🧵 Matt Goodwin demanded to be fact-checked live on air when he claimed the UK spent "£100 million PER YEAR on family planning and condoms in Pakistan". He then 'corrected' himself to £74.3 million, saying it was based on a "major news story from October 2025" He was, of course, still wrong... 1/30
This was the "major news story" from October 2025👇 A blog post from the right-wing site Guido Fawkes, desperate for you to "think condoms in shop windows". A blog post based on "research" done by none other than the opaquely funded RW think tank - TaxPayers' Alliance. 2/
"Research" that doesn't appear anywhere on their own website. It seems someone from the TPA trawled publicly available FCDO projects to find numbers and phrases they could strip of all context and meaning, designed for maximum ‘outrage’, and then gave that directly to Guido Fawkes to publish 🙄 3/ City AM then took Goodwin's interview as their cue to publish 👇 A wildly misleading headline, based on a false claim on air, which is in turn based on a hugely misleading blog post... So let's try and return some context and educate ourselves on phrases Guido Fawkes clearly didn't understand 4/
First up - the numbers floating about: 🛑 £100 million PER YEAR This is just a lie. The program that began under the Tories 10 years ago has cost £96 million over 10 years and will be completed in February next year. So the whole thing will come in at ~£10 million per year 5/
🛑 £74.3 million This was the expected cost of one of the 6 components of the program (where TPA could find the word 'condom') The actual cost to date is ~£59 million 🛑 £88 million They've added on a second component at £13.44 mil that contains the word 'contraceptives' 6/ Apparently they didn't feel the need to look at the other 4 components of a program particularly aimed at underserved rural women. I mean, why bother when they don't allow you to try and pretend this is all about Pakistani men and Durex condoms?? 🤷♀️ (Can anyone else spot the dog whistle? 🤔) 7/
Pakistan has a rapidly growing population set to double in the next 25-35 years, impacting political stability Family planning is a global development "best buy" - lifting millions out of poverty, saving lives, improving education and gender equality, and returning ~$120 for every $1 invested 8/
Feels like a no-brainer to try and support a rapidly growing developing country to grow less rapidly in the face of limited resources, global instability and a climate crisis which will likely drive millions of climate refugees in the years to come. So what did it achieve? 9/ By Dec 2024 it had: Reached 10.8 million family planning users Averted 5,412 maternal deaths Averted 7.11 million unwanted pregnancies Prevented 2.31 million unsafe abortions Resulted in better Value for Money than expected. That sounds pretty successful! 10/
These were the inputs, outputs and objectives👇 Notice that the point was not to "promote condoms" but to avert maternal deaths, reduce fertility rates and therefore reduce vulnerability to climate change and climate impacts. 11/
You have to ask why the Guido Fawkes headline, the City AM headline and Matt Goodwin wanted you to focus on condoms for Pakistani men rather than the family planning and maternal health services for rural women? 12/ Guess how many times condoms were mentioned in the 31-page detailed review of DAFPAK? Twice! See what I mean by them having to dig deep for the rage bait 🙄 12/ Once, when showing how many regular contraceptives (injectables, pills and condoms) were provided by Lady health workers trained by the project. And once when reporting on social marketing (I'll explain what that means, as it doesn't mean what you think it means!) 13/
So that's it: in a comprehensive 31-page report on the success of the program, condoms are mentioned just twice, and both times in the context of broader contraceptive use aimed at women. But sure - make sure you picture Durex on Pakistani pharmacy shelves while grumbling about £100 million! 15/ So let's take a look at what social marketing means in the context of family planning - as this is the section Guido Fawkes latched onto. (I'll come to the "branded" part shortly - because again, it doesn't mean what you think it means!) 16/
Family planning social marketing is a tried and tested approach. An independent review found it to be a "cost-effective strategy for reducing unwanted pregnancies and STDs" 17/
DKT, one of the partners in this program, explains how and why it works👇 Basically, rather than giving out free contraceptives in health clinics that women may not have access to, they encourage pharmacies and shops already in rural communities to stock them and provide family planning support 18/
So now onto the 'branded' part. This part was down to UK-based firm M+C Saatchi, who created a campaign 'brand' to: "serve as a trusted voice in family planning, uniting all communication under a common visual identity to provide reliable information and friendly advice to young couples."
This was about creating branding that people recognised and trusted via a social media, TV, radio, and print campaign. That branding was then used on the contraception that people could buy in their local shops - to help them feel more confident in accessing it. 20/ This wasn't 'branded condoms' in the sense of premium versus own-brand! These were some of the many strands of the brand campaign👇 21/
So now you know what family planning social marketing is, why it works and what the brand campaign was all about. Those were the 2 sections covered by the (up to) £88mil. What were the other 4 sections of the program focused on? I can't fit it in a tweet, so read the screenshot!👇
Obviously none of those were as titillating or rage-bait-inducing as wanging on about condoms for Pakistan so that's presumably why TPA and/or Guido Fawkes didn't include them 🤷♀️ 23/ So no, we didn't spend £100m, £74m, or even £88m on condoms or even "promoting branded condoms" for Pakistan. We spent just under £100 million over 10 years, paying NGOs and businesses, including UK organisations that pay UK taxes, wages, rent and bills to help predominantly women and children.
If you don't like people leaving countries like Pakistan in search of a better life, then you really should be in support of making Pakistan a more prosperous country going forward, even if global maternal health and infant mortality are of no interest to you 🤷♀️ 25/ £96m over ten years can seem like a big number. But in reality, ~£10m per year is about 14p per person in the UK or Just under 4 minutes of government spending each year for 5,412 averted maternal deaths, 7.11 million fewer unwanted pregnancies and 2.31 million fewer unsafe abortions... So much of what I do in debunking involves adding back in the context and nuance, to try and strip out the outrage and hatred. I shouldn't need to say this, but AI is wholly incapable of doing that! For example... 27/ This person tweeted in response to the LBC clip that it "took him less than a minute" - to prove Goodwin correct. And I'm sure it did take Gemini less than a minute - but it got all the same things wrong as TPA and GF. Because, of course, it used GF as its source 🙄 28/
It didn't understand what was meant by branding, nor what social marketing meant in the context of global family planning issues. So it just repeated the misleading phrases used by GF. And I see this all the time! AI will usually use the media story itself to say the media story is true! So please be vigilant 🕵️♀️ As ever, all links and full details are in 👇 monkdebunks.substack.com It's free to read and subscribe, but paid subscriptions and coffee (or tea in my case!) donations (buymeacoffee.com) can support me in doing these debunks!😊 30/30