Politics Live

We’ve been taking a look at some of the adverts political parties have been running on Facebook—and have found a number making claims we’ve previously fact checked.

A Facebook advert for Alex Fawbert, the Labour candidate for Boston and Skegness, ran between 6 and 10 June and received between 2,000 and 3,000 impressions, according to Facebook’s ad library. In the video featured in the ad, Ms Fawbert said: “We know that there are eight million people currently on waiting lists.” We’ve heard similar claims to this throughout the campaign, from Labour and the Green party. But as we’ve written before, it’s not what NHS data shows. 

Assuming Ms Fawbert was talking about NHS England (which is the part of the NHS the UK government controls) and referral to treatment (RTT) data, which is usually what people mean by “the waiting list”, then it appears she was referring not to the number of people on waiting lists but the number of cases, and it’s been rounded up to eight million.

In the latest NHS England data, collected at the end of April 2024, about 6.3 million people were waiting to begin about 7.6 million courses of treatment. (At the time the ad started, the latest data, for March 2024, said 6.3 million people and 7.5 million cases.) There are always more cases than people in the data, because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing.

Meanwhile, an advert for Labour’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip candidate Danny Beales claimed that under the Conservatives “waiting lists will go up and up and hit 10 million”. 

While it’s impossible to say for sure what’ll happen in future, as we wrote a couple of weeks ago, that prediction’s been challenged by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It says lists are likely to “at worst flatline”, whichever party forms the next government.

Meanwhile the Conservatives’ claim that under Labour working families face a £2,094 tax rise features in a number of the party’s Facebook adverts, often as a standalone figure. 

As we wrote last week, the £2,094 figure is unreliable and based on a number of questionable assumptions. It comes from a Conservative party estimate of Labour’s “unfunded spending commitments”, but many of the costings behind the calculation are uncertain. Even if the figure was right, we can’t be certain this money would be collected by raising taxes, and if it was, families are unlikely to be affected equally.

Finally, Jake Berry, the Conservative candidate for Rossendale and  Darwen, made a familiar claim about immigration in a Facebook ad which the ad library says ran from 4 to 11 June and received between 7,000 and 8,000 impressions. The advert said: “Labour don’t want to control immigration. Their plans could see us take in 100,000 extra illegal migrants, from Europe, every single year.”

We’ve written about similar claims from Conservative politicians several times before. The 100,000 figure was circulated by the Conservative party last September in response to comments made by Sir Keir Starmer about a potential future returns agreement with the EU. But the way it was calculated is incorrect. 

We don’t know how many more migrants might come to the UK as a result of any future returns deal negotiated under Labour. Labour has not detailed what such a deal would involve or said how many migrants it would be willing to accept.

We’ve contacted the Labour party and the Conservative party for comment, as well as all the candidates behind the adverts listed above, and will update this post if they respond. 

Image courtesy of Pixabay 

Update: Labour candidate Danny Beales contacted Full Fact after this blog was published, noting that his use of the 10 million waiting list figure was based on Labour “analysis that was published in a national press release”. He added that “data this week has shown a further increase in waiting times”. The latest NHS England data, for April 2024, showed a slight increase in cases awaiting treatment, compared to the previous month.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 

• Candidates should run honest and transparent campaigns so that everyone can make an informed decision on polling day.

• Political parties should commit to being honest in their campaign materials and not use deceptive campaign practices. 

• Political parties should commit to using AI transparently and responsibly.

2. Politicians must lead by example

• Once elected, politicians should improve public debate: get their facts right, back up what they say with evidence, and correct their mistakes.

• The next government’s Ministerial Code should be made statutory, and require ministers to use public data responsibly.

• The next Parliament must improve its mechanisms to ensure that MPs who fail to behave honestly are held to account.

3. Strengthen society’s resilience to misinformation

• The next government should strengthen online safety legislation to counter harmful misinformation - especially relating to health or when generated by AI.
• Fact checkers are on the frontline in this fight: the next government must ensure that fact checkers have timely access to data from online platforms and search engines about misinformation on their platforms.

• The next government must increase resources for media literacy to give the public the skills to tackle 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.