The first target of Theresa May’s ‘fake news unit’ should be her own Cabinet

Fake news remains big news. I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s favourite insult, which he likes to hurl at credible outlets such as CNN, an insult that has gradually transformed from Twitter banter to genuine incitement to hatred. A gunman in the US allegedly threatened to kill CNN employees by warning them: “Fake news. I’m coming to gun you all down.”

The President’s line of insults is itself fake news, but it’s also dangerous because it damages genuine journalism.

It also masks the stuff that is more pernicious – the real fake news – that creeps into our timelines on Facebook and Twitter, confirming our unconscious biases to such an extent that we barely realise the difference with real news.

By last year this – the real fake news – had become a global industry, run from outposts in Macedonia and elsewhere, because social media giants like Facebook continued to insist they are merely platforms for content, rather than publishers with responsibilities. Only recently have the social media companies pledged to close down accounts that propagate fake news, and stop our feeds becoming crammed with spurious content.

There is nothing new in the purpose and design of fake news – it’s just a 21st century mutation of ‘black propaganda’ – only the way it is disseminated. At the epicentre of so much of this disinformation is, of course, Russia. British military chiefs believe that our defence capabilities are at their most vulnerable on the cyber frontline, not only by major hacking operations but by foreign powers spreading disinformation to sow discord in Britain.

So great is the threat that Theresa May has announced a rapid response unit to counter the spread of fake news by foreign powers. This “dedicated national security communications unit” will flag up fake news to social media companies, or carry out rapid response rebuttals to close the story down.

As serious as this new unit’s work will be, I can’t help wondering whether the Prime Minister’s commitment to accuracy is a little hollow, given her Government’s enthusiasm for perhaps not actual fake news, but smoke and mirrors, jiggery-pokery, ‘cooking the books’ and being economical with the truth.

The most glaring example is the NHS – which was given some unexpected spotlight this week by Boris Johnson. The Foreign Secretary’s call for £100m a week in extra funding raised eyebrows given he is so closely associated with the Leave campaign’s fake news pledge to deliver £350m a week extra for the NHS.

But at least Johnson is arguing for more money now, because the health service desperately needs it. Yet the PM and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt have dismissed this plea by continuing to claim they are spending record amounts on the NHS. While this may be technically correct, it is just not enough to cope with the ongoing pressures on hospitals. Simply, the public is not being told the truth about the state of our health service.

Only this week the UK Statistics Authority called out the NHS for potentially misleading the public on how A&E waiting times – a cornerstone measure of the state of the NHS – are recorded. Hospital trusts are being told to include statistics from local walk-in centres in their records of A&E performance, even if those walk-in centres are nothing to do with the hospital. This order from NHS Improvement, a government watchdog, has led to A&E waiting times looking shorter than they are because the walk-in services see and treat people more quickly.

To put it brutally, the figures are being fiddled and the real extent of the A&E crisis is being downplayed.

Similarly, the Government’s claim that it is spending “record amounts” on schools in England is not entirely the full story. Last year teachers and parents scrabbled to meet the shortfall in school budgets, including doing charity runs to raise the extra cash. While the amount of money being spent on schools was the highest ever, in reality there was a real terms cut because of inflation and the rising numbers of pupils.

But perhaps the PM’s anti-fake news unit can turn its attention to the biggest fiddle of all: Brexit. Not only were the public told during the referendum that they would get £350m a week extra for the NHS, but prominent Leave campaigners said Britain would not have to quit the single market. Since taking office, Ms May has been less than forthcoming on what Brexit will look like, and her Brexit Secretary, David Davis, has twisted and turned on whether the Government had carried out research on its impact – before admitting last month that no impact assessments had been carried out at all. If the Prime Minister really wants to combat fake news, she should start with her own Government.