Politics Live

Full Fact’s rolling blog of fact checks, commentary and analysis.

14 June 2024, 4.11pm

It’s time for political parties to step up with a clear mandate for building trust

Following a busy week of manifesto launches, Full Fact analysis can reveal that none of the parties likely to play a role in the next government have put forward measures to meaningfully tackle misinformation in politics or to regulate political advertising.

This is not what the general public wants. 

Findings published today by Full Fact and Ipsos Mori can reveal that three-quarters (75%) of UK adults expect misinformation to have at least some impact on the General Election result.

Chris Morris, CEO - Full Fact, 14th June 2024.

The survey paints a picture of a highly distrusting electorate sceptical of the information circulating in our political conversation and also of politicians themselves—approximately half (54%) say they tend to ignore what parties and politicians say because they don’t know if they can be trusted. 

Alongside these findings, Full Fact’s petition to end deceptive campaign practices such as leaflets made to look like newspapers or fixed penalty notices—has gathered nearly 18,000 signatures, demonstrating considerable desire for parties to commit to running cleaner, more honest campaigns. 

The survey found that many UK adults are affected by misinformation in their everyday lives:

  • Thinking about news and current affairs, less than half (44%) find it easy to tell the difference between true and false information that they see online, and about one in three (34%) admit to having falsely believed a news story was real until they found out it was fake
  • A quarter (25%) are worried that their own political opinions are based on false or misleading information.

Results indicate that such commonplace experiences of misinformation could have a corrosive effect on political participation in the UK. Thinking about the upcoming General Election:

  • 54% tend to ignore what parties and politicians will say because they don’t know if they can trust them.
  • 38% have been put off voting by the level of false or misleading claims in current politics or the previous election campaign; among younger adults, this rises approximately to half (52% of those aged 18-34). 

The survey also shows clear majorities in favour of more robust action to enforce honesty and transparency in political communications: 

  • 88% of UK adults think that accuracy of factual claims in political adverts should be a legal requirement
  • 71% support political parties adopting a set of standards for honesty and transparency in manifestos.

 

We have assessed all the manifestos of the parties most likely to enter government found that commitments to clean up politics do not match the scale of public support:

  • The Conservative Party manifesto makes just one commitment to “improve standards in local councils by making their performance more transparent through the Office of Local Government." 
  • The Labour Party manifesto commits to improving standards in public life through a "clean-up that ensures the highest standards of integrity and honesty", including the introduction of their long-standing call for an independent Ethics and Integrity Commission. But further detail on the scope and powers of this Commission—such as its role in handling misinformation and political advertising—is urgently needed. 
  • The Liberal Democrat manifesto goes furthest, by including a number of promises to improve honesty and transparency, including to work “towards real-time transparency for political advertising”. It also commits the party to “pushing for a global convention or treaty to combat disinformation and electoral interference.”

 

None of the parties listed above have signed Full Fact’s pledge which would have committed them to ruling out using deceptive campaign practices during the election campaign. The Liberal Democrats, despite their manifesto commitments, have ruled out signing the pledge. 

The public deserves a parliament that puts accurate information and higher standards in public life at the forefront of their agenda. We will work with whoever forms the new government to continue to work for a more honest and transparent politics.

Honesty in public debate matters

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13 June 2024, 11.34pm

Seven party leaders face off on ITV

This evening ITV hosted its second debate of the 2024 general election campaign—this time involving representatives from seven of the UK’s political parties.

The line-up was the same as the seven-party debate hosted by the BBC last week: the Conservatives’ Penny Mordaunt; Labour’s Angela Rayner; the SNP’s Stephen Flynn; the Liberal Democrats’ Daisy Cooper; Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth; Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and the Green Party’s Carla Denyer.

We ‘live fact checked’ the debate, and you can now read a round-up of the claims we looked at.

13 June 2024, 11.06pm

Does Labour’s £4,800 mortgage claim add up?

On Tuesday, the Labour party claimed that the measures announced in the Conservative manifesto would raise the cost of the average mortgage by £4,800 over the course of the next parliament.

We’ve now dug into this figure, and found it’s speculative and based on several uncertain assumptions. You can read our full analysis here.

13 June 2024, 5.58pm

Fact checking the Labour party manifesto

It’s manifesto week and today it was Labour’s turn—Sir Keir Starmer launched the party’s 2024 election manifesto from Manchester this morning. 

With the help of Full Fact’s AI tools, we’ve been rigorously reading the 136-page document and identifying key checkable claims. 

Find out what we’ve been looking into in our round-up here.

13 June 2024, 12.05pm

Posted on X

Interesting to hear @UKLabour’s manifesto call for a “reset in our public life” and desire to focus on integrity and honesty in politics. We look forward to seeing what an incoming government delivers on this.

Our calls on transparency in politics here: https://buff.ly/45kU2Ab

13 June 2024, 9.56am

Sky News – The Battle for Number 10: Live fact check

Missed #BattleForNo10 on @SkyNews last night? We looked at claims on:

👮 Police numbers
🏥 Waiting lists
🪙 Tax

#GeneralElection #GE24
https://buff.ly/45jtJud

12 June 2024, 6.32pm

Sky News – The Battle for Number 10: Live fact check

We're going to be fact checking the #BattleforNo10 tonight.

Our team will be following the programme live, and scrutinising in real time the claims made by both politicians, highlighting statements that we think are wrong, misleading or need more context.

You can follow our updates on X throughout the programme.

Honesty in public debate matters

You can help us take action – and get our regular free email

12 June 2024, 6.00pm

Fact checking the Green Party manifesto

This week a number of political parties have been releasing their election manifestos, and this morning it was the turn of the Green Party. 

We’ve been combing through it with the help of Full Fact’s AI tools and working to fact check its key claims. You can see what we’ve been looking into in our round-up here.

11 June 2024, 9.01am

Full Fact's call for change

The two main parties are publishing their manifestos this week - the Conservatives today, and Labour on Thursday. And we have plenty of suggestions for the winner of this election.

Our policy calls for the new government and parliament are split into three themes: what happens during the election period, the behaviour of politicians once elected, and our longer-term vision for a society better able to combat misinformation. During the election campaign we will continue to hold politicians to account for what they say and how they say it.

We are calling for the following commitments:

1. Protect democracy during an election period 

2. Politicians must lead by example

3. Strengthen society’s resilience to misinformation

 
Good information really matters in a healthy democracy, and it's never been more important to campaign for honesty and accuracy in politics, and in wider public debate. Full Fact will do that throughout this election campaign, and we encourage our supporters to help get the message to candidates too. Sign up here to find out more about how you can help with this work.

10 June 2024, 11.01pm

Fact checked: Rishi Sunak’s interview on BBC Panorama

Tonight we’ve been ‘live fact checking’ the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the first of BBC Panorama’s interviews with party leaders, and have looked at a number of claims.

Mr Sunak said NHS waiting lists “have risen … they are now coming down”. While it’s true that the number of cases on the main NHS England waiting list has fallen from a high of 7.8 million in September 2023, it’s still higher now than when Mr Sunak pledged that waiting lists would “fall” in January 2023. We’ve unpacked the numbers in our explainer on NHS waiting lists.

Mr Sunak also claimed that net migration was “down 10% from the levels that I inherited”. This is broadly right—as we’ve previously written, net migration was down 10% in 2023 compared to 2022. But it was still nearly four times higher in 2023 than in 2019, when the Conservatives pledged to bring down “overall numbers”. 

The interview included a number of questions about taxes and Mr Sunak made several claims we’ve seen before. 

Firstly, he claimed “taxes are being cut”. It’s true that National Insurance contributions have been reduced, but the nation’s so-called ‘tax burden’ is high and forecast to rise to a near-record level. Mr Sunak was correct to say the effective personal tax rate for the average earner is the lowest for decades, but this doesn’t include all the taxes people pay. 

He also spoke about a “£900 tax cut this year”. This appears to refer to the combined value of the reductions in National Insurance contributions in January and April 2024—but this figure is specifically for an average earner and doesn’t take account of any other tax changes. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says once the impact of all tax changes since 2021 is factored in, an average earner will save £340 in 2024/25. 

Mr Sunak repeated a claim we’ve heard a lot in the past week, that families would face a £2,000 tax rise under a future Labour government. As we’ve explained, this figure is unreliable and based on a number of questionable assumptions. 

Finally, Mr Sunak claimed children in England are “the best readers in the western world”. As we wrote last week, this appears to be based on the results of a 2022 international study. According to another measure from that year, however, pupils in Ireland and the US were better readers. 

Full Fact fights bad information

Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.