Boris Johnson has been accused of repeatedly misrepresenting even his own policies during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.
Various words were used to describe the PM’s responses – fibs, untruths, errors – as Labour said Johnson got not just their positions wrong, but some of his own.
Among the most obvious followed a call from Labour for a cut in VAT on energy bills, with Johnson then referring to the Warm Home Discount.
He said the help with energy bills “supports 2.2 million people to the tune of £140 a week”.
The Warm Home Discount – however – is worth £140 per winter.
It was picked up finance guru Martin Lewis and the Full Fact fact-checking website, among others.
Here are the other contested statements made by Johnson during the session.
– Inflation
Johnson did not take the opportunity to correct his comments on inflation when challenged to do so by Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner.
Rayner, in a point of order, said she was sure that the Prime Minister did not wish to mislead MPs and asked him to correct the record after he had denied saying in an interview in October that fears about inflation were unfounded.
But he did not respond.
Rayner, who was standing in for Keir Starmer after the Labour leader tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, said: “In October the prime minister said that fears about inflation were unfounded, but working people across the country are starting the new year facing rising bills and ballooning prices, so how did he get it so wrong?”
Johnson replied: “Of course I said no such thing because inflation is always something that we have to be careful about.”
But Sky News journalist Beth Rigby then tweeted a clip of the interview where Johnson 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”.
Downing Street later declined to correct Johnson’s words.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Obviously we’re acutely aware of the pressures that inflation can cause. The interview you’re referring to related to October, it was not a prediction of what might come next.”
– Labour called for lockdown in response to Omicron
The prime minister told the Commons Labour had called for a “road map to lockdown” after the emergence of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
The prime minister’s press secretary said: “They were calling for tougher measures and for a road map back into lockdown so that was simply what he was talking about.”
But Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “At no point over Christmas or New Year has Labour called for a new lockdown. We backed Plan B measures – without us they wouldn’t have passed – and have urged the government to do more on sick pay, school ventilation and testing.”
– Labour would rejoin the European Union
Johnson said that Labour’s objective was to rejoin the EU.
But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in March, Starmer said: “We’ve left. We are no longer a member of the EU. We’ve got a deal, we’ve got to make that deal work.
“There’s no case for rejoining the EU and I’ve been very clear about that. The Remain-Leave debate is over.”
A Labour spokesman said: “We saw repeatedly from the prime minister at prime minister’s questions today misrepresentations of Labour’s position and factual errors about his own position.”
– A reduction in poverty
In response to a question from the Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford, Johnson said: “If we look at the statistics, we see that economic inequality is down in this country. Income inequality is down and poverty is down.”
There is no universally accepted recognition of poverty, but the two most commonly used measures are absolute poverty – less than 60% of the median income for 2010/11, adjusted for inflation – and relative poverty – less than 60% of the median income for that financial year.
A report from the House of Commons library from October said: “Overall, levels of relative poverty have been fairly steady over the past few years, but this varies between population groups: the proportion of children and pensioners in relative poverty is higher than it was five years ago.”
The Office for National Statistics, in its latest release on the issue, said income inequality steadily increased to 36.3%.
The organisation said this was “the highest reported measure of income inequality over the 10-year period” up to the end of the 2020 financial year.
