Why has Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the house, thus far refused to demand a correction from the prime minister for seriously misleading the Commons about unemployment and crime figures, not just once or twice, but repeatedly (Johnson and Patel’s claims about falling crime ‘misleading’, says UK watchdog, 3 February)?
Boris Johnson has claimed that both these figures have fallen significantly since the pandemic, but official statistics – gathered by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the Institute for Employment Studies and independent watchdogs such as Full Fact – show that they have actually risen significantly. Johnson has claimed that employment has risen by 500,000 during that period, but a Labour Force Survey shows that it has actually fallen by more than that – by 600,000 in fact.
