"Traffic light labelling introduced for politicians"

From The Daily Mirror:

A traffic light ­labelling system is being brought in for all the major political parties and taxpayer-funded bodies from today.

At-a-glance data showing levels of duplicity, dishonesty, laziness, self-importance and corruption will be used for each MP or local councillor, franked from green (trustworthy), through amber (take with a large pinch of salt) to red ('on the take' or 'downright stupid' and can be ignored).

Guideline Bullshit Amounts (GBA) have been replaced by "Reference Outputs" to show how much of the maximum permitted daily output of propaganda and thoughtless tub-thumping is in a typical 100-word section of their speeches, letters or articles.

After years of politicians running their own ways of misrepresenting facts and figures, the Office for National Statistics has drawn up the traffic light charter to make the choice easier for voters.

It comes as politicians pump out yet more made-up figures, such as the baseless claim that health problems associated with being overweight or obese cost the NHS more than £5 billion a year, which was promptly marked with red.

Almost two thirds of MPs in England are corrupt, stupid or lazy, a third of local councillors and a quarter of Assembly members, all of whose public utterances will now be clearly marked with the red traffic light.

Public Health Minister Anna Soubry said: "The UK already has the largest number of wild claims which are complete and utter bollocks and we know that people get confused by the variety of lies that are used. We're not even consistent, are we? Research shows that, of all the current schemes, people like this label the most and they can use the information to make better choices at the ballot box.

"We all have a responsibility to tackle the challenge of double-dealing and corruption, including the quangocrats and academics. By having all major political parties and most media outlets signed up to the consistent label, we will all be able to see at a glance whether a politician is to be believed. This is why I want to see all newspapers and universities signing up and using the label."

Campaign and pressure groups welcomed the scheme.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said:

"This labelling scheme will encourage our leaders to do more to reduce the amount of complete and utter dissembling in their pronouncements. The National Trust and the CPRE will have to add bright red stickers to each baseless claim suggesting that England is being concreted over."

British Heart Foundation chief executive Simon Gillespie added:

"This is undeniably a first-class scheme that will make it easier for shoppers to scan the shelves for what they would really like to eat and ignore the petty-minded nonsense that comes from my own taxpayer- or Big Pharma-funded lobbying fronts such as my own.

"All of our tosh about high levels of diet-related chronic diseases in the UK, including heart disease has confused shoppers quite a lot and it's essential we have clear and consistent labelling on all BHF press release so that journalists and readers can cheerfully ignore them.

"We're solid red, by the way."