On a recent episode of the popular podcast Diary of a CEO Dr Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist we have previously fact checked, made two claims about Covid vaccines.
The first is that there would have been fewer deaths without Covid-19 vaccines. This is false. The second is that the risk of heart attack jumped from 11% to 25% eight weeks after receiving the vaccine. This appears to be a reference to an article published in the journal Circulation, which was later corrected following concerns that it lacked important statistical analyses.
Our fact checkers are fighting to protect people from bad information about Covid-19. Since 2020 we’ve looked at a lot of claims but if you spot anything that doesn’t look quite right please don’t hesitate to send it to us at [email protected] and we’ll take a look.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride MP said inflation was “over 10% last autumn”.
Incorrect. CPI inflation, the measure used by the Bank of England in its target, was between 6.7% and 3.9% in autumn 2023. It was last over 10% in March 2023, though it was consistently over 10% throughout autumn 2022.
Labour has claimed that the public finances are worse than expected before entering government, with the Treasury identifying a £22 billion shortfall this year.
The IFS says many of the challenges Labour outlined this week were “entirely predictable”, and during the election campaign, the think tank said that a new government would likely see a shortfall of £10-£20 billion. But it has since said the financial pressures do “genuinely appear to be greater than could be discerned from the outside”.
Chris Morris, Chief Executive of Full Fact, said:
“When politicians use the same data to argue opposite cases, voters are left without a clear idea of what to believe, and that further alienates them from a process that is supposed to be about improving their lives.
“Whether it’s about statistics used on the campaign trail or the state of government finances, a higher standard of transparency is critical to rebuilding trust in politics.
“Politicians should be competing to deliver evidenced, trustworthy, and reliable explanations for their decisions—not just playing the blame game.”
Two images of an injured female police officer are being shared widely on social media with false claims that they show injuries sustained during an incident at Manchester Airport on 23 July.
This isn’t correct. The pictures being shared are of injuries to a police officer from Leicestershire police, following a different incident in 2020.
