Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr K
It falls down with the figure for a start. We don't give £350m net to the EU. It's been explained many times but the cloth head has repeated it. He's either very stupid (most likely) or he thinks the British public is.
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He definitely gives the impression of thinking the British public are fools. David Davis's unpublished report on 50 industries post-Brexit apparently suggests that any income saved from the EU fees will be spent on unemployment benefits so Boris shouldn't pretend there is a saving!
---------- Post added at 22:13 ---------- Previous post was at 22:00 ----------
Is Boris up to his old Vote Leave tricks? It certainly looks like it.
Quote:
Boris Johnson (Daily Telegraph): “. . . once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350 million per week. It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that money went on the NHS . . .”
Sir David Norgrove (letter to Boris Johnson): “I am surprised and disappointed that you have chosen to repeat the figure of £350 million per week, in connection with the amount that might be available for extra public spending when we leave the European Union. This confuses gross and net contributions. It also assumes that payments currently made to the UK by the EU, including for example for the support of agriculture and scientific research, will not be paid by the UK government when we leave. It is a clear misuse of official statistics.”
Foreign Office: “Boris has spoken to Norgrove and he has made clear that he was complaining about the headlines and not Boris’s piece and in fact admitted that Boris’ wording in the piece was absolutely fine.”
UK Statistics Authority: “Sir David Norgrove does not believe the issues lie solely with the headlines . . . He has not changed the conclusion set out in his letter to the Foreign Secretary.”
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https://www.ft.com/content/8acfb174-...4-932067fbf946