Fact check: New runways, growth projections and Taylor Swift clip
Round-up of fact checks from the last week compiled by Full Fact.
This roundup of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information.
– Has Britain built a runway since the 1940s?
On Thursday, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about government backing for a third runway at Heathrow Airport, Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed “the last time we built a runway in this country was in the 1940s”.
In another interview on LBC, she said: “We haven’t built a new runway in Britain since the 1940s.”
This is not correct. A second runway at Manchester Airport was approved in 1997 and opened in 2001. It was built on greenbelt land and its construction prompted long-running protests from environmental activists.
One newspaper report from the day it opened hailed the runway as “the first built in Britain for 20 years”. (It’s not clear which previous runway construction this refers to—we’ve not looked in this fact check at what other runways were built prior to 2001.)
Ms Reeves made a slightly different claim on Wednesday in a major speech on boosting economic growth, saying: “The last full-length runway in Britain was built in the 1940s.”
It’s not entirely clear how Ms Reeves meant to define “full length”. But Manchester Airport does use that term to describe the runway built in 2001 — its website states: “Manchester is still the only airport outside of London with two full-length runways.” According to the Institution of Civil Engineers, the airport’s two runways are 3,200 metres and 3,048 metres long.
Meanwhile, a 2016 report from the Department for Transport which looked at airport capacity made a more specific claim than Ms Reeves’, which appeared to allow for Manchester Airport’s second runway, saying: “We have failed to build a new full-length runway in the South East since the 1940s.”
After asking Ms Reeves’ office about her comments, Full Fact received a response from the Treasury. It confirmed that the last full-length runway built in Britain was in Manchester in 2001, and that the last full-length runway built in the South East was in the 1940s.
– Did the IMF forecast the UK’s economy will be the fastest growing in Europe?
After the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published new economic projections earlier this month, we’ve seen a number of inaccurate claims about the UK’s projected growth.
Full Fact’s AI tools identified a claim made by health minister Karin Smyth on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions on January 17. She said: “We’ve seen today… from the IMF some signs that they think we’ll be the fastest-growing economy in Europe.” We’ve also seen similar claims in a media report and on social media.
The recent IMF projections don’t show that the UK is on track to be the fastest growing economy in Europe, however. They project the UK’s GDP to increase by 1.6% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026, but project that both Spain (2.3% and 1.8%) and Poland (3.5% and 3.3%) will have higher GDP growth in both years, while the Netherlands will have similar GDP growth in 2025 (1.6%) and higher growth in 2026 (1.8%).
It is true, though, that the IMF projects the UK will have higher GDP growth in 2025 and 2026 than the other European members of the G7 bloc (Germany, France and Italy).
Ms Smyth’s office told Full Fact she mis-spoke and had indeed intended to refer to ”major” European economies, meaning those in the G7.
– Viral Taylor Swift clip has been altered
A video clip of US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift supposedly saying the recent wildfires in Los Angeles were “divine retribution” for US military support for Israel does not show a real interview, and has likely been altered using AI.
The video has been shared on social media in the wake of the LA wildfires, which killed at least 29 people earlier this month.
It shows Ms Swift speaking while glancing to her right and left, and features Arabic subtitles and a logo that resembles a news channel watermark.
Ms Swift appears to say: “Israel burns Gaza for a year-and-a-half with missiles funded by American taxpayers, only for God’s punishment to strike the US in just two days.”
But Full Fact traced the original footage to an interview Ms Swift did in November 2021 on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, in which she discussed a recording of her song All Too Well. At no point did she mention Israel, Gaza or wildfires in the United States.
While the audio in the fake video bears some similarity to Ms Swift’s voice, the words are delivered in a robotic manner, with unnatural pauses and an unusual cadence, suggesting that it may have been created using AI.
The movement of Ms Swift’s lips in the shared video often appears to match the words she is saying, but this seems to have been changed from the original video, which is higher resolution, particularly around the mouth. Haziness around the lips and mouth area is often a telltale sign a video has been poorly lip-synced using AI.
