BBC Slams PM’s ”alternative facts”
This week's More or Less on BBC R4 spent almost half the programme providing evidence that our Prime Minister has on several occasions presented incorrect information to parliament.
On Jobs Boris Johnson has repeatedly claimed that there are now 500,000 more 'people in work' than there were before the pandemic. Correct use of the information would be to state that there are now 500,000 more people on a payroll and paying PAYE to HMRC. This data is not the usual way to measure the jobs market and is an experimental technique still being evaluated. It completely ignores about 4 million of those who are self-employed and are not paid via PAYE. About 1 in 6 of those who were self-employed before the pandemic stopped their self-employment once Covid hit. The result is that according to the 'standard measure of employment, the 'labour force survey', the number in jobs is about 600,000 smaller than it was before the pandemic. This is the largest reversal in labour force for almost 30 years.
Also inflating the PAYE figures is the fact that many people who were classified as self-employed until recently are now doing the same job but paid via PAYE. This is because of the tightening up by HRMC on the IR35 rules about what constitutes self-employment.
On crime Another almost complete inversion of the truth was in Boris Johmson's comment that 'we have been cutting crime by 14%'. Again he has misused data, this time by omitting fraud and computer misuse from the figures. If these are included crime has risen by 14%. Also the reduction in those other types of crime are not too surprising since with most people confined to their homes there was far less opportunity for crimes like burglary and street violence to occur.
According to the programme there was also no evidence to suggest that government crime prevention strategies were in any was responsible for the reduction in crime that had been seen.
Clearly our prime minister is so desperate to report 'good news' that he is resorting to making it up.