Questions tagged [united-kingdom]

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe.

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Has immigration from Eastern Europe impacted UK youth unemployment?

MigrationWatch UK is a think-tank that argues for lower immigration levels into the UK. In a 2012 Briefing Paper they claimed: Youth unemployment in the UK increased by almost 450,000 in the period from 2004 Q1 to 2011 Q3, from 575,000 to…
AnthonyBlake
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Is Britain's housing crisis caused by migrants?

In the Sunday Times on 26th November 2017, journalist Rod Liddle makes a case for our need to build new houses being exclusively due to immigration. He claims that the demand for new houses is not due to the British birth rate, which is 1.79…
mdarwin
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Are 3 in 4 attenders at hospital emergency departments on weekends there because of alcohol?

This claim has been widely repeated this week in many newspapers and news sites (e.g. arstechnica). Here is how the Daily Telegraph repeats it: Three in four people in accident and emergency units at the weekend have been admitted because of…
matt_black
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Were all but one of the US presidents descended from King John of England?

The Daily Mail says: A 12-year-old girl created family tree linking 42 of 43 U.S. presidents to King John of England, who signed the Magna Carta in 1215. Only the eighth president, Martin Van Buren, was not related to John. This has been…
Noam
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Does the UK provide 50% of EU's waters? And does this imply anything about fishing rights?

Leading Brexiteer Owen Paterson wrote in an article in the Telegraph about fisheries: At present, the UK provides 50 per cent of the EU’s waters but receives only a 25 per cent share of the Total Allowable Catch. Is this assessment correct in both…
Fizz
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Was a monkey hanged as a French spy in Hartlepool?

Everyone in the North-East of England knows that during the Napoleonic wars the good burghers of Hartlepool, having found a shipwrecked monkey washed up on the beach, thought it was a French spy, and (after a fair trial) hanged it (from a convenient…
Brian Hooper
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Does an official UK government report show 'Hope Not Hate' as a radical extremist hate group?

On the 12th of February 2023 Douglas Murray, Author and political commentator, wrote the following tweet: Evidence from official UK government report shows radical far-left group ‘Hope Not Hate’ (⁦@hopenothate⁩) is in fact a radical extremist…
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Was it traditional for MPs to fully recline on a House of Commons bench?

At 1:09 of this Sep 18 2019 the Telegraph interview, Jacob Rees-Mogg proclaims JRM: It's very traditional to sit like that in the House of Commons, it has to be said. Christopher Hope, Interviewer & Telegraph's Asst Editor: But is it OK on the…
user16959
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Does Great Britain have the lowest state pensions (relative to average wages) in the OECD?

I recently came across this political post on Facebook It is arguing that Great Britain is the 'worst' in the developed world, and I'm sceptical of a few assertions made here. UK pensions don't seem to be based on earnings - Where has this 29%…
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Is the UK's trade with the EU artifically inflated by having to ship its exports via Europe?

I was talking to a pro-Brexit UK woman who made some... interesting claims about UK-EU trade that I hadn't heard before and couldn't immediately counter. She claimed the UK's apparently very large portion of exports to Europe (she said 60% of UK…
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Do almost half of Londoners think that cutting immigration would help London's housing crisis?

As a Christmas present on the 25th I just got a leaflet from UKIP in my post stating that 44% of Londoners say that cutting EU immigration would help solve the London housing crisis. There are no references on the leaflet except for a…
SztupY
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Does it cost £1.5 to clean up every piece of gum left on UK Streets?

This advertisement is claiming that it costs 50 times more for the city to clean up gum, than it takes to buy the stuff (at least in the UK). For a total of £1.5. Which seems strange, as normally Street cleaning is done all at once and with special…
Jonathon
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Are members of organized rape gangs in the UK mostly of Kashmir / Pakistani origin?

On BBC three's Free Speech, Does ‘rape culture’ exist in the UK?, James Delingpole, Executive Editor Breitbart London made a claim (4:10 mark) that was followed by boos from the audience and a charge of spreading lies from fellow panelist Nelufar…
user1873
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Does Echelon exist?

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New…
Renan
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Did some people in the UK get £100k in benefits?

According to Theresa May quoted in The Guardian, the government introduced Universal Credit because some people were getting up to £100k in benefits: May says the government introduced UC because the “legacy system” left by Labour was flawed. Some…
gerrit
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