FactCheck: Cameron's speech

Last Modified: 03 Oct 2007
By: Channel 4 News

Cameron may have been brave in speaking without a script, but did he get his facts right?

David Cameron wrapped up the Conservative party conference with a heartfelt, scriptless speech. A brave move - and a stark contrast to the densely scripted delivery by his Labour counterpart last week.

Speaking from the heart, however, didn't mean that Cameron scrimped on reeling off facts. But did he get them right?

"There are two million people who pretend to live apart because the benefits system pays you more to live apart than live together."

Yesterday Cameron told Radio 4's Today programme that "there are hundreds of thousands of couples in our country who pretend to live apart", because of quirks in the benefit system that pay out more to lone parents (still, admittedly, a group more likely to live in poverty than their coupled-up counterparts).

This statement holds a bit more weight; it emerged last year that the government was paying tax credits or welfare benefits to 2.1 million lone parents - 200,000 more than the 1.9 million who official figures reckoned exist.

But to claim, as Cameron does today, that these two million people are all faking break-ups purely for the sake of some extra handouts seems to be more a case of adding two and two together and getting, well, two million.

Sources
Government paying tax credits and benefits to 200,000 more lone parents than live in the UK, Institute for Fiscal Studies

"And that's why I am proud that I can stand here with the first Muslim woman of a Shadow Cabinet or Cabinet in Sayeeda Warsi who will be a great talent for our party and our country."

The House of Lords informs us that Sayeedi Warsi is not yet a member of parliament, as she cannot be introduced to the Lords until the house is in session, which it currently is not. Therefore she cannot technically be a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

"What about the 40 per cent of our fellow citizens who have given up on voting?"

The turnout in the 2005 general election was 61.36 per cent - so just over 39 per cent of the population couldn't be bothered with the ballot box.

It's not the case, however, that these 40 per cent have given up voting since Labour came to power - or that they ever voted in the first place.

The turnout for the 1997 general election was just over 71 per cent, and the 1992 election, when the Tories last were successful, was 77 per cent.

This 77 per cent figure is closer to the historical average turnout than the lower turnouts we've seen since, but without compulsory voting, Britain just isn't a country with the history of 100 per cent electoral turnouts with would justify Cameron's claim.

Source
Turnout in UK elections since 1959

"And Gordon Brown's worse legacy will be his destruction of Britain's pension system, and we in this party will never let him forget it."

This massively exaggerates Gordon Brown's role in the pensions crisis. He did change the tax rules in 1997, which did take an estimated £5bn a year out of Britain's pension funds. But some of this was returned through a cut in corporation tax.

The crisis in pensions was mainly due to a fall in the value of stocks and shares after the collapse of the dot-com bubble, and in many cases it has been made good by a subsequent rise in those markets.

That doesn't stop the Tories and Lib Dems repeating this charge endlessly. See this trusty old FactCheck story from 2005.

"It wasn't just that we had heard it all before, I mean literally heard it all before. And I think quite a lot of people in America heard it all before as well."

This is a reference to an article by former Conservative head of policy and Times Commentator Daniel Finkelstein.

He identifies various similarities between Brown's speech and various speeches written for US Democrat presidents and contenders by the political consultant Bob Shrum.

Shrum has also reportedly been hired by Brown, and he does identify some similarities. He used the word "moral compass", for example, which John Kerry also used. And Brown said "I will not let you down", echoing another line of John Kerry's acceptance speech.

It's a good story but not proof positive of widespread plagiarism or recycling.

"There is a network on Facebook called "David Cameron is a hottie". It's got 74 members. And I looked a little further and there's another network called "Am I the only person who doesn't like David Cameron?" and it's got 379 members."

Pulling up a politician when he tries to get all down with the internet kids feels a bit like laughing at a dad dancing at a wedding - but still, as any self-respecting Facebooker should know, the conglomerates Cameron is referring to are in fact "groups" - the network is a far larger web connecting those from a region, college or employer.

The membership counts stood at 77 and 393 members respectively shortly after Cameron made his claim. As members can leave and join at any time, this sounds accurate enough, although it's interesting that, straight after extolling the fact that large numbers of people use Facebook and MySpace, the Tory leader didn't choose to mention the far bigger groups: "Stop David Cameron - his lies make Baby Jesus cry" (1,304 members) or "Keep Cameron out of No 10" (584 members) in his speech - both of which whoop the 312 members of the then largest on-message offering "David Cameron for Prime Minister - The Original" (312 members).

"More young people, more than a million, not in employment, education or training. The number's actually higher than 10 years ago."

As FactCheck pointed out last week when Gordon Brown started extolling the benefits of Britain's education system, the number of 16-18-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEETs, as the officialese goes) has risen since Labour came to power.

More than a million, however, is well beyond the reach of even the great clunking fist. According to the most recent figures, there are 206,000 NEETS aged between 16 and 18 - a fifth of the number Cameron claims.

Of course, this does all depend on how you want to define young people, although 16 to 18-year-olds are those commonly referred to when the term NEET crops up, young people as per the "New Deal for Young People" are aged 18-24.

If, say the 16-24 age group is taken as young people, then Cameron's claim holds more sway.

Sources
FactCheck: Brown's keynote
Hansard, Unemployment: 16 to 24-year-olds (29 January 2007)

"Why can't we [troops] have free parcels all year round rather than just at Christmas?"

Cameron empathised with some of the complaints of the military - sub-standard accommodation, and a lack of dedicated military wards - but on this one someone does seem to be listening already.

That someone is the Royal Mail, which announced in August that parcels to troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq could be sent free of charge until Christmas, party after top army boss General Sir Richard Dannatt voiced his irritation with the lack of free mail.

What will happen after Christmas, however, has yet to be decided.

Source
HM forces mail