Our Word is Our Weapon

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Further to this, I emailed David Phillips, the IFS expert quoted in the original story, and asked him whether the conclusion that households are ‘worse off’ than in 1997 only held if you ignored the rather salient fact that their incomes had increased significantly over the same period. He replied

You are correct - and this was explained in detail and repeatedly to the journalist who ran the story originally …

I don’t know what’s more worrying - that Elizabeth Colman thinks it’s okay to lie to Sunday Times readers, or that she thinks Sunday Times readers are too stupid to object.

Telegraph:

An analysis of Government figures has shown 10 areas where more than 40 per cent of the workforce is employed in the public sector.

Incredible, it’s as if we need people to run public services or something. But here’s the good bit:

Richard Dodds, a farmer and Conservative councillor on Castle Morpeth borough and Northumberland councils, said: “I produce wheat and cattle but there are a lot of people who produce absolutely nothing. We’ve had an awful lot of white elephants and non-jobs created in the North-East.”

Yes, that’s a British farmer (and a rural Tory councillor, for that matter) complaining about people getting tax-payers’ money for doing nothing.

Elizabeth Colman in the Times:

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has scrutinised all tax reforms in Labour’s budgets — and concluded its changes have left the average family where both parents work £1,283 a year immediately worse off than in 1997.

That’s only looking at the effects of taxes and benefits, isn’t it? Factor in wage increases under Labour and households are considerably better off than they were in 1997.