have updated this post to accurately present figures for Ukraine and Russia’s grain exports.
• 14 Jun 2022 Research didn’t find contraceptive pill reduces risk of suicide
  We have updated this article to reflect the exact wording used in The Sun’s headline throughout.
• 13 Jun 2022 EU rules didn’t ‘ban’ crown symbols on pint glasses
  This article was corrected to make clear in the conclusion box that the crown symbol could only be used decoratively after 2006.
• 9 Jun 2022 Reports that ‘most teachers’ are suffering from depression are based on a self-selecting survey
  This article has been edited to change the name "Press Association" to "PA".
• 25 Apr 2022 Keir Starmer wrong to say families will be £2,620 worse off this year
  We have updated this article with a more detailed explanation of different independent estimates of the fall in household disposable income in 2022/23, all of which are significantly lower than Labour’s estimate. A previous calculation that the average household could be £700 worse off was based on ONS figures for equivalised median income, rather than non-equivalised mean income as above. We also overemphasised this estimate and did not explain the uncertainty clearly enough.
• 25 Apr 2022 Labour election leaflets and ads wrongly claiming families are ‘£2,620 worse off’
  We have updated this article with a more detailed explanation of different independent estimates of the fall in household disposable income in 2022/23, all of which are significantly lower than Labour’s estimate. A previous calculation that the average household could be £700 worse off was based on ONS figures for equivalised median income,rather than non-equivalised mean income as above. We also overemphasised this estimate and did not explain the uncertainty clearly enough.
• 21 Apr 2022 Viral pensions post has its maths all wrong
  A previous version of this article incorrectly said the Facebook post had claimed you’d have £900 million if you invested £2,250 each year for 50 years with a 5% interest rate. The post actually said you’d have close to £900,000.
• 7 Apr 2022 No evidence for MP’s claims ‘tens of thousands of people’ have ‘suffered severe damage’ from vaccines
  This article previously quoted data as of 16 March about Yellow Card reports and suspected reactions for the Pfizer vaccine only, not all Covid-19 vaccines as claimed. The data for 9 March reflected the number of reports relating to the Pfizer vaccine and all Covid-19 vaccines, not the number of reports and suspected reactions across all vaccines as claimed. The figures have been corrected to reflect the total number of Yellow Card reports and suspected reactions following all Covid-19 vaccines.
• 1 Mar 2022 Has the NHS had its budget reduced by £30 billion?
  This article was corrected to include two paragraphs and a chart that were not included on first publication, due to an administrative error.
• 24 Feb 2022 Test and Trace money wasn’t just spent on an app
  This article previously said that £76 million was spent on the contact tracing app in 2020/21 as stated by the NAO's report. This was the budget for the app, while the spend was £35 million.
• 23 Feb 2022 GP’s article overstates the number of Covid-19 deaths in children
  A typing error was fixed to correct "January 2021" to "January 2022".
• 1 Feb 2022 Germany has spent far more than £48m on test and trace
  This article previously included a crude estimate for part of the cost of the German system—the cost of testing up to March 2021. That calculation was wrong, because it compared figures for two different sorts of Covid tests, so we have now removed the estimate from this article. We have also added additional information on the likely cost of the German contact-tracing app and rapid antigen tests.
• 31 Jan 2022 PM misleads on employment figures, again
  This article originally said the Daily Express had also made the claim being discussed, when it said “400,000 jobs have been added since the start of the pandemic”. The Express told Full Fact it was not referring to the number of people in employment, but to the increase in the number of job vacancies compared to the pre-pandemic level, which the ONS puts at 462,000.
• 28 Jan 2022 An Instagram post underestimates Covid-19 deaths among younger people
  "A sentence was changed to clarify that the FOI response showed deaths due to Covid where there was no pre-existing condition listed on the death certificate."
• 21 Jan 2022 The Covid-19 vaccines don’t have ‘negative efficacy’
  A use of the word "underestimates" was corrected to "overestimates".
• 18 Jan 2022 David Icke makes false claim that vaccines are ‘gene therapy’
  The original version of this article stated that asymptomatic Covid-19 cases accounted for a “huge” number of overall cases. This has been changed to say that while asymptomatic illness does exist and has been an important factor in how Covid-19 spreads, evidence of the proportion of asymptomatic cases is mixed.
• 14 Jan 2022 Doctor who challenged Sajid Javid made misleading claims about vaccines
  We updated this article to correct a typo in Mr Javid's name and the date in the second paragraph.
• 14 Jan 2022 Doctor who challenged Sajid Javid made misleading claims about vaccines
  The article originally repeated the claim and conclusion boxes. This has been corrected.
• 13 Jan 2022 Facebook posts falsely advertise weight loss pills as endorsed by judges on US Dragons’ Den
  This article originally repeated the claim in the conclusion box. This has been corrected.
• 25 Nov 2021 Peston claim that immigration is top public concern based on his own findings
  We corrected this article to note the claim was made on 24 November.