Reform’s Matt Goodwin ‘flayed’ in debate on AI book inaccuracies

Matt Goodwin was the unsuccessful Reform UK candidate in the Gorton & Denton by-election. Not content with losing that race, Goodwin went on to find all new ways of being a loser in the aftermath. Most recently, this saw him publishing a book that was filled with dodgy stats, fake quotes, and AI hallucinations.

In a last ditch attempt to save his reputation, Goodwin debated a critic on 27 March. Knowing what we know about Goodwin, you may be unsurprised to learn this went horribly for him:

Gobsmacking self-humiliation by the badloser self-publishing this pile of Ai hallucination slop & race-baiting rubbish.@andytwelves utterly flays him here it’s incredible stuff 😭 https://t.co/NP8sOZmSt2

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) March 27, 2026

Reform’s own MattGPT

As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary on 24 March, journalist Andy Twelves discovered several problems with Goodwin’s book Suicide of a Nation. Twelves noted issues like the following:

Claim 1: “In one year 1 classroom in Bradford, only four of twenty eight pupils spoke English as their first language. Teachers report spending large amounts of time simply mediating between dozens of languages, making normal teaching almost impossible and slowing down the rate of progress for everybody.”

Reality: I cannot find any evidence of this claim at all. I checked local, and national news, and his own X page. I believe from the lack of referencing, and the way it’s written, to be an AI hallucination.

Claim 2: “In 2019, BBC West Midlands highlighted schools where children speak more than thirty different languages, making normal teaching almost possible. Teachers often feel they are no longer running a school but a translation service.”

Reality: I cannot find any evidence of BBC West Midlands writing this story at all. There is an article about a primary school from the Metro in 2021:

BBC West Midlands does not exist, it’s BBC Midlands.

Claim 3: “In Leicester, Luton, Slough, and virtually all of London, most primary school pupils’ main language is no longer English”

Reality: This is statistical illiteracy. The main language of all of those primary schools, and their pupils is English. He does not understand EAL.

Claim 4: “This is, put simply, not sustainable.”

Reality: Every ofsted report you read from all of the primary schools he’s vaguely referenced confirm the strong progress by Year 6 of EAL students, as the same as their English First Language counterparts.

The list went on and on despite Twelves having only read the first few chapters. Notably, none of Goodwin’s allies defended him. In fact, some right-wing outlets came out against him:

I regret to inform the house, @GoodwinMJ has even lost the @spectator. read me here: https://t.co/lDJktnhpvU https://t.co/D7Cb7dy3oT pic.twitter.com/c0K80aBvGj

— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 24, 2026

Goodwin must have realised his career was in jeopardy. Clearly wanting to salvage it, he agreed to debate Twelves on GB News.

The problem is there was no set of words Goodwin could string together to fix this mess. The second problem is there were things he could say that would definitely make things worse.

Debatable

After Goodwin lost in Gorton & Denton, people began referring to him as ‘Matt Badloss’. Following the publication of his book, people started calling him ‘MattGPT’. Bizarrely, Badloss attempted to defend his use of AI by asking ChatGPT what it thought:

🇬🇧 Failed Reform UK candidate Matt Goodwin defends himself against accusations his book was written by ChatGPT by reading a statement written by ChatGPT.

Analysis of Goodwin's new book, Suicide of a Nation, found that it invents numerous quotes by historical figures, uses false… pic.twitter.com/ywNgV2AEsw

— Europa.com (@europa) March 27, 2026

Matt Goodwin using AI in an attempt to demonstrate that he didn’t use AI to write his book is an unexpectedly great TV moment.

— Matthew Stadlen (@MatthewStadlen) March 27, 2026

In the clip above, an indignant Goodwin said:

I ran it through ChatGPT. Do you want to know what ChatGPT says? It said this does not read like an AI written book. There is no credible evidence this book was written by AI. In fact, no, let me finish because this is important. This is about integrity. In fact, the dominant signals in this book point the other way. There’s pro-human authorship. There’s emotionally driven language. There’s escalating rhetoric. There’s signature voice writing. There’s long-range argument structure.

So the untrustworthy software which made up a load of quotes said we can trust Goodwin.

Convinced?

In another wonderful moment, Goodwin said:

You asked me, ‘has this book been peer reviewed by experts’. Every single demographic projection in this book was reviewed by some of the world’s leading demographers.

When asked to “name them”, Goodwin looked surprised then smiled awkwardly. As it turned out, he couldn’t name a single expert, with Twelves asking if Goodwin needed to get on ChatGPT to ask who the world’s leading demographers were.

Goodwin was also torn apart for not understanding in his book that children who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL) can actually speak English (hence it being ‘an additional language’):

Not sure but very likely I’d be categorised EAL as a kid & been in those stats.

Matt’s dog whistles are trying to sow undue concern.

I was always British & fluent in English, I was just bilingual.
This is not a bad thing, it’s the norm globally outside Anglo-speaking countries. https://t.co/MkcSx2lHom

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) March 28, 2026

Twelves highlighted many more inaccuracies too:

'This isn't political, it's just about truth.'

Andy Twelves explains why he has been so critical of Matt Goodwin's latest book and the use of AI to help write it.

📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
🇬🇧 Become a Friend of GB News: https://t.co/mNsRsGC8ef pic.twitter.com/ZebbftYjCS

— GB News (@GBNEWS) March 27, 2026

As people highlighted, Goodwin’s book contains so many issues that even if every one had a justification, it would still be an error-riddled mess of a work:

You can blame your critics for focusing on minor points at the expense of a broader argument if you accidentally attributed something to the New York Post rather than the New York Times. You can't do it if you have a series of imaginary quotes.https://t.co/GPFfde7eRA

— Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) March 27, 2026

Things have gotten so embarrassing for Reform’s Goodwin that his detractors feel sorry for him:

There's a point in a person's life where their friends should step in. Intervene.

Has Goodwin set fire to every bridge he crossed? Does he have nobody?

He's been ritually humiliated to the point that there's no coming back from this.

I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost. 🤏 https://t.co/BuBCJbxWIP

— Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) March 27, 2026

Twelves himself is not among those showing sympathy for MattGPT:

Current scenes #MattGoodwin @andytwelves https://t.co/XWIDdtUIx7 pic.twitter.com/Jj2EBHokVQ

— Albie (@albieamankona) March 27, 2026

Professional unaliving

At this point, Goodwin’s career may be unsalvageable.

Our suggestion is he changes the name of his book from Suicide of a Nation to Suicide of a Career. That won’t turn things around, but it would show he’s capable of some degree of honesty. It would also be very funny, and lord knows this miserable loser could do with a laugh.

Featured image via GB News