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At his first Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday, Boris Johnson said that Scotland has the highest taxes anywhere in Europe. We asked the Prime Minister’s office what tax he is referring to but have not received a reply.
Over half of all tax revenue in Scotland is controlled by the UK government, but one of the main taxes set by the Scottish government is income tax. If Mr Johnson is talking about income tax, then this claim is incorrect. Many European countries have higher rates of income tax than Scotland.
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FACTCHECK
This week a number of headlines warned that over 11 million or “one in four” people in Britain are prescribed potentially addictive medication. This was broadly the finding of a Public Health England (PHE) review into five specific types of medication for adults in England.
While most media outlets correctly reported the story, the Daily Mail’s social media headline that “one in four people is hooked on prescription drugs” (which wasn’t repeated in its article), is incorrect.
PHE specifically said it wasn’t possible to say how many people had a dependency based on the data.
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FACTCHECK
On Wednesday night, Boris Johnson made a short Facebook broadcast in which he repeated a number of claims about unemployment, wage growth, money going to the EU and spending on the NHS and education.
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FACTCHECK
This week Labour MP and candidate for West Midlands Metro Mayor, Liam Byrne, claimed in a tweet that unemployment in the West Midlands Combined Authority increased by 25% over the past year.
This is incorrect–the unemployment rate fell in the last year.
Mr Byrne’s quoted figure is based on the change in the number of people claiming certain benefits. This isn't a good measure of unemployment as it can be significantly affected by changes in the benefit system, rather than just the labour market.
We've asked Liam Byrne’s office to correct the graphics they used, which they have done, and delete the misleading tweets.
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FACTCHECK
Journalist Victoria Derbyshire recently asked Chris Hazzard—an MP for the Irish Republican party Sinn Féin—why he takes his salary as an MP, given that he claims that the UK parliament does not represent the interests of his constituents.
As Mr Hazzard pointed out, Sinn Féin MPs do not receive parliamentary salaries. However they do receive money for expenses and the party itself receives some public money for party business, as do other opposition parties.
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FACTCHECK
A viral Facebook post claims that John Major suspended (or “prorogued”) parliament longer than necessary in 1997 to postpone the publication of a report into allegations that Conservative MPs were bribed to ask questions in Parliament.
It is true that Mr Major prorogued parliament in March 1997 for three weeks and this had the effect of delaying a report into Conservative MPs taking bribes until after the 1997 election, whether or not that was his intention.
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FACTCHECK
An image of Boris Johnson being interviewed on a park bench has been incorrectly dated to this week (since he became Prime Minister, and after parliament returned following summer). It has been shared thousands of times on Twitter and across Facebook.
The image is actually taken in April 2019 as part of a programme on Brexit. At the time of the interview, Mr Johnson was a backbench MP.
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FACTCHECK
A viral post on Facebook claims to show a photograph of Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 Peterborough by-election shaking hands with Tariq Mahmood who was jailed in 2008 for electoral fraud.
The photo is genuine and shows the two shaking hands during 2019 the Peterborough by-election. Mr Mahmood was jailed in 2008 for electoral fraud.
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FACTCHECK
A post shared nearly 2,000 times on Facebook states that in 2016 it was claimed that Turkey would join the EU, that Scunthorpe voted to leave the EU and that following the collapse of British Steel in Scunthorpe, a Turkish buyer would buy the plant—saving 4,500 jobs.
All these claims are fairly accurate.
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FACTCHECK
A post claiming that Adolf Hitler asked President of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve parliament on January 30th 1939 to bypass those trying to stop “the will of the people” has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook and thousands of times on Twitter.
This incorrectly conflates multiple events in Hitler’s rise.
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FACTCHECK
A Facebook post claims that Muhammad was the most popular boys name in England and Wales in 2018 (when the name’s various spellings are counted together).
The figures quoted in the graphic are correct, but it depends on how you count the various spellings and abbreviations of names. If you count Henry and Harry variations together, they rank higher.
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FACTCHECK
A post on Facebook claims that the minimum wage should be £18 an hour, because in 1999 one hour’s pay at minimum wage could buy you 72 Freddo chocolate bars, yet in 2017 it could only buy you 30 Freddos.
Actually, you could have got 36 Freddos in 1999. More broadly, Freddos are not a good measure of inflation (the change in prices over time). The price of Freddos rose about five times faster than inflation from 1999 to 2017, but the minimum wage also rose above inflation in that period.
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Thank you very much for your support, and have a great weekend from everyone at Full Fact.
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