Monday, December 12, 2022
Tory spin hiding lack of substance
Oops, it turns out that the impact of Brexit may be even worse than that envisaged by the most hardened remainer, with the official statistics watchdog pulling up Conservative Ministers on the accuaracy of some of their claims.
The Guardian reports that the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) has reprimanded the Conservatives for claiming the UK had secured £800bn in “new free trade deals” since leaving the EU, saying the figure includes deals rolled over from before Brexit.
In particular UKSA has written to the Tories about an infographic, shared last month by Michael Gove among others, warning that the party should provide sources for such figures in the future. The Tory graphic said: “We’ve secured new free trade deals with over 70 countries since 2016. That’s over £800bn worth of new free trade”:
In a response, the UKSA’s chair, Sir Robert Chote, said that while no citation or source was provided, he assumed the £800bn total came from the £559bn in net trade with EU countries in 2021, plus the £245bn in post-2016 deals with 71 non-EU nations, some of which had also been a rollover of the pre-Brexit deals with the wider EU.
“Under the principles of intelligent transparency, we would expect the infographic to include a source for the figure so that the public can verify the numbers, understand the definitions used and put the data into context,” Chote wrote to Hendry.
“More specifically in this case, it is misleading to describe the £800bn figure as a measure of ‘new global trade’ resulting from the recent deals. That would imply that there had been no trade with these countries before the recent deals and that there would be none now without them.
“We have spoken to the Conservative party and asked that any future communications include a link or reference to the source of statistics. We have also requested that the party be more transparent about the context and assumptions that have been made to construct such statements and infographics.”
Will they never learn?
The Guardian reports that the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) has reprimanded the Conservatives for claiming the UK had secured £800bn in “new free trade deals” since leaving the EU, saying the figure includes deals rolled over from before Brexit.
In particular UKSA has written to the Tories about an infographic, shared last month by Michael Gove among others, warning that the party should provide sources for such figures in the future. The Tory graphic said: “We’ve secured new free trade deals with over 70 countries since 2016. That’s over £800bn worth of new free trade”:
In a response, the UKSA’s chair, Sir Robert Chote, said that while no citation or source was provided, he assumed the £800bn total came from the £559bn in net trade with EU countries in 2021, plus the £245bn in post-2016 deals with 71 non-EU nations, some of which had also been a rollover of the pre-Brexit deals with the wider EU.
“Under the principles of intelligent transparency, we would expect the infographic to include a source for the figure so that the public can verify the numbers, understand the definitions used and put the data into context,” Chote wrote to Hendry.
“More specifically in this case, it is misleading to describe the £800bn figure as a measure of ‘new global trade’ resulting from the recent deals. That would imply that there had been no trade with these countries before the recent deals and that there would be none now without them.
“We have spoken to the Conservative party and asked that any future communications include a link or reference to the source of statistics. We have also requested that the party be more transparent about the context and assumptions that have been made to construct such statements and infographics.”
Will they never learn?
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Spinning a yarn!?You can argue that with the pay deals.The 'Idependant' pay review body pay increase of 5% comes from JUNE. Inflasation has vastly increased from then but they still insist on that 5%.
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