Frankly, dog whistle politics would be preferable to this

Yesterday, David Cameron took up the issue of people on incapacity benefits, claiming that “We are finding a large number of people who are on incapacity benefit because of drink problems, alcohol problems or problems with weight and diet” (see footage here).

There’s only one problem with the claim.

He said “a large number”. Yet the Department for Work and Pensions’s own figures show that it’s less than one in twenty of people who are on incapacity benefit for those reasons (3.9%).

So if 3.9% is “a large number”, what does that make the 96.1%? A huge, enormous, gigantic, big, hefty, great, considerable, substantial, massive, vast, colossal, titanic and immense number. And then some.

Yet the story wasn’t about the good news that so few people fall into this category. Or about how tackling this issue wouldn’t be nearly enough on its own. No, that less than one in twenty was the story, repackage as large.

Dog whistle politics at least involves a certain shamefacedness about making comments that will result in a blizzard of hostile reactions. But this was just up-front misrepresentation. It was just brazen in taking the highly exceptional and the extremely unusual and presenting them as if they were the common and the ordinary.

That’s not being Prime Ministerial. That’s not showing leadership. That’s now showing compassion. It’s not even showing an understanding of what the very evidence you’re quoting actually says.

Instead it’s all about inventing scares, exaggerating fears and appealing to the very worst in the media and the public. And Liberal Democrats should be taking a leaf out of Vince Cable’s book on immigration and speaking up.