Thread by @andytwelves

EXC: .@GoodwinMJ’s new book “Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity” is out now, and I’m only 5 chapters in and have found a huge amount of what appears to be false quotes and basic misinterpretations of data, that appear to be AI hallucinations.

Matthew, can you explain the claims you made in the book that I’ve outlined in the below thread?

Claim 1: “In one year 1 classroom in Bradford, only four of twenty eight pupils spoke English as their first language. Teachers report spending large amounts of time simply mediating between dozens of languages, making normal teaching almost impossible and slowing down the rate of progress for everybody.” 

Reality: I cannot find any evidence of this claim at all. I checked local, and national news, and his own X page. I believe from the lack of referencing, and the way it’s written, to be an AI hallucination.

Claim 2: “In 2019, BBC West Midlands highlighted schools where children speak more than thirty different languages, making normal teaching almost possible. Teachers often feel they are no longer running a school but a translation service.”

Reality: I cannot find any evidence of BBC West Midlands writing this story at all. There is an article about a primary school from the Metro in 2021: metro.co.uk/2021/06/24/bir…

BBC West Midlands does not exist, it’s BBC Midlands.

Claim 2.1: “Teachers often feel they are no longer running a school but a translation service. One inspection report put it bluntly: ‘Many pupils join the school with extremely limited English. This significantly slows the pace of learning.’ This is not multicultural harmony or enrichment”

Reality: reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/21/10… That’s the school’s Ofsted report page - that quote does not appear in any of their reports, there are things that are vaguely like that, but are always caveated with the exceptional progress that they make and how the school accommodates well. This, I believe is another AI hallucination, or at the very best a complete lie.

I checked 2 other primary schools that vaguely fit the bill with media coverage on the amount of languages they spoke, Paget Primary Schools reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/21/10… , English Martyrs Catholic Primary School reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/21/10… , and neither had the quote on their Ofsted reports.

Claim 3: “In Leicester, Luton, Slough, and virtually all of London, most primary school pupils’ main language is no longer English”

Reality: This is statistical illiteracy. The main language of all of those primary schools, and their pupils is English. He does not understand EAL.

Claim 4: “This is, put simply, not sustainable.”

Reality: Every ofsted report you read from all of the primary schools he’s vaguely referenced confirm the strong progress by Year 6 of EAL students, as the same as their English First Language counterparts.

Claim 5: “Ask yourself a question nobody in power will raise: how can you build a prosperous, cohesive, and stable nation when millions of people in that nation neither speak the national language nor share it’s national identity?”

Reality: They do speak the national language, but as a secondary one when they were in primary school.

Claim 6: “They also ignore the ancient warning of Cicero, the great Roman statesman who insisted that the supreme duty of the state was to protect its own citizens and put them before others. ‘We must begin’, he said ‘with the people closest to us.’

Reality: Cicero is not quoted saying this, and definitely not in De Officiis or De Republica - the two major Project Gutenberg english language translations of Cicero. I believe this is another AI hallucination.

Claim 7: “This is the very outcome that the Roman statesman Cicero warned against two thousand years ago: a state that abandons its duty to its own people invites disorder, resentment, and eventual collapse.”

Reality: This was about the balance of work between Roman slaves, and freemen - not migration or the welfare bill. The academic consensus is that the welfare state did not exist in the Late Roman Republic. Slaves taking all the work was not “kindness” or suicidal empathy.

Claim 8: “The academic James Burnham put it bluntly many years ago: ‘Power is exercised through organisations those who control the organisations control the instruments of power’”

Reality: Burnham said things vaguely like this, but I cannot find this quote. I believe this is another AI hallucination

Claim 9: In 2025, a survey by pollsters Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus found that 75% of people working in Britain’s key institutions - the civil service, schools, universities, media, creative industries - are on the political left and hold views that are radically at odds with the public. They far more likely to believe that minorities should be prioritised over the majority. That Britain’s history is a source of shame. That women can become men, or men can become women. And that the majority’s free speech should be restricted if it upsets minorities.”

Reality: This is all just verifiably misrepresented lol: archive.is/rVMrw

Claim 10: “‘The most dangerous experiments’ warned the economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek, ‘are those conducted on entire societies.’”

Reality: I cannot verify this quote, or anything similar to it from Hayek or any other philosopher or economist. I believe this is another AI hallucination.

Claim 11: “In opposition, in 2019, Boris Johnson had pledged ‘lower overall numbers’ and ‘control of the borders’. Once in office, he and his Hom Sec…”

Reality: Boris Johnson was not in opposition in 2019, but on the Government backbenches. This also seems to be part of a quote from the 2019 General Election manifesto, with Boris Johnson being the Leader at that time, and the sitting Prime Minister.

The manifesto quote: “There will be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down. And we will ensure that the British people are always in control.”

Claim 12: “By 2025, the legacy of Boris Johnson’s insane immigration system remained on display when official figures confirmed that of the 871,000 visas that had been issued the previous year barely one in five had gone to work applicants. The rest had gone to foreign students, relatives, asylum seekers and refugees, with nearly 50,000 illegal migrants on top.”

Reality: 262,000 were “work related”, 266,000 were “study related” 76,000 were “family” either the family of a British citizen, or the family of someone on a visa, 95,000 were “asylum” most of these will have been Afghanistan or Ukraine, 51,000 were “humanitarian” that’s Hong Kong, BNOs, Ukraine etc.

Claim 13: “‘The essence of a nation’, wrote the academic Walker Connor, ‘is not the territory occupied but the people who occupy it. To replace the people is to replace the nation.’”

Reality: I cannot verify this quote, or anything similar to it from Walker Connor or anyone else. I believe this is another AI hallucination.

Claim 14: “This is precisely what mass immigration is doing to the White British majority. It is hastening the decline of the historic majority. Without this historic core, as Professor Anthony Smith warned, the nation loses its distinctive identity and becomes an empty shell.”

Reality: This is actually the opposite of what Anthony Smith said (page 51 of this pdf): smerdaleos.wordpress.com/wp-content/upl…

Claim 15: “‘A society that cannot distinguish its friends from its enemies’, Sir Roger Scruton warned, ‘or that extends hospitality to those who despise its way of life, is a society that has lost the instinct for survival.’ That is what suicidal empathy has done to our leaders.”

Reality: This is part of Google’s AI generated summary of Roger Scruton’s views - not an actual quote of his.

.@GoodwinMJ can you please outline the above, this is only in the first 5 chapters of the book - I’ve got the Carabao Cup to go to this afternoon, so await your response before reading on.

(h/t @johnpmerrick) bossman @GoodwinMJ left the ChatGPT in the url in his references hahaha

@GoodwinMJ bosh