Boris Johnson has had a furious PMQs clash with Keir Starmer as Labour ’s leader accused him of peddling "facist conspiracies" and "gaslighting the public”.
Sir Keir hit out at the PM’s false claim, made on Monday, that as Director of Public Prosecutions he failed to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile. The CPS said he had no involvement in the decision.
Meanwhile, he claimed it was wrong for the PM to insist the Tories are the party of "low taxes" at a time when he's "squeezing working people to the pips".
Things were so tense, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had to warn MPs not to accuse the PM of lying, which is unparliamentary.
In his replies to Sir Keir, Boris Johnson earned roars of support from his own MPs as he trumpeted employment, GDP and wage figures.
But perhaps he got a little carried away in his wording. Here are seven things he said that are either outright false, or don’t stack up in context.
There are ‘more people in work than before the pandemic began’
This claim had been branded incorrect by the Office for Statistics Regulation just a day earlier in a letter to No10.
Director Ed Humpherson said the PM was referring to people on payrolls, but this excludes many self-employed.
Mr Humpherson told Downing Street: "The number of people on employer payrolls does not include everyone in work.
"ONS publishes data on the number of people in employment.
"The data for January – March 2020 estimate that 33.0m people were in employment compared with 32.4m people in employment for September – November 2021.
"It is therefore incorrect to state that there were more people in work at the end of this period than the start."
Tories are ‘lifting the Living Wage - which this party introduced’
Tory Chancellor George Osborne introduced the National Living Wage in 2016, but this was a rebranded version of the National Minimum Wage for over-25s.
That means the National Living Wage is, legally speaking, the same thing as the National Minimum Wage - which Labour introduced in 1999.
Importantly, the NLW is lower than the ‘real’ Living Wage which has been promoted for years by campaigners as the amount that meets everyday needs.
The real Living Wage is currently £9.90 or £11.05 in London - compared to £8.91 for the government’s National Living Wage, which will rise to £9.50 in April.
‘In spite of all the difficulties we’ve faced, we have now got the fastest growth in the G7. Absolutely true’
Technically yes, the UK’s GDP is forecast to grow by 4.7% in 2022 - the highest of any G7 country.
But that is not the full picture - it also fell by 9.4% in 2020 according to the IMF, the worst of any G7 country.
That means it’s now bouncing back faster too.
According to the House of Commons Library, UK GDP was still down by 1.5% in July-September 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
This was the second-worst of any G7 country, behind Canada, Italy, Germany, the Eurozone, France and the US.
The Commons Library also warned these figures "are not 100% comparable" across countries "due to differences in how output in the education and health sectors is calculated."
‘We’re getting 500,000 people off welfare and into work through our Way to Work plan’
Tory ministers have set a ‘Way to Work’ target to help 500,000 Universal Credit claimants into work by June.
But despite the PM’s boast, it’s thought the plan is only to get 500,000 people into jobs - not off Universal Credit.
Sources told the Mirror some of those people are likely to continue claiming, at least in the short term, as around two-fifths of UC claimants already have a job. They remain eligible for benefits because their wages are too low.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves wrote a letter in April 2020 ‘suggesting we could secure PPE supplies from a theatrical costumier and we could get ventilators from a professional football agent'
Ms Reeves did write a letter, and the firms it mentioned did include one behind ‘historic re-enactment clothing’ that was offering to make 100-175 gowns a week.
However, the context is that she passed on the details of 35 firms that were offering to supply PPE - without actually endorsing their work.
Instead her letter told Michael Gove : “You and your officials and those at the Department for Health and Social Care will be best placed to validate what capability and capacity these firms have.
“But as they have not received a reply after contacting the Government, I wanted to ensure that the Cabinet Office was aware of them.”
Labour insist she was simply raising concerns about the number of firms at the time that were not getting a response.
Keir Starmer ‘would have kept us in lockdown’
While he didn’t specify this time, Boris Johnson has repeatedly made this claim in relation to December 2021 when Omicron surged.
The Labour leader welcomed "additional measures" to curb Omicron rates before Christmas 2021 - but he had never called for a lockdown.
At one point Mr Starmer said: "We've got a government that are hinting at further restrictions but they're more concerned and tied up with party management at the moment than it is with public health.
"The question on my lips and I think on the public's lips is where is the prime minister?"
One time Keir Starmer definitely did demand a lockdown was in autumn 2020 - and Boris Johnson eventually caved and obeyed those calls a few weeks later.
‘We’ve opened Freeports across the country just in the last few days’
Eight successful bidders for Freeports were announced at the March 2021 Budget.
Since then they have been working up their plans. Teesside opened in November and Thames in mid-December.
But when we asked the government today, we were told the other six are yet to open.
Neither the Mirror nor officials we asked could find evidence of new Freeports opening in the last month or so.
