The claim

“Channel 4 FactCheck backs Ed Miliband over deficit”
LabourList.org, January 7, 2010

Cathy Newman checks it out

Er, not exactly. If you look at our analysis into the deficit, the FactCheck-ometer is pointing straight up – exactly between Fact and Fiction.

That’s because, as I made clear in my verdict last night, while “the drop in tax receipts triggered by the economic crisis is what’s behind the bulk of the £149bn deficit”, Labour should have done more to cut its debts, “and if it had, as David Cameron has often said, we would have been better prepared for the economic maelstrom that ensued”.

In other words, there are elements of truth to what both the Prime Minister and the Labour leader claim. Neither are wholly right, neither are wholly wrong. Which is why the famous FactCheck-ometer isn’t pointing one way or the other – and why LabourList have earned themselves a fiction rating this morning.