Posts belonging to Category "Fact"

May 10, 2012 6:00 pm 5 Comments

Jim Murphy has challenged the government to "come clean" about how much its aircraft carrier u-turn has cost the taxpayer - which he'd heard could be as much as £250m. "This is an embarrassing shambles," he said, after Defence Secretary Philip Hammond went from outlining a bill of something between £40m-£50m only to admit later that it could be as much as £100m. Mr Hammond insisted however that the bill would be "much less than £250m". Who's right? FactCheck investigates.

May 9, 2012 6:25 pm 5 Comments

It was a short Queen’s Speech, and for some not a very sweet one - with the government taking a beating for making no mention of some key policies. Is it the Lib Dems' fault as Mr Cameron claims? FactCheck looks at what was missing in the Speech and why.

May 8, 2012 6:03 pm 9 Comments

couple of days after the budget, with rows raging about the "granny tax" and George Osborne's decision to help the super-rich by cutting the 50p rate, the PM had what seemed like a smart idea. Number 10 decided to bring forward plans to increase the price of cheap alcohol, to tackle binge drinking and what David Cameron called "the mayhem on our streets". According to Mr Cameron cheap booze is causing a "scourge of violence" - a million violent crimes and more than a million hospital admissions each year. Setting a minimum unit price (MUP) would, he promised, provide "a big part of the answer". But I've found out that just four days before he made his announcement, he'd been warned by one of his own ministers that the policy could well be illegal. Was the PM right to go ahead or should he have listened to his colleague?

May 4, 2012 5:23 pm 8 Comments

"His best predictions at time of writing are that Labour would win 34.04 per cent of the vote in the next general election, but the Conservatives would still be ahead on 36.59 per cent."

May 2, 2012 11:47 am 4 Comments

There have been tears, laughter, and the odd stray F-word. The London mayoral race has been high on emotion and more than usually bad-tempered. Boris Johnson has been slightly more careful with his facts, choosing to deal in aspirations rather than promises. Ken Livingstone has made some extravagant claims which have landed him in hot water. Here's the verdict from FactCheck HQ on a very irritable election.

April 23, 2012 6:36 pm 2 Comments

Did the Home Office ask the court when the deadline was? "Yes," Mr Cameron replied.

April 20, 2012 5:52 pm 7 Comments

As the bitter battle for London's City Hall rumbles on, Ken Livingstone threw in an old claim about affordable housing. But was it a good one? Team Boris didn't think so. Pinging an email through to FactCheck, Boris' camp labelled Mr Livingstone's statement as a "false claim". They added: "The London Development Database reports that there were actually 2,240 affordable starts over the same six month figures (April and September 2011)". Who’s right? FactCheck homes in.

5:46 pm 16 Comments

"We can’t remember the last time the PM came out with two whoppers in one speech."

April 19, 2012 5:38 pm 3 Comments

"This is what the government means when it talks about 'increased staffing levels' - that the cut is not quite as deep as first envisaged."

11:11 am 4 Comments

Which generation has been hit hardest by the government's austerity measures? It is the question that has been at the top of the political agenda since the budget sparked accusations that the government was raiding pensioner's pockets with a new Granny Tax. FactCheck investigates.