Reforms to parliamentary processes announced this month and examined by your editorial (25 July) are welcome, but fail to learn the lessons of recent election campaigns in which political misinformation has become increasingly commonplace.
From the Conservative claim that Labour would increase taxes by £2,000 to Labour’s own speculative estimates that Tory policies would lead to £4,800 mortgage increases, dodgy statistics have stained recent votes, demeaned our political dialogue and degraded public trust. The £350m claim on the side of a bus was simply part of a trend.
Campaigns which come down to duelling unsound statistics serve neither the voters nor the country. While they might persuade some, for many more they exacerbate the corrosive belief that politicians distort the facts to serve themselves.
Mid-campaign polling by Savanta for Full Fact found that 67% of the public felt that political parties’ costings of one another’s policies were not honest, rising to 85% among people who were undecided about who to vote for.
As the UK’s leading independent factchecking organisation, Full Fact has called on the prime minister to prioritise the fight against misinformation and equip the public with the tools to detect and defend against bad information. We’ve also recommended that the government amend the ministerial code to make adherence to the code of practice for statistics compulsory.
This can be a moment of historic change. If the Labour party is serious about addressing the political honesty crisis, it must set higher standards that will bind not only its opponents, but also itself.
Chris Morris
Chief executive, Full Fact
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