Last week the @Daily_Express ran with the following front page.

So obviously I had to take a look!

Is it true?

How does it compare to other professions?

Because anyone familiar with British RW media discourse knows they reserve a special venom for civil servants…🤷🏼‍♀️

🧵
1/25 The article contains a whole section from @the_tpa referring to:

“A simply unbelievable 1.6 million sick days over 3 years”

“Particularly a problem in our tax collector”

“Low-standards culture”

“Staff aren’t expected to turn up to work”

2/25

Following Farage’s announcement that he plans to make “serious cuts to the welfare budgets” if he wins the next election, I’ve seen this claim being repeated from last year’s headlines again.

So let’s take a look at the the reality rather than the weaponised version

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1/20 The stat comes from an ONS report published last December, which found that:

“The proportion of people living in households receiving more in benefits than they paid in taxes decreased from 53.6% to 52.6%”

Cool. Job done 👍🏼

The headlines are correct, right?

Not exactly…

2/20

This is getting absolutely ridiculous now.

Headline: Rayner’s family home was valued at almost twice the amount of other recently sold properties on her street.

Article: Behind a paywall so most people will take that insinuation at face value

The reality?

🧵1/10 The house was valued in 2023, by a third party, independent, professional valuer who would have visited the house, taken in all the information and gone away and found local comparables.

It was valued at £650,000.

So is it only actually worth £325K as the headline suggests?! 😱

2/10

The desperation by those on the Right to smear Angela Rayner is wearing thin🙄

And no - don’t bother replying UNTIL you’ve read the thread!

I’ve trawled through multiple versions of this “story” in the Telegraph and Daily Mail to try and piece together what’s going on!

🧵1/17 So let’s lay out the facts.

It is complicated, which is why the Right Wing media can have such a field day throwing around claims and insinuations to make you believe something dodgy has gone on.

To be clear - there is no suggestion she has broken any laws or failed to pay what she needed to pay - and they know that!

2/17

Ok, You've GOT to be kidding me!

The Conservatives - who oversaw every single thing on this list, who are responsible for all of it - are trying to claim that only the Conservatives would "stop the madness" - that they created...?

So incredulity aside, what about the list itself?

Let's go Debunking!

(I’ve written and tried posting this twice now and X is playing silly buggers so be patient as I might have to post it tweet by tweet😩)

1/24 📍Housing and food provided
directly by the State📍

Yes, the state has a legal obligation to provide shelter to anyone claiming asylum who has no access to any other place to stay.

And yes, they have a legal obligation not to let them starve.

It's depressing that even needs saying

2/

Oh my God - this has to be THE most obsurd @GuidoFawkes “scoop” in a long time (and they have some truly terrible ones!)

🚨Civil Servants Handed Taxpayer- Funded Free Ice Cream for No Reason🚨

It was neither taxpayer-funded NOR for no reason🙄

Quick 🧵

1/7 This is what they’re referring to.

They’re being encouraged to sign up to DigiGov 2025 with a fun little marketing campaign that offers you an ice cream on a warm Summer’s day.

So - that’s the reason ✅

2/7

Oh my word….

The click bait merchants at the Telegraph are having an absolute field day right now! 🙄

Shall we take a look at the *reality* behind this sensationalist article?

Go on, you know you want to! 😜

🧵

1/25 So, we begin with Samuel - not his real name - who travelled to the UK last year, was warned about London, and was then pickpocketed at Euston station.

A horrible thing to happen.

I was pickpocketed in London in the late 90s.

It’s not nice. It’s also nothing new.

2/25

I was asked to take a look into this tweet, cos, well, it’s Andrea Jenkyns!🤷🏼‍♀️

So first - the substance of the story…

1/20 Back in May, Anne-Marie Miles posted a video describing how she saw an elderly man having a discussion with a ticket inspector and she went to help.

She recognised him locally. He was homeless, carrying his belongings in a little trolly with his dog.

2/20

https://twitter.com/miles7marie/status/1928207671980675400

Right, so I was asked to take a look at this headline and as you can imagine, there is a lot wrong with it! 🙄

This was initially published in @thetimes and then picked up by the usual GB News, DM, Telegraph etc

Let’s take a look….👀

🧵

1/26 Firstly, they state this “analysis” was done by the Conservative Party.

There is no link to the analysis or any report…

Nice to know a political party can just feed their “analyses” direct to the Right Wing media who will print it with no scrutiny 👍🏼🙄

2/26

What do we think?🤔

Hmm…. A Daily Mail headline so clearly designed to make you furious.

Being shared by salivating Tory MPs who love a good rage farming story!

So, what’s going on here?

Let’s take a look!👀

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1/13 It’s a story about a young boy who was told he couldn’t be referred to their NHS Occupational Health therapist because he went to private school.

There are a handful of other examples in the article - all children being “denied” NHS education related occupational health care

2/

Oh @NeilDotObrien…..

Where do we start?

Disingenuous?

Ignorant?

Or just deliberately misleading for political gain?

A quick 🧵 to take a look!

1/12 Neil claims that Labour have ABANDONED their pledge to recruit 6,500 more teachers *over the course of this parliament* because teacher numbers were down for the 24/25 year.

2/12

Nigel Farage has been making some big populist promises.

But behind the soundbites lies not only a financial black hole, but tells us a lot about the future he sees for Britain:

Let’s take a closer look

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1/23 Last week, the leader of a party with just 5 MPs unveiled plans including:

📍Reinstating the winter fuel allowance (£1.5bn)

📍Removing the 2-child benefit cap (£3bn)

📍Raising the personal allowance to £20k (up to £80bn)

📍More tax breaks for married couples (~£4bn)

2/23

Well this is grim….

Rotherham Borough Council has a new Mayor.

And the Right are absolutely up in arms about the fact that she’s a Muslim woman.

And they are of course spreading vile lies about her.

So let’s just do a little sense check shall we?

🧵1/13
Rukhsana Ismail was born in Sheffield

In ENGLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 👍🏼

All they see is the Hijab.

They don’t care that she started volunteering for a domestic abuse and human trafficking charity while doing her A Levels.

2/13

Ok - you’ve seen the headlines about the “secretive” government agency planning on “dimming” the sun?

Sounds like something out of a Marvel film or a 1960’s James Bond, right?

Here’s a 🧵on who the government agency is and what *exactly* it is that they’re funding

1/
First let’s tackle the “secretive” agency:

ARIA - Advanced Research and Invention Agency

Set up to be the UK equivalent of DARPA in the US

Japan has Moonshot R&D

Germany has SPRIN-D

Govt agencies that support the most ambitious cutting-edge science and innovation

2/

No sooner have I debunked one set of headlines about refugees, along comes another one….🙄

Let’s do a quick fact check on this one so you can choose to be angry (if that’s your thing!) from a place of knowledge rather than media-driven emotional outrage👍🏼

🧵
1/15 Firstly - these are REFUGEES - not “illegal immigrants” (aka asylum seekers).

These are people who have been through the grueling and long drawn out asylum process, have proven their claim and have been granted Refugee status.

2/15

🚘 FREE DRIVING LESSONS FOR REFUGEES?!

If you've seen those headlines and felt a twinge of outrage, you're not alone.

But let's take a closer look at who's actually getting these lessons and why.

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1/16 The idea of someone else getting something “for free” seems to really trigger a particular sector of the media and online landscape.

Add benefit claimants or refugees into the mix, and the rage machine goes into overdrive.

2/16

Are Muslims really banning dogs in parks? 🤔

Let’s look at this perfect example of how rage baiting works, and how disinformation spreads, sticks, and fuels division, even years after being debunked…

🧵1/22 The comments were predictably furious:

❌ “No-go zones”
❌ “Muslims taking over”
❌ “Blame Labour/Sadiq Khan”
❌ “Britain is finished”

But pause a moment.

Ask yourself:

How likely is it that Muslims are actually putting up signs banning dogs in London parks?

2/22

🧵Trump’ Tariff Tantrum!

How AI, a failure to recognise discrepancies, a penchant for dictators, and some poor penguins crashed the markets….

#TrumpTariffs

1/ 2/
As we all know, last Wednesday was Trump’s “Liberation Day”, or as the finance guys called it - “Liquidation Day”🫣

Where he announced his tariffs and then managed to wipe $2.5 TRILLION off the US stock market in a day.

That’s more than the GDP of Italy!

The Telegraph recently ran a headline:

"More than one million foreigners claiming benefits."

Sounds shocking, right?

But what does it actually mean?

Let’s have a look!

🧵1/13 First, who are these "foreigners"?

They mean anyone who isn’t a British citizen—including people who’ve lived, worked, and paid taxes here for decades.

This includes:

✅ Those with settled status (EU)
✅ People with indefinite leave to remain
✅ Refugees

2/13

So let’s have a little look at the Right wing media feeding off its own ecosystem.

Here’s @TiceRichard claiming NET ZERO caused the Heathrow shut down, while sharing a Telegraph article that appears to back up his claim

Must be true then, right??

🧐you know the drill…

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1/
My first port of call in these scenarios is always the web archive to see how a story changes over time…..

In this case we had three versions published by the Telegraph

📰when the news first broke
📰when more info was known
📰when there was an “update”

2/

Ok, we’re back for the follow up!

And I’m looking forward to some apologies and a bit of eating humble pie - although I won’t hold my breath! 🤷🏼‍♀️

And read on to find out the exclusive on who actually called the police, and why!🚨

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1/

https://twitter.com/monkemma/status/1893712899006214620

When I highlighted that that headline had been hugely misleading, along with lots of support, I got a shed load of abuse and pushback.

So I’m going to respond to the key points people made and reveal what I’ve since discovered actually happened👍🏼

2/