Introducing ‘The Fib List’

By Richard Watts / @richardwatts01

I’m losing count of the number of conversations I’ve had over the last month or so where someone has bemoaned the government justifying a policy using what are, at best, half truths.

Mark and I thought we should start to collate a single list of fibs from this Tory-led government. So welcome to the Fib List. Please do contribute your suggestions here.

Government fibs tend to come in three kinds:

a) Playing down the impact of cuts

Whether it’s the cuts to EMA, housing benefit or free swimming the government has a track record of using the dodgiest of arguments to defend indefensible cuts.

Even more seriously, the government are investing a large amount of their credibility in claims that funding for schools and the NHS will not be cut. These claims are unwinding quickly.

b) Claiming their actions are ‘progressive’

The Tory-Liberals want to cling to the claim that their actions are somehow progressive and fair. Message gurus at Number 10 like Steve Hilton seem to believe it is vital that the government gives itself cover for its assault on public services by co-opting the language of the left. Although the odd embarrassing leak does undermine this.

c) Blaming it all on Labour (or massive cuts are unavoidable)

Government ministers cannot open their mouths without blaming the Labour government for every ill the country faces. Despite all the evidence that, by May, the economy was recovering well from a global economic meltdown until this government’s cuts put the brakes on, Tory ministers – of both the blue and yellow varieties – continue to try to present the ideologically-driven choices they are making as unavoidable.

A sub-set of this kind of fib is the “we have to break election promises because the economic situation is worse than we thought“. No, it’s not.

So, to kick-off the Fib List, here are Fibs number one to five:

1. No cuts to frontline services

The weekend before the election, David Cameron said this to Andrew Marr: “What I can tell you is any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says: ‘Here are my plans’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.”

Quite simply, this must go down as one the greatest whoppers in recent British political history.

2. No top-down reorganisation of the NHS

Yes, those words are there in the coalition agreement. Which is odd, given the government is embarking on the biggest ever top-down reorganisation of the NHS. Showing a hitherto unknown comedic talent Andrew Lansley tried to justify this because the change he is forcing on a reluctant Health Service is a “bottom-up” reorganisation.

3. Health spending will increase in real terms

The government has put great store in their claim that the NHS budget is increasing in real terms. Professing love for the NHS has been at the core of Cameron’s project to detoxify the Tory brand and the pledge on NHS spending was a central election pledge. Channel 4 show that the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement looks likely to break this promise.

Since this row the promise has been made to look even shakier as it becomes clear that a number of spending items not traditionally seen as part of the NHS (including £1 billion for Local Authority Social Care spending, Sure Start health visitors and potentially even some school sports funding) are being routed through the Department for Health an counted towards the government’s ‘NHS’ spending total.

Of course health inflation is such that the government is going to be forced to make massive cuts to health services over the next few years.

4. Education spending is increasing

Again, the government has made great play about increasing the schools budget. George Osborne announced schools would get a real terms increase in spending in the CSR. This sleight-of-hand ignores the fact that pupil numbers are rising more quickly than spending on schools so the education budget per child will fall.

Fib hunters will also have great fun with the multitude of dodgy claims about whether the much vaunted pupil premium is actually new money. It isn’t.

5. Sure Start will be protected

As this damming Fact Check piece by Channel Four shows, George Osbourne’s claim that “Sure Start services will be protected in cash terms, and the programme will be refocused on its original purpose” is simply untrue.

Funding for Sure Start was rolled into the new Early Intervention Grant, alongside funding for helping young mums, short breaks for disabled children and their carers, some vital youth work and a whole range of other vital services. This new grant will be, on average, 11% lower (the cut for poorer areas like Islington is even higher at 12.9%) than council’s previous funding for these services. A massive cut for Sure Start, which Tory and Lib Dem politicians both promised to not cut both before and after the election.

Have you spotted a fib from either of the coalition parties? Did your MP make a promise they haven’t kept? Heard something that didn’t add up? Contact us, and we’ll add it to the “Fib List”.