If The PM Wants To Stop Fake News, She Should Stop Boris Talking: James O'Brien
24 January 2018, 10:37 | Updated: 24 January 2018, 10:54
If the government want to stop the spread of fake news, why is Boris Johnson allowed to go around the country talking about a Brexit boost that doesn't exist, asks James O'Brien.
Theresa May has set up a unit to tackle untrue news stories, specifically on social media.
But James is stunned that the Foreign Secretary is still saying that we should spend £100million a week more on the NHS, when he knows that that money simply doesn't exist.
Speaking on his LBC show, he said: "Number 10 is going to launch some sort of Fake News Unit while the Foreign Secretary is marching up and down the country claiming that money the Office of Budget Responsibility says won't exist could be spent upon the NHS.
"If that's not fake news, then what is?
"That's a demonstrable deceit. Demonstrable.
Here he is saying we will have this money. Here is the OBR saying no we won't. Who are you going to trust?
"A former journalist who prepared two articles on the eve of announcing his support for the Leave campaign, the unpublished one of which explained his reasons for remaining. Or an independent Bank of England-staffed committee that would talk itself out of existence if its forecasts were found to have been avoidably wrong."
