Prof Darren Lilleker
Professor of Political Communication and Director of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Media Research, Bournemouth University, UK.
Email: dlilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 1: Democracy and representation
1. Public anxiety and the electoral process (Prof Barry Richards)
2. How Nigel Farage opened the door to No. 10 for Keir Starmer (Prof Pippa Norris)
3. The performance of the electoral system (Prof Alan Renwick)
4. Tory downfall is democracy rectifying its mistakes (Prof Stephen Barber)
5. Votes at 16 and decent citizenship education could create a politically aware generation (Dr Ben Kisby, Dr Lee Jerome)
6. “An election about us but not for us”: the lack of communication for young people during GE2024 (Dr James Dennis)
7. Election timing: masterstroke or risky gamble? (Prof Sarah Birch)
8. The dog that didn’t bark? Electoral integrity and administration from voter ID to postal votes (Prof Alistair Clark)
9. A political gamble? How licit and illicit betting permeated the campaign (Dr Matthew Wall)
10. Ethnic diversity in politics is the new normal in Britain (Prof Maria Sobolewska)
11. Bullshit and Lies on the campaign trail: do party campaigns reflect the post-truth age? (Prof Darren Lilleker)
12. Stoking the culture wars: the risks of a more hostile form of polarised politics (Dr Jen Birks)
An IpsosMORI poll found only 25% trusted a Conservative government to behave according to high ethical standards, 45% trusted a future Labour government.
NatCen data at the beginning of the election campaign showed 45% ‘almost never’ trust governments of any party to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party. 58% said they ‘almost never’ trust ‘politicians of any party in Britain to tell the truth’. The data shows an increase of 20% in mistrust since 2020.
It is likely that the decline in trust results from the context of Partygate, the Johnson post-truth style of communication and the various scandals that have engulfed the party. My research found Johnson’s government were responsible for peddling bullshit, spreading misinformation and lies and using alternative facts while in government. But is this purely a problem with the Conservatives, one that is damaging the reputation of politicians generally, or have all parties embraced post-truth campaigning where the philosophy is that truth is malleable and having confidence in delivery is sufficient?
Drawing on data from UK factcheck sites (BBC Verify and Full Fact) we assess the honesty of campaign claims across the parties. Factcheck sites are imperfect, they choose who and what to factcheck and as media organisations focus on high profile parties and events. However, they allow us to understand the scale of falsehoods and the form they took. We utilise a coding strategy developed by Lilleker and Perez-Escolar, these included:
- Alternative facts: ideological interpretations of data or a particular situation a normal feature of party-political communication and how it is read by citizens.
- Bullshit: employing Henry Frankfurt’s definition of a claim that can include truth but there is no publicly available evidence to prove or refute the substantive element of the claim.
- Lies: a verifiable falsehood which evidence can demonstrate to be wholly inaccurate.
Following the grounded theory approach we include for this analysis a further type of falsehood: misuse of statistics. Partially these are alternative facts, partially bullshit. In practice they involve the careful selection of statistics to make a point. The statistics are true but reported out of context. Examples from each category are included when reporting the analysis.
Table 1: Overall numbers of claims and form of falsehood (percentages in parentheses)
Figure 1: Factcheck outcomes for party communication – percentages
Firstly, the Conservatives gain just under half of all factchecks with some parties receiving almost none. Perhaps due to the prominence or style of Nigel Farage, Reform get a higher number of factchecks than other parties with similar size and support. Some claims factchecked are true, although it is likely factchecks target claims they think might be misleading and many claims are not examined at all. But there are significant other forms of falsehood which feature in the communication of most parties.
Statistics are misused in several ways, for example Labour’s claim their energy policy would save up to £300 on their average household bills every year from 2030 is based on outdated data. Similarly, immigration figures are selected from various time periods and figures by the Conservatives, Labour and Reform to prove their points. There are similarly dubious figures and we find, what constitutes a new hospital, or whether manifestoes fully costed, are now matters of party-political perspective. Although independent assessors questioned the veracity of all parties’ costings.
Bullshit comes in various forms. While not a lie, Sunak’s claim that Labour’s plans would cost each family £2000 based on partisan calculations of projected costs and inclusion of items not in their manifesto is dubious. It is challenging to prove their claim either way. Similarly Labour’s claim that that the Conservatives promised £71bn unfunded spending pledges was based on partisan assessments. Farage’s claims that postal votes cause fraud are also unprovable and so bullshit. There are also a variety of lies. Sunak claimed that behind the U.S., Britian was the highest contributor to NATO when they were on average third or fourth and eight in 2023. Starmer similarly claimed the Conservatives would abolish National Insurance (an aspiration not a manifesto promise) and Sunak claimed Labour would introduce a retirement tax (also false). Conservatives also shared a doctored video of Rachel Reeves with a time lag to make her look confused and claimed in Facebook advertising that ULEZ, the controversial emissions zones in London, would be rolled out nationally. These all represent false fear campaigns.
Based on the prevalence of falsehoods, we can argue that the election had features of the post-truth era. Making claims often enough and with enough confidence is sufficient, independent of their veracity. One expects this from more populist and extremist parties and the data perhaps indicates the Conservatives’ rightward drift at least in style. But Labour are not innocent in peddling bullshit or lying albeit on a lesser scale. Exposure of falsehoods, and the impression parties are willing to manipulate voters to win, contributes to mistrust. The communication across the election is unlikely to change these perceptions.
