The UK's statistics watchdog (the UK Statistics Authority's Office for Statistics Regulation, also known as the OSR) has reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly made "incorrect" claims about the level of child poverty in the UK under the Conservative Party government.

The OSR concluded that the Prime Minister's main suggestion - that the number of children in poverty had fallen by 400,000 since 2020 - was one of several inaccurate statements on the issue since he was election in December. They found that his line in Prime Minister's Question Time in July 2020 (that "absolute poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government") was similarly untrue.

Despite being called out for his errors, with Labour leader Keir Starmer challenging him to correct his statement, Johnson further made inaccurate assumptions about the UK's poverty rates.

In reality, the OSR reported that the number of people living in absolute poverty had fallen by 100,000, not 400,000, since 2010. Further, the number below the poverty line is not 500,000, as Johnson had previously reported, but is 1.5 million.

In addition, since 2010/11 the number of children in relative poverty, by the DWP's own measure, had actually gone up by 500,000.

The OSR has now written to No. 10 Downing Street to draw attention to the correct statistics, advising the Prime Minister's briefing team that they should pay more attention to its conclusions.

On her Sunday radio show, Nina Porter asked listeners if they think Boris Johnson can be trusted as Prime Minister. Here's what listener Josh had to say...

Broadcasted exclusively worldwide on W!ZARD Radio Station.

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