Rishi Sunak’s claim that the Tories will contribute “50,000 more nurses, 20,000 more police officers and 40 new hospitals” has been challenged in a social media video.
Filmmaker Peter Stefanovic slammed the chancellor’s statement on Sky News as “regurgitated unchallenged rubbish” taken from the prime minister.
Stefanovic showed a clip where Boris Johnson was asking his cabinet members to repeat the figures after him, and said “Johnson’s zombie training session clearly made an impact on the chancellor.”
Then, Stefanovic went on to say that the prime minister himself admitted to Sophy Ridge on Sky News that in fact, only 31,000 nurses of the 50,000 pledged in the Tory manifesto have actually been new.
Stefanovic added: “There won’t be 20,000 more police officers until you replace the 21,000 police officers you’ve cut from our streets since 2010.
“And whilst we’re at it, how about replacing the 23,000 police support staff you’ve cut? And reopening the 600 police stations you’ve closed?”
Stefanovic said the government’s “levelling up agenda is based on the premise the entire country has suffered some type of collective amnesia and just forgotten” that the Tories have been in power for more than a decade.
He added: “Before the pandemic, the Conservative government have been responsible for a decade of wage stagnation, rising inequalities, soaring child poverty, soaring in-work poverty.
“Real annual ages were £800 a year lower than in 2010. We’ve literally had the worst decade of wage growth since the Napoleonic War.”
Last month, Stefanovic has claimed Sunak lied to the public when claiming that the number of people in poverty in the UK has fallen since the Conservative party has been in government.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, the chancellor defended the Tories’ “strong” record on tackling inequality, claiming: “The number of people in poverty has fallen as a result of the actions the government has taken over the last several years”.
But filmmaker Peter Stefanovic pointed to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which suggests that 2.4 million people in the UK experienced destitution in 2019 alone.
In a viral intervention, Stefanovic said: “The government’s own figures show that relative child poverty has increased by 600,000 since 2012.”
Stefanovic also compiled a video last August in which he fact-checked several claims made by Johnson since he became prime minister.
These include the government’s record on emissions reductions, economic growth, nurses’ bursaries, hospital car parking, NHS spending, the Covid-19 track and trace app, and poverty in the UK.
Speaking to TLE earlier this year, Stefanovic said: “My background is in law. The very foundation of our legal system depends on trust, credibility and honesty. The same principle should apply to our political institutions.”
Related: Peter Stefanovic hits out at BBC’s ‘shocking’ failure to challenge Sunak falsehoods
Peter Stefanovic: ‘Johnson’s barefaced lies put democracy at risk’
