Fact checking claims about protests in the capital

13 November 2023

Given there’s a fair bit of news coming out of Westminster today, the weekend may feel a long time ago now. But the big political story on Saturday and Sunday was of course protest marches in London. And on Friday we published two relevant fact checks.

The Conservative MP Danny Kruger told the Today programme last week that a poll showed by “two to one” the public feel police are “too soft” on pro-Palestinian protesters. We tracked down the YouGov poll in question and found that doesn’t fully explain what it found. 

We also spent Friday afternoon investigating a viral audio clip which was supposedly a recording of London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling for Remembrance weekend events to be postponed. We found no evidence that it was genuine—the Mayor’s office told us it was fake and the police were investigating. Since then Sky News has reported that specialist officers have reviewed the clip “featuring artificial audio” and “assessed that it does not constitute a criminal offence”.

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