BUS-TED
BORIS Johnson was blasted by parliament’s statistics watchdog for his repeated false claim that the NHS could net £350million more a week after Brexit.
He was accused by UK Statistics chair Sir David Norgrove last night of “misusing official statistics” in an article on Brexit which has threatened to upstage Theresa May’s big speech on leaving the EU this week.
This came on top of Home Secretary Amber Rudd slamming the Foreign Secretary yesterday for “backseat driving” Brussels talks.
Sir David said the £350million figure, plastered on the Vote Leave battle bus during the referendum campaign, was hugely inflated and failed to include EU funding to be lost to farming and research sectors.
After reading Mr Johnson’s 4,000word Brexit “blueprint” on Saturday, he wrote: “I am surprised and disappointed you have repeated the figure of £350million a week, in connection with the amount that might be available for extra public spending.
“It confuses gross and net contributions. It also assumes payments by the EU, including for the support of agriculture and science research, will not be paid by the UK government when we leave.” Britain made a net contribution of £156 million a week last year, less than half Mr Johnson’s figure. “It is a clear misuse of official statistics,” added Sir David.
A Foreign Secretary aide said Mr Johnson was told by Sir David he only had an issue with the headline on the Telegraph article. But the UK Statistics Authority denied the issues “lie solely with the headlines”. Lib Dem leader Vince Cable said: “It’s good to see the stats authority has the courage to slap Boris down.” He was joined by Ms Rudd on BBC’s Marr show yesterday and demanded Mrs May sack Johnson. Ms Rudd agreed Mr Johnson’s article was “backseat driving”, adding: “What we’ve got is Theresa May managing that process… she’s driving the car.”