Dear Friend,

Our campaign to stop politicians presenting their leaflets as local newspapers has hit an important milestone this week. Over 14,000 people have signed our petition calling for an end to deceptive campaign tactics like this. 

Can you help increase the pressure on politicians to end deceptive campaign practices by signing the petition?
I will sign the petition

We’ve already seen four political parties (SDLP, Alliance, The Greens and Plaid Cymru) respond to Full Fact’s call for an end to deceptive campaign tactics. 

The more people sign the petition the more likely we are to increase pressure on other political parties to agree not to use these tactics so please encourage your friends and family to do so.
Best wishes, 

Craig, Digital Campaigns Manager—Full Fact
FACT CHECKS

How many people use food banks?


A document outlining the Labour party’s five “national missions”, reportedly the party’s election “campaigning bible”, claims there are “2.98 million people now using food banks, up from 60,000 in 2010”. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has also used the same figures on social media. 

These figures are actually the number of food parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust, the largest food bank network in the UK. They are not the number of individual people using foodbanks. We contacted the Labour Party and TUC about these figures. We have yet to receive a response from Labour. The TUC thanked us for highlighting the distinction and will use the correct description in future.

 

Rishi Sunak wrong to say 18-week waits have fallen since pledge


The Prime Minister said in a comment piece in the Telegraph that the government had substantially reduced 18-week waits since January 2023. This is not true.

It seems likely that Mr Sunak meant to talk about 18-month waits, a much smaller category in the data, which has fallen substantially in the last year. We've contacted Rishi Sunak and The Telegraph to request a correction regarding this claim and are yet to hear back.
 
 

The risk of measles in richer countries is real


Posts on Facebook falsely claim that measles is “not a threat” to people in the developed world and that the MMR vaccine is “dangerous and ineffective”.

Both claims are untrue. The disease is usually mild but there is a risk of complications in 10-20% of measles cases, even in richer countries like the UK. It can result in quite serious illness, including pneumonia in 1-6% of cases. 

According to research cited by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) “vaccination with one dose of MMR vaccine is at least 95% effective in preventing clinical measles”. However, a second dose is recommended for maximum protection. Like many vaccines, MMR can produce side effects, which the UKHSA says are “usually mild and much less severe than the disease itself”.

 
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