As BBC Verify’s 63-strong team is busy producing its vital public service fact-checking (Are top honours winners too posh and too southern?), Guido has decided to step up to the plate and provide verification services when required. Guido Verify is hereby launched.
James O’Brien’s show continues to cement its reputation as the least-well-informed radio show in the country. Last week O’Brien confused the Munich Crisis with the invasion of Poland in one of his diatribes…
This time Sadiq Khan took a break from campaigning against Brexit to talk about how awful Reeves’ plan to expand Heathrow Airport is:
“I forgot people affected by this not just those affected by the noise and the air and carbon emissions but also villages destroyed, homes destroyed, I mean the surface links he will have to increase by 50%. I mean at the moment to give you an idea there’s a cap of 480,000 flights a day – they want to increase that according to their plans to 720,000 and that means villages being destroyed, and homes being demolished.”
Clearly Khan foresees total armageddon if a third runway is built. His maths is interesting, though. Guido Verify has examined the claims.
If 720,000 flights left Heathrow every day there would be 30,000 planes shooting off every hour which is of course 500 per minute. 8.3 per second. O’Brien did not challenge Khan on his sums and nodded along…
Khan may have intended to refer to the annual flight cap – useful to get these details right if you’re going to take matters before a judge. What is it about LBC and maths…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”