FactCheck headquarters is hard at work poring over the detail in last night’s TV debate. Here’s a first look at some of the fishy and familiar claims bandied about during the second Leaders’ debate. We’ll have more for you later.
“Look, what happened on Christmas Eve was a bomber who would have been in Detroit and bombing that plane, came from Somalia. That was really where he was given his orders from. So we have got to deal with al-Qaida in Somalia and Yemen, as well as in Pakistan.”
Gordon Brown, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
The plane bomber from where? Has Brown been confusing his terror briefings? Attempted plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came from Nigeria, not Somalia. And al-Qaida in Yemen, rather than Somalia, claimed responsibility for the failed attack.
“The Lisbon Treaty has just about seven words on climate change. You don’t need another treaty for politicians to get together in different countries, you need political will, you need action.”
David Cameron, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
The Treaty of Lisbon makes the following amendment to an earlier treaty, and does mention climate change:
“Article 174 shall be amended as follows:
(a) in paragraph 1, the fourth indent shall be replaced by the following:
‘- promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change.'”
The passage specifically about climate change is six words long. Six is “about seven”, as Cameron put it.
However, the Lisbon treaty was designed to alter the structure of the European Union – so it is hardly surprising that it should not have much to say on climate change. The EU now has a Climate Action Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard.
She makes clear that there is a great deal of EU legislation that impacts upon climate change:
“The dedicated Climate team that has prepared the legislation over the past years will put all its know-how in an enhanced structure within a soon to be created Directorate-General for Climate Action… We will intensify efforts on several fronts – just to mention the EU Emissions Trading System, CO2 reduction from cars and vans, a future Climate and Transport Package.”
“Net inward migration is falling as a result of the measures we’re taking.”
Gordon Brown, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
Brown’s got form fudging the figures on this – he was rapped by the head of the statistics watchdog for using figures from two different sets of data.
No complaint with his claim last night about the overall trend in net inward migration (the number of new people coming in to Britain, minus the number leaving). This has fallen over the past couple of years – though as Cameron pointed out, it had risen sharply under Labour.
We haven’t looked at this in detail but aren’t convinced the points system, which controls non-EU migration, deserves complete credit for the trend. There’s been a recent fall in the number of long-term migrants coming from the EU, for example.
“We now have a budget deficit the same size as Greece.”
David Cameron, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
That’s more like it – we took the Tory leader to task earlier this month for saying our budget deficit was bigger than that of Greece. Not yet, it’s not.
“I don’t think it’s right to do what both David Cameron and Gordon Brown want… to spend up to £100bn renewing, exactly in the same old way, the Cold War Trident nuclear missile system.”
Nick Clegg, Leaders’ debate, 22 April 2010
Clegg sets himself against the two “old parties” – but is the debate over spending on Trident as clear cut as he suggests? We looked at whether the £100bn figure stacks up, and over what period, in more detail here.
“Lying” leaflets?
It’s a row that brewed up a month ago today, and one which FactCheck investigated at the time – David Cameron accused Labour of sending out lying leaflets claiming the Tories would cut prized pensioner perks: the winter fuel allowance, free bus travel, and free TV licences.
We looked at the source of Labour’s claims, but couldn’t find a smoking gun. And three days later, Cameron pledged categorically to protect all of the above. The promise was repeated in the Tory manifesto – seeming to completely blow Labour’s claims out of the water.
Last night, Brown said that he hadn’t authorised any leaflets – and also pointed out that the Tories hadn’t promised to protect either free eye tests or free prescriptions for pensioners. Cameron then said that he would protect free eye tests.
The Tories produced more examples of similar Labour leaflets to those we checked last month this morning – though it’s not yet clear whether these came out before or after Cameron’s promise. We hope to report on these and other leaflets in more detail a little later in the day.
Update: And for more indepth analysis on those leaflets and Brown’s claims:
Leaflets from Labour ‘pure and simple lies’
Did Brown authorise leaflets containing ‘lies’?
