Note to editors - that's 7 million immigrants, right?'TEN MILLION IMMIGRANTS', it screamed. The figures looked shoddy, although the Express claimed:
Britain's soaring immigrant population will double in the next two decades to almost 10million, a shocking report warned yesterday.As regulars will be aware, I am a plank, so I emailed the IPPR asking for a copy of this shocking report.
I got a reply today. I had wanted to show what the report actually said so we can see exactly how much the Express had misquoted it, but I can't because the IPPR never sent me a copy.
Because there is no report, shocking or otherwise. Now we know why there are no direct quotes.
The figures the Express claim come from a shocking report actually come from a conference presentation that looked at possible future scenarios for migration. Well, I say they come from the conference presentation, but they don't because the paper has exaggerated them so much that they bear no resemblance to the actual figures in the presentation.
The presentation apparently didn't say that the immigrant population would double from 5.4 million. It didn't say that it would rise to 10 million. It didn't even say that it would rise to 9.1 million. And that's not just because the presentation was about a hypothetical situation where the number of immigrants might reach a certain level rather than being an absolute prediction, although that is also true.
The hypothetical rise in the presentation was from 5.4 million to 6.8 - 7.3 million by 2030. That's right, the upper limit is almost 2 million less than the Express's lowest figure.
Every claim made by the Express about the figures in this article is false, aside from the fact that they were mentioned by the IPPR. There isn't a shocking report. The figures that do exist don't state that the number of immigrants will rise to any level by 2030, they're just projections of what might happen for use in a hypothetical scenario. Last, but not least, the actual rise the figures represents is about half that suggested by the headline, and the headline's total is exaggerated by around 3 million.
We're not talking honest mistakes because of time constraints here. This is a front page headline that is a blatant lie.
Again.
2 comments:
Surely a piece that demands a complaint to the PCC? Feel like emailing IPPR again and asking them whether they're thinking about doing so?
I will, but since I already sent a couple yesterday asking if I could quote them I'll leave it a couple of days so as to look less like the member of the green ink brigade I clearly am.
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