"There’s a fine line between clarification and debate. Too often fact-checks stray into the latter"
Telegraph: 8th June 2024: Lord Frost writes about the misuse of so-called 'fact-checking' by the UK state broadcaster
"If you spend any time with members of our new establishment – academics, quangocrats, the BBC... you will learn something rather strange. They are obsessed with misinformation and disinformation... They believe that you are too stupid to make your own mind up about things or distinguish between the true and the false. And they think it’s the government’s job – or perhaps theirs – to do it for you instead...
One obvious problem with this thesis is that in recent years an awful lot of misinformation has come from governments themselves... the view that an economic crash was inevitable if we voted to leave the EU, the refusal to countenance the lab leak theory about Covid...
...the authorities have smiled on the growth of so-called “fact checking” outfits, the best known of which is BBC Verify... Take Friday night’s...“leader” debate, fact checked live by BBC Verify’s Ben Chu... The problem is that they aren’t checking facts; they are also checking opinion... BBC Verify fact-checked views on net zero on Friday by reference to the views of the Climate Change Committee... while the Committee’s views may be received wisdom amongst much of the establishment, they are definitely controversial. They have to be open to debate...
...This matters because very often in politics the facts only take you so far: it is the interpretation that counts..."