Lies and damning statistics

April 25, 2009 9:06 AM

Is there a site which keeps track of what politicians have said, and flagged up instances where what they have said was a falsehood at the time of speaking? Preferably UK-centric.
posted by djgh to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

In the US, Politifact does something similar to what you're asking with their Truth-O-Meter, with a special focus on President Obama with their Obameter. The only downside is that the coverage isn't comprehensive.
posted by griseus at 9:29 AM on April 25, 2009

Unfortunately US-based again but factcheck.org also does this. It's run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, an NGO that seems to work in cooperation with universities. Perhaps following those sort of leads - public policy organizations and universities - is the tack to take to find something similar for the UK?
posted by XMLicious at 9:46 AM on April 25, 2009 [1 favorite]

Channel 4 have a bit of their website called FactCheck. I think it's exactly what you're looking for - it picks out politicians' statements and assesses them for veracity, and keeps track of promises to see how many are actually kept. I haven't read it much since the last general election, but a quick glance just now looks like it's still going.

How ratings work

Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.

The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.

In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.

I always struck me as pretty even-handed; a quick google turns up a lot of traditionally Tory sources saying they like it (Spectator, etc), but that imbalance is presumably because Labour are currently a bigger target.

If you don't already, consider looking through the Private Eye website. I'm sure you already know, but it's a political journalism/gossip/satire magazine. They don't have the exact service you're looking for, but searching their archive for a specific politician's name is bound to turn up all sorts of (alleged) exposed lies and indiscretions.
posted by metaBugs at 12:20 PM on April 25, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks guys - I guess I was hoping for something more explicitly "X said this, did this", but those are good starts.

If anyone has any more, please write!
posted by djgh at 3:18 PM on April 27, 2009