Full Fact: Live Fact-checking and the General Election

On March 31 Ed Miliband declared there was an explosion of zero hours contracts. There are now three times as many people on zero hours contracts as there were when this government came to power. Independent factcheckers Full Fact sprang into action. People knew -- thanks to thorough preparation bef...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Refer (Birmingham ) 2015-07, Vol.31 (2), p.6
Main Author: Moy, Will
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:On March 31 Ed Miliband declared there was an explosion of zero hours contracts. There are now three times as many people on zero hours contracts as there were when this government came to power. Independent factcheckers Full Fact sprang into action. People knew -- thanks to thorough preparation before the election -- that the statistics cannot and do not show an explosion because comparisons of zero hours contracts over time aren't reliable (as the ONS has made clear). The author sent out a press release and soon journalists were tweeting their favourite facts, for example that 66% of people on zero hours contracts don't want more hours. Expert organisations and volunteers from the Government Statistical Service, ONS and Ipsos MORI enabled them to respond to new claims faster. For example, during one leaders' debate, a claim came up that they hadn't seen before: They need to build a house every 7 minutes just to cope with immigration into this country.
ISSN:0144-2384