Ferret Underground: Election selection

Hi ,

Politics is in the grip of election fever! Or maybe more accurately 'when will the election be?' fever?

Rumours of a May vote seem to have been unfounded, and the smart money is now on us going to the polls in November.

As you'd expect, The Ferret is ahead of the game making plans for our election coverage, and we've already had some impact.

Reform UK has suspended two of its election candidates after we discovered they were sharing posts by far right figures and hateful comments about trans people on social media.

Another example of how good journalism changes things. Stay tuned for more coverage of the UK general election, whenever it might be.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has suspended two Scottish general election candidates after a Ferret investigation found posts by prominent far right figures and hateful comments about trans people were shared on their social media accounts.

Reform candidates standing in Scottish constituencies in the next UK general election include Stephen McNamara who is described as a “proud tax avoider” in his Twitter bio. McNamara said trans people have a “severe mental illness” and that their “days are numbered”.

An account belonging to David McNabb, a fellow candidate, shared a video from far right commentator Katie Hopkins, and another post which said first minister Humza Yousaf should not be able to hold a rugby trophy because he is “more Pakistani than Scottish.

How could ‘fake news’ impact elections in India?

It’s the final episode of our three-part For Fact’s Sake series on elections.

This week, we are looking at the biggest vote taking place in this election year, in India.

Ali and Paul spoke to Jency Jacob, the managing editor of BOOM, a fact checking organisation based in India and also covering Myanmar and Bangladesh.

He explained the difficulties of fact-checking in an election that covers a billion potential voters, and the types of misinformation that voters in India encounter.