Mark Littlewood of the think tank The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is in a bit of trouble this morning (HERE) after apparently suggesting to a potential donor that they could offer access to ministers and produce "research" that might be "shaped" by the donor. The earlier post on this blog (HERE) about Open Europe was also about a think tank. These are highly influential organisations that beaver away in the background for years and swing opinion towards their agenda or that of whoever is paying them.
A few days ago the website Desmog (HERE) reported that Shahmir Sanni, the whistle blower who revealed the links between Vote Leave and Beleave, had claimed that "think tanks and campaign groups held regular meeting at 55 Tufton Street — an office close to Westminster and home to the climate science denial group the Global Warming Policy Foundation — to “agree on a single set of right-wing talking points” and “securing more exposure to the public".
All this is coming out from papers filed in an industrial tribunal case involving Sanni's dismissal by The Taxpayers Alliance.
What it shows is an astonishing nexus of links and revolving doors between these rather shadowy right wing think tanks. A whole load of these organisations apparently used 55 Tufton Street. You might recognise some of the names because they frequently crop up in the press:
The Tax Payers Alliance (TPA)
Civitas
The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS)
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI)
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)
Leave means Leave
Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)
Brexit Central (BC)
Peter Whittle
Matthew Elliot is at the centre of a lot of this. He was a co-founder of the TPA, founded Businesses for Britain (HERE), was CEO of the Vote Leave campaign and is now editor at large for Brexit Central. He is also a fellow of the Legatum Institute, described as “the most influential think tank in the country” providing extensive advice to the government on Brexit issues.
At Businesses for Britain in 2015 he produced a 1000 page report - Change or Go - setting out options for Brexit, so was probably more influential than the CBI the organisation represeting 190,000 businesses who were remarkably neutral. Meanwhile Elliot, while seemingly representing almost no one except himself pumped out masses of anti-EU propaganda. The Editorial Board included Mark Littlewood and Matt Ridley (see below)
Shanker Singham (described by blogger Richard North as "snake oil" Singham) who is said to be highly thought of inside government, used to work for Legatum, writes for Brexit Central and is now at the IEA. Presumably he can do this without changing desks.
All of these people were enormously influential in Brexit. Feeding gullible reporters anti-EU stories and so on.
Another website (HERE) looks at the funding of think tanks and classifies them according to the transparency of the details they provide. They are categorised into five groups A-E. There is a surprising correlation between the list above and the think tanks in the least transparent group E. Four of the five least transparent think tanks operate out of 55 Tufton Street:
The Tax Payers Alliance (TPA)
The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS)
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI)
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)
Isn't that a coincidence? None of these organisations make public where their funding comes from.
As DeSmog UK previously reported, these organisations have strong ties with Tory MPs and Cabinet members and are working together to advocate for deregulation and a hard-Brexit.
And the report also sets out links between politicians and climate change deniers at the GWPF including Nigel Lawson, Graham Stringer MP, Owen Paterson MP, Matt Ridley and Peter Lilley.
Peter Lilley also sits on “a committee of experts” advising international trade secretary Liam Fox, apparently and is a a supporter of the European Research Group (ERG). Led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ERG is lobbying for a hard Brexit and has been described by Buzzfeed as “an aggressive, disciplined, and highly organised parliamentary and media operation”. Former Brexit minister, Steve Baker, is a past chair of the group.
Newly appointed Brexit minister Dominic Raab and environment secretary Michael Gove were active supporters of ERG before being promoted to cabinet roles while international trade secretary Liam Fox has also used the group to gather support among MPs. Tory MP John Redwood, former environment secretary Owen Paterson and new peer Peter Lilley are also members of the ERG.
The more you read and learn about Brexit the worse it is. These are the bad men, doing bad things badly.
Update: If you want to know how think tanks came about read THIS. It explains how the IEA was the first ever think tank founded in 1955 by two blokes, Anthony Fisher and Oliver Smedley both believing in free market ideas of Friedrich Hayek. From the blog:
Enough said?
Update: If you want to know how think tanks came about read THIS. It explains how the IEA was the first ever think tank founded in 1955 by two blokes, Anthony Fisher and Oliver Smedley both believing in free market ideas of Friedrich Hayek. From the blog:
"The Think Tank that Antony Fisher set up was very different. It had no interest in thinking up new ideas because it already knew the "truth". It already had all the ideas it needed laid out in Professor Hayek's books. Its aim instead was to influence public opinion - through promoting those ideas.
It was a big shift away from the RAND model - you gave up being the manufacturing dept for ideas and instead became the sales and promotion dept for what Hayek had bluntly called "second-hand ideas".
To do this Fisher and Smedley knew they had to disguise what they were really up to. In 1955 Smedley wrote to Fisher - telling him bluntly that the new Institute had to be "cagey" about what its real function was. It should pretend to be non-political and neutral, but in reality they both knew that would be a front.
The IEA would masquerade as a "scholarly institute", as Hayek had suggested to Fisher, while behind that it would really function as an ideologically motivated PR organisation. It was, Smedley wrote:
"Imperative that we should give no indication in our literature that we are working to educate the Public along certain lines which might be interpreted as having a political bias. In other words, if we said openly that we were re-teaching the economics of the free-market, it might enable our enemies to question the charitableness of our motives. That is why the first draft (of the Institute's aims) is written in rather cagey terms."
Enough said?
