Blog posts tagged "Emma Thelwell"

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 3, 2012 8:47 pm 6 Comments

Playing down the meltdown at Heathrow's border control earlier this week, Damian Green told MPs: "I stress to the House that our information shows that queuing times bore no resemblance to some of the wilder suggestions." But with these "wilder suggestions" coming from the airlines and passengers themselves, it's little wonder that British Airways' chief executive Willie Walsh accused the minister was "misleading" the public over the extent of waiting times at passport control. Mr Walsh told Channel 4 News: "I think he was certainly misleading when he told people that the maximum queue was 90 minutes when we know it went well beyond that – and not just on one occasion." Who's right? FactCheck jets in.

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 27, 2012 5:16 pm 20 Comments

Is UKIP's Nigel Farage right about immigrants snapping up all the social housing? "All you have to do now if you come from Eastern Europe, all you have to do is to get a national insurance number - which you can get easily within a fortnight - and then you qualify automatically for social housing," he said. FactCheck investigates.

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.

April 19, 2012 4:53 pm No Comments

Earlier this month the Lib Dem HQ advertised its internship scheme for 2012 - FactCheck investigates how far it promotes "socially mobility".

April 12, 2012 5:42 pm 6 Comments

How many of UKIP's manifesto pledges could Lawrence Webb actually force through it he was to become Mayor of London? FactCheck puts a selection to the test.

April 5, 2012 5:23 pm 12 Comments

Is the Prime Minister right that 24 million people will be better off by £6.50 thanks to the change in personal tax allowance thresholds? FactCheck begs to differ.