234
votes
Accepted
Did the UK homicide rate go up after handgun ownership was banned?
The numbers are cherry-picked.
When you dig into sites that present this argument, they all appear to be strong advocates against regulating firearms, which makes me suspicious. Is this statistic ...
- 20.4k
172
votes
Accepted
Are refugees in the UK holidaying in the countries they fled from?
No, there is no evidence for this claim.
The reason the MP - Adam Holloway - thinks this is that his barber - a refugee - wasn't available one day:
“We have people in this country who have come ...
tim♦
- 52k
107
votes
Accepted
Is this photo of Jeremy Corbyn and caption accurate?
Yes, photo and caption are essentially accurate.
Some details are not entirely accurate: the arrest was in 1984, the Thatcher quote in 1987, and Cameron's trip in 1989. And although Thatcher labelled ...
- 17.9k
104
votes
Accepted
Could someone who sent a letter in 19th century London expect a reply within 2 hours?
I interpret the claim to not be about how responsive a particular recipient could be, but to be about how long it took to deliver a letter, and how often this service ran. i.e. if the recipient was ...
- 144k
103
votes
Accepted
Was a four year-old forced to sleep on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary?
The hospital says it happened:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-50713236
The hospital apologised and said it had had its busiest week since 2016.
Dr Yvette Oade, chief medical officer at ...
- 1,214
87
votes
Accepted
Did a 'Black History Month website' call white people ‘genetically defective descendants of albino mutants’?
It is indeed the site that you found. The article was entitled "Frances Cress Welsing: Melanin Theory". Frances Cress Welsing was a homophobic black supremacist writer. She claimed that the ...
- 46.3k
79
votes
Accepted
Was the Obama administration responsible for the decision to move the US embassy in London and the sale of the old location?
TL;DR
Trump has several key details wrong or incomplete.
1. Did the Obama administration have any say in the decision to move the embassy?
A quick google search on "US Embassy London Moved" ...
- 3,353
69
votes
Accepted
Did the UK slip to sixth largest world economy from fifth, less than 24 hours after the EU referendum vote?
It's impossible to definitively prove: GDP is calculated annually, and compared based on purchasing power, rather than currency fluctuations - countries can't officially change position like this ...
- 8,930
62
votes
Has Boris Johnson ever referred to any of his opponents as "traitors"?
"Guilty of betrayal", which at least implies the person so accused being a traitor.
YouTube:
I know that my Right Honourable friend will appreciate that in deciding to remain in the customs union, ...
- 19.1k
59
votes
Did the UK government pay "millions and millions of dollars" to try to snag Julian Assange?
Yes, back in 2015 a figure of around £11 million was estimated by the Metropolitan Police. This figure represents the total amount of resources allocated to monitoring the embassy for the three years ...
- 11.6k
58
votes
Accepted
Did Bercow say he would have sent the EU extension-request letter himself, had Johnson not done so?
The relevant point was this "point of order" after the debate and vote on Saturday 19 October 2019, which can be viewed on Parliamentlive.tv:
Joanna Cherry Further to that point of order, Mr ...
- 13.5k
58
votes
Accepted
Did UK hospital tell the police that a patient was not raped because the alleged attacker was transgender?
Background
The question is in fact solely based on remarks made in a House of Lords debate by Baroness Emma Nicholson on 16 March 2022. The newspaper reports I would suggest have no value as they are ...
- 5,294
57
votes
Did the UK government pay "millions and millions of dollars" to try to snag Julian Assange?
No additional funds were spent on his capture beyond the spending already budgeted for 'Diplomatic Protection'.
The Diplomatic Protection Group is responsible for the guarding of embassies. The money ...
- 1,820
57
votes
Are 700 more planes a day expected to fly because of the Heathrow expansion?
Heathrow Airport has a "dedicated website" for the planned creation of an additional runway. From the dedicated website (emphasis added):
Heathrow Today
98% capacity – Flight movements at ...
- 14.2k
55
votes
Is austerity in the UK responsible for "120,000" extra deaths?
That new report (Effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis) is absolutely in line of prior research. The mortality rises across the board ...
- 44.1k
54
votes
Accepted
Was Facebook cited as a reason for a third of UK divorces in 2010 in which unreasonable behaviour was a factor?
The Daily Mail, unsurprisingly, has provided a misleading 'clickbait' title for the article. The title doesn't match up with what details they actually say in the article (and which you cited) - your ...
- 1,283
54
votes
Is the UK lorry driver shortage unrelated to Brexit? Do EU countries have equal or greater shortages?
As of today, it doesn't appear to be the case that Germany is suffering from a similar fuel shortage as the UK, and it's not affected by a "driver crisis" as severe as the one in the UK. ...
- 9,508
52
votes
During Great Britain's coal-free day, were coal plants shut off, or active and generating power GB didn't use?
Quick Take: There doesn't appear to be available information to determine if the coal plants were burning coal, although not contributing electricity to the grid; there is sufficient information to ...
- 859
52
votes
Were over 3,000 persons arrested in Britain for social media posts in 2018?
I can't speak for the exactness of the figure, but it certainly seems plausible. According to this article about arrests for online posts in London 857 arrests were made in 2015 in London alone as a ...
- 57.7k
48
votes
Accepted
Does an official UK government report show 'Hope Not Hate' as a radical extremist hate group?
I am addressing the claim that the UK government officially recognise HOPE Not Hate as a radical extremist hate group.
The UK Government tracks hate crime statistics but doesn't track hate groups. ...
- 144k
47
votes
In 1936, did brothers Mark and David Ferrow transition?
These boys evidently had a difference of sexual development (DSD), commonly known as 'intersex', though definitions of intersex do vary, so DSD is preferred.
It quite clearly says that both boys were ...
- 5,294
41
votes
Did a 'Black History Month website' call white people ‘genetically defective descendants of albino mutants’?
Here's a cache'd snippet from Duck Duck Go pointing to this article.
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/science-and-medicine/frances-cress-welsing-melanin-theory/
This now 404's
...
- 511
38
votes
Accepted
Did non-voters outnumber the supporters of each political party in the UK in 2010?
BBC 2010 election page gives a summary. The data can be found at the Electoral Commission which oversees the votes.
Party Seats Gain Loss Net Votes %
Conservative 307 ...
- 670
38
votes
Accepted
Did Putin threaten to have traitors assassinated?
No, on the occasion in question Putin did not say that traitors would be killed. The quote in your question comes from a March 5, 2018 broadcast of BBC Newsnight. It is a concatenation of three ...
- 648
37
votes
Accepted
Do green grapes cause more accidents on the London Underground than banana peels?
This is a claim that is really easy to make.
Banana peel hazards
Can you really slip on an old banana peel?:
The banana peel fall: It"s a myth […] Contrary to comedic genius, […] a single peel ...
- 44.1k
36
votes
Accepted
Were over 3,000 persons arrested in Britain for social media posts in 2018?
Not in 2020*. In 2016.
The "3,300" figure is likely a reference to a 2017 piece in The Times.
More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social ...
- 1,024
34
votes
Did the BBC censor a non-binary character in Transformers: EarthSpark?
It is definitely true that the original includes a scene that has been indelicately removed from the version currently available on the BBC. This episode is available here in the UK, one can skip to ...
- 1,755
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible