Labour’s little red book of lies
FactCheck have uncovered three blatant lies about Mr Blair’s record in his manifesto, and a number of dodgy claims.
Here are the Labour lies:
The UK has the lowest unemployment for 30 years
Actually, we have higher unemployment that in 1979. So unless we’ve been magically transported to 2009, that’s a blatant lie.
Longest Period of uninterrupted growth in modern history
I guess it depends on your interpretation of ‘modern’, but he’s clearly not including 1948 to 1973. Since his Chancellor was making claims about ‘since 1701’, then this is clearly another lie.
We will invest more in renovating and building new kitchens as well as investing an extra £210 million in school meals.
Except the £210m was already in the education budget. So how can this possibly be classed as extra money?
And now for some general dodginess:
Crime has fallen by 30 per cent overall, with almost five million fewer crimes a year than in 1997
According to one set of statistics – the British Crime Survey. Mr Blair says the BCS is ‘the most authoritative crime survery overall’. So why, in the exact same manifesto, does he criticise the Tory figures using the Recorded Crime Statistics, instead of the BCS?
The number of asylum applications has been cut by two-thirds since 2002.
How can Labour possibly even begin to claim the credit for this, when the number of refugees has fallen worldwide?
How could anyone want to re-elect a party which can’t even be honest about its record in its own manifesto? After eight years, they should be shouting from the rooftops about their acheivements, not having to lie about them to be re-elected. It’s crazy.
This post was filed under: Election 2005.