Boris Johnson made errors about inflation, warm homes and the economy in the first PMQs after recess.

7 Jan 2022 | Full Fact's weekly news
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FACT CHECK
Prime Minister's Questionables

In the first Prime Minister's Questions back after Christmas recess, Prime Minister Boris Johnson got it wrong on several occasions:

Inflation
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “In October, the Prime Minister said that fears about inflation were unfounded… So, how did he get it so wrong?”

Mr Johnson replied that he had “of course” said “no such thing” ([link removed]) .

This is not true. During an interview with Sky News on 5 October 2021, the Prime Minister said: “People have been worrying about inflation for a very long time. I’m looking at robust economic growth, and by the way those fears have been unfounded.”

Warm homes
Mr Johnson also twice claimed that the Warm Home Discount supports households with a £140-per-week reduction on their energy bill. This is not true. The Warm Home Discount Scheme offers some low-income households a one-off discount of £140 ([link removed]) directly on their energy bill between October and March. This means the discount is worth £140 over an entire winter—not every week.

Economic inequality

Mr Johnson claimed economic inequality is falling. However, the data available shows a more complex picture ([link removed]) .

The latest (pre-pandemic) official figures show it was rising or broadly stable. Recent analysis suggests it fell during the pandemic but is rising again following the removal of income support.

Full Fact has contacted Number 10 for comment about these claims. We’re still waiting on a response.
Mr Johnson’s questionable claims ([link removed])
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FACT CHECK
Lateral faux ([link removed])

A number of posts on Facebook show people putting tap water on lateral flow tests, either to claim that Covid-19 could be present in the water supply or to suggest the tests don’t work. Some of the posts are screenshots of a tweet posted by musicians Right Said Fred.

We’ve seen similar claims before: throughout the pandemic, posts which purported to show items such as fruit, cordial, Coca-Cola and ketchup testing positive racked up thousands of shares online.

These videos do not show that tap water contains Covid-19, nor do they demonstrate that the tests do not work when used correctly, both of which could be potentially harmful pieces of misinformation if wrongly inferred from these posts.

They simply show the person in the video incorrectly using, and therefore breaking, the test. Lateral flow tests are unlikely to give a false positive result if used correctly.
Breaking tests leads to misleading results ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Guardian didn’t deactivate ‘Person of the Year’ poll because of J.K. Rowling ([link removed])

Breitbart has reported that the Guardian deactivated a “Person of the Year” poll shortly after Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling took the lead. It has suggested that this was due to contentious views held by the author. Ms Rowling’s statements about sex and gender issues, in particular relating to transgender people, have proved controversial.

Firstly, the Guardian did not run a “poll”. It asked readers to contribute their own “Person of the Year” suggestions after TIME magazine awarded the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk the title–and reported on the submissions in an article on 30 December.

The Guardian’s follow-up about the submissions noted that “many readers also nominated the author J.K. Rowling” and ran a reader’s submission on Ms Rowling in the piece.

But there’s also no clear evidence Ms Rowling was leading the “poll” as the Guardian didn’t publish a live tally of nominations (nor has one been published since), and nothing to suggest the request for submissions was deactivated for this reason.
Magical reporting ([link removed])
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* Anna Soubry was wrong to say that the ‘overwhelming majority’ of Covid-19 patients are unvaccinated ([link removed])
* Telegraph wrong to claim removing PCR requirement will shorten self-isolation period ([link removed])
* Did Chris Whitty say you should keep testing after day 10 of isolation? ([link removed])

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