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Time to concrete over the countryside?
The planning minister wants the home builders roll into rural England – where 91 per cent of land is undeveloped. Can this really be true?
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Labour claims Neet but not tidy
Labour are probably unwise to try to make too much political capital out of the lack of progress on this problem. To do so only invites comparisons with their own record, which is far from exemplary.
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Are the PM’s tax claims avoidance or evasion?
The PM claims he’s given tax collectors an extra £900m. All well and good, but FactCheck finds he’s actually taken more away.
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Has Chris Grayling unlocked the prisoners’ dilemma?
Chris Grayling says a “rehabilitation revolution” driven by payment by results will cut re-offending. FactCheck digs in.
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The final word on police cuts
The effect of all this is to artificially make it look like there has been a real increase in neighbourhood policing.
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Why Osborne is calling the kettle green
If Mr Osborne is doing the right thing by the planet and only boiling enough for one cup of tea, say 250ml instead of a litre, this brings the figure down to perhaps 80kj per brew.
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FactCheck Q&A: Magic QE trick that may help Osborne hit borrowing targets
Today’s strategy could be a lifeline for a government keen to avoid further U-turns. How does it work?
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FactCheck Q&A: Will we miss Nadine Dorries?
In 2007 she was drafted on to the select committee for innovation, universities, science and skills, but only managed to make one meeting out of 50. In 2009 it was science and technology, and Ms Dorries failed to get to any of the committee’s 20 scheduled meetings.
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Fire alarm – but is it all smoke and mirrors?
The “25 per cent cuts” line deserves a bit of a pinch of salt, as does the complaint that the fire service as a whole has been hit harder by austerity than other public services.
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Heathrow battle lines drawn
Birmingham and Manchester both told us they are running at about 60 per cent capacity, compared to Heathrow, which is still pretty much stretched to the limit at 99.2 per cent.
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Frosty reception for 4G broadband launch
All of this suggests that it is the mobile phone operators, not Ofcom or the government, who are responsible for much of the delay. In any event, Labour’s record on speeding up the process was hardly exemplary.
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The truth about the child benefits cap
DWP figures show that some 160 claimants out of more than 3 million were getting the equivalent of £50,000 a year or more in 2010. That’s 0.0004 per cent of cases.
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Why leaked A4E data suggests Work Programme isn’t working
The background The government launched the Work Programme in June last year, calling it the biggest welfare-to-work initiative in UK history. Is it working? With more than 2.5 million people unemployed, there’s a huge amount riding on that question. And the government now says it wants to export the same kind of model – outsourcing…
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Will payment by results crack Britain’s prison problem?
There are no hard statistics available on outcomes yet, which means we effectively have to take the minister’s word for it.
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Conservatives still misleading on business growth
“Click on the document and read beyond the first page and you find that the statisticians immediately pull the rug out from under the Tories’ headline.”