The regularity with which right-wing lobbyists are invited by the BBC & #SkyPapers to give an opinion on a wide range of topics continues unabated despite a number of scandals. However, this example from back in 2016 should not be forgotten.

This BBC Newsbeat item aimed at young people focusses on a rightwing lobbyist, Kate Andrews (now at the IEA), who is given a platform to promote gun culture & the AK47. She’s introduced simply as a ‘US women’ – no mention of her background.

BBC Newsbeat: A US woman on why she disagrees with Obama on gun control

That’s Kate Andrews, Associate Director at the right wing, free-market lobby group IEA and formerly Head of Communications at the right wing, free-market lobby group Adam Smith Institute and staffer on Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. But just a simple ‘US woman’ as far as BBC Newsbeat is concerned.

This is a worrying example partly because promoting the AK47 is far off the spectrum for normal debate in the UK.  Did the BBC search out Kate Andrews in which case did they know about her lobbying background? Or did a lobbying organisation contact the BBC? Was the contact through normal channels or by word of mouth.  Whatever the answer it is hard to believe that Kate Andrews’ background was not known to the BBC in which case the description of her as a ‘US woman’ without any background information is beyond disquieting.

To be clear the key issue here is not the topic being presented but a lack of transparency regarding the background of an individual presenting a controversial opinion. The lobby groups that Kate Andrews has been associated with are extremely opaque about their funding and are exactly the kinds of organisation that the US National Rifle Association are likely to support financially.

This funding league table shows both the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute are among the organisations (group E) with the most opaque funding.

Source: http://whofundsyou.org/

Watch Mark Littlewood, director of IEA tell you from the horse’s mouth about the so-called “Institute” for Economic Affairs and its funding:
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/09/25/think-tank-behind-brexiteers-trade-blueprint-chased-funds-from-us-donors/

Rightwing thinktank, Adam Smith “Institute”, deletes offer of access to ministers for donors:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/01/rightwing-thinktank-deletes-offer-of-access-to-ministers-for-donors?CMP=share_btn_tw

Charity Commission, slams IEA over pro-Brexit report backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/01/iea-brexit-jacob-rees-mogg-charity-commission?CMP=share_btn_tw

IEA SLAMMED By Charity Commission:
https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2018/12/iea-slammed-by-charity-commission.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Recently I saw a tweet (pasted below) from Kate Andrews of the right-wing lobby group ‘The  Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) and thought it was disingenuous for two reasons:
1. The IEA has, for some time, been using comparisons between the NHS and other European health care systems to undermine the NHS and yet most European systems will be almost as unacceptable to a right-wing libertarian organisation like IEA as the NHS. I assume the tactic is to undermine the NHS initially and then ditch any pretence of promoting other forms of universal health care in favour of a neoliberal ‘utopia’ where everyone is able to access the care they need from private providers using private insurance.

2. Kate refers vaguely to the whole of the developed world while neglecting to mention that the largest country in the developed world, the US, does not have universal health care and also has some of the worst health outcomes.

In my reply, I try to address these issues.

In reply Mark Littlewood, (Director General of the IEA) posted the message below:

Before I had a chance to reply he posted his final message, below and then blocked me.

If I had been given the chance to reply I might have mentioned that:

• the IEA is inextricably linked to individuals and organisations in the US that are aggressively opposed to any health care reform that undermines the power and dominance of private, for-profit insurance corporations.
• we would be naive in the extreme if we did not expect those corporations to have their eyes on the NHS.
• my trojan horse may not have been clear – I was trying to suggest that the IEA campaign of undermining the NHS by comparing it to other European health systems was a subterfuge (my trojan horse) for softening us up for a US corporate take over of the NHS.
• yes, the British public does want universal health care. But we were never consulted about the sell-off of NHS provision to companies like Virgin and we can be forgiven if we don’t share Mark’s complacency and are wary that this is just the thin end of the wedge.
• ‘why would any company abandon universal health care?’ You are joking Mark. Universal health care would never be provided by private insurance without government intervention and that would be the antithesis of everything the IEA stands for.

UPDATE: Slowly but surely the murky world of dark money and phoney think tanks is being exposed:

Rightwing UK thinktank ‘offered ministerial access’ to potential US donors. Institute of Economic Affairs boss, Mark Littlewood, tells undercover reporter it is in ‘Brexit-influencing game’: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/29/rightwing-thinktank-ministerial-access-potential-us-donors-insitute-of-economic-affairs-brexit?CMP=share_btn_tw

The Brexit-influencing game: how IEA got involved with a US rancher: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/30/brexit-influencing-game-iea-us-rancher-tucker-link?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

Head of the IEA Mark Littlewood: “Our advertising value equivalent on the media last calendar year was £66m.” And most of that was probably on the BBC.

Leading Brexiteers are on record as wanting to dismantle the NHS:

Liam Fox says people warning NHS will be sold off in Brexit trade deal with Trump are ‘anti-trade’: http://uk.businessinsider.com/liam-fox-international-trade-secretary-interview-nhs-trade-deal-brexit-trump-no-deal-2018-7

For “Holocaust Memorial Day 2017”

‘Invoke Democracy Now’ and ‘Invoke Article 50 Now’ are campaigns sponsored by the online magazine ‘Spiked’ (see web page header above). Their latest “Demo for democracy: uphold the Brexit vote!” was held on 5th September to coincide with a debate in the commons on a petition which gained over 4 million signatures.  The petition, set up by a Brexit supporter before the referendum was held, called for the Government to annul the results if the Remain or Leave vote won by less than 60 per cent on a turnout of less than 75 per cent (the turn out was 72%).

Whether you supported Brexit or Leave it might be interesting to know a little more about ‘Spiked’.  The history of Spiked and many of its contributors is bizarre to say the least, as is its current output.

The team at Spiked and the associated Institute of Ideas are part of a loose and informal network of individuals and organisations sharing a libertarian and anti-environmentalist ideology. It is led by people associated with the defunct Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and its publication Living Marxism.  Members of this network, who seem to have transitioned from marxism to right wing neolibertarians, have obtained influential positions with other organisations and the network also has extensive youth oriented programmes.

For more information check these links:

Spiked, The institute of Ideas and Living Marxism

Invasion of the Entryists

Who Are They? Jenny Turner reports from the Battle of Ideas

Brexit: the battle for democracy starts here. (Institute of Ideas / Spiked on Line)

Why does this matter?

It is clear from reading Spiked on Line that this is an organisation that is unashamedly post fact, post evidence and post reason. Their articles invariably take the simplistic and evidence free route of blaming all our problems on experts, a ‘metropolitan elite’, left wing media and of course the EU. You will have to search very hard to find any analysis of the role of banks, corporations, free market ideologues, press barons, or right wing politicians that exploit populism for their own ends.

I don’t expect you to take my word for it – just take a look for yourself.

If you think that the ‘chattering classes’ are the source of all evil you will love this Andrew Bolt interview with Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill. If you prefer a more rational and reasoned approach I suspect you will be horrified. Let me know.

“Invoke Democracy Now”  Claims to be a “post-Brexit campaigning group set up to inspire wider public discussion of Brexit and democracy and to call on the government to uphold the vote.” but who is behind the organisation?

The answer looks like ‘Spiked‘, a right wing neo-libertarian online magazine.

Prominent speakers at “Invoke Democracy Now”‘s first meeting (14th July) were:

Claire Fox – Director, Institute of Ideas and writer for Spiked.

Brendan O’Neill – Editor, Spiked Online

The contact details for the meeting and the organisation were via Saleha Ali, who happens to have written five articles for Spiked.

On Twitter the meeting was promoted by Justine Brian, who also happens to be a writer for Spiked and the National Administrator of the Institute of Ideas and Pfizer Debating Matters Competition, an “innovative and engaging new style of debating competition for sixth form students in the UK”.

The leading organisers of both the Institute of Ideas and Spiked are linked by their bizarre background in the Revolutionary Communist Tendency/Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and its principal publication Living Marxism.  This link gives a summary of this informal network of individuals and organisations: Living Network (LM):

In response to Justine Brian’s Tweet above I asked her for information about the people behind “Invoke Democracy Now” her response is below:

Ironically, Justine’s response is very similar to the first sentence of this summary of the Living Marxism Network.

Justine’s lack of transparency matches the lack of transparency on the meeting’s publicity material as in this example from Eventbrite.

Strangely Spiked seem to be running two almost identical campaigns in parallel.  Unlike “Invoke Democracy Now”, “Invoke Article 50 Now” is clearly sponsored by Spiked as indicated on the professionally produced posters of this small band of protesters.

I have written about the Spiked “Invoke Article 50 Now” campaign here.

More on Spiked and the Institute of Ideas:

Invasion of the Entryists

Who Are They? Jenny Turner reports from the Battle of Ideas

Brexit: the battle for democracy starts here. (Institute of Ideas / Spiked on Line)

“Brexit: the battle for democracy starts here” is the title of an ‘Institute of Ideas’ and Spiked on line, event with apparently just three speakers, all Spiked members, Frank Furedi, Claire Fox and Tom Slater.

I was attracted by the title but appalled by the briefing notes for the meeting:

Throughout the notes the author does exactly what he/she accuses the opposing camp of doing, i.e. showing contempt for the opposing view by taking individual examples of outrageous slurs and then attributing them to everyone in the opposing camp.  The author has made unfounded assertions, and cherry picked the evidence, and/or distorted it to fit a narrative.

This did not bode well for the meeting especially when the only speakers appear to be members of the right wing, neo-libertarian ‘Spiked’ online magazine. Surely effective planning to engage in a battle for democracy needs input from, and be open to, a wide range of opinions and views.

I voted to remain. I thought about the issues carefully and tried very hard to be objective and reasoned. I appreciate that others came to different conclusions and I admit that my vote was for what I considered the least worst of a binary choice which did not allow me to express my actual preference. However it was made in good faith. To be smeared and denigrated by the Spiked speakers because I did not make the same choice as them is not the best way to involve me in an open debate on the way forward.

I did not attend the meeting so cannot judge what actually happened but I can only say that the closed minded tone of the briefing notes would have put me off attending even if I didn’t happen to live 300 miles away.

Out of interest I listened to IoI’s latest podcast “Podcast of Ideas: post-referendum special”. Three Spiked members spend 30 minutes on a partisan, narrow minded rant about those who voted to remain.  With no other guests there was no one to call them out on their litany of straw man arguments, unfounded assertions and cherry picked examples.  A waste of 30 minutes and not an encouragement for me to engage further.

Here’s the link (Podcast of Ideas: post-referendum special”) – check for your self:  http://instituteofideas.com/comment/podcast_of_ideas_post_referendum_special#.V3pwYLgrLIU

UPDATE (03/07/2016).  OK I have now listened to all bar the last 30 minutes of the two hour “Brexit: the battle for democracy starts here” (Link: http://www.instituteofideas.com/comment#.V3pwgrgrLIV).

Early on, one of the speakers, Frank Ferudi, I think, said that the meeting was not a Brexit rally. But in reality as far as the speakers were concerned this was pretty much what it turned out to be. There were a few good questions from the audience and Frank Furudi indulged in a bizarre and meandering discussion about identity. However the over riding impression was that Ferudi and particularly Clarie Fox, spent a significant amount of their time slagging off those who had voted remain using stereotypes and caricatures – exactly what they accused the remainers of doing.  There was a forceful but unsubstantiated defence of the referendum process without any analysis or even mention of the aspects of the process that concerned those who regard the referendum as a travesty of democracy.

What stood out for me about the input of Ferudi and Fox was the total absence of any discussion about how our democracy might be developed post Brexit and how we should “fight the battle for democracy”. This was the title of the meeting but was absent from the speakers input apart from a plea that we should make sure that Brexit actually happens.  No discussion of the future of democracy or the mechanics of how we make our political system more democratic.

The title of the meeting attracted my attention. I wanted to hear from Claire Fox and Frank Ferudi  how we might ‘fight the battle for democracy’?  I was badly disappointed. In reality the meeting was simply a Brexit Rally aimed at motivating the faithful.

If the Spiked On Line speakers want to recruit non zealots to their ‘Invoke Article 50 Now’ campaign they could start by at least trying to substantiate their assertions about brexit and democracy.  “Carrying out the will of the people” and “the people have spoken” are words taken from the vocabularies of demagogues, not democrats and result in the tyranny of the majority. History gives us ample evidence that this is not a wise system of government.

The lack of any substantive discussion about how democracy after brexit involves anything more than a transfer of control to a more right-wing branch of the Tory party, plus increased influence by right-wing plutocrats like Arron Banks does not convince. Our current flawed and limited democracy is subverted by neo libertarian politicians, demagogues and corporate power, the Spiked speakers have not offered any plan for preventing this process from accelerating after brexit.

Oh and finally just a reminder – democracy does include the right to dissent, including immediately after an election or referendum.

Just gonna use this now, every time someone says “you lost, pipe down, stick your dummy back in”https://t.co/MgM8PcA5A6

— Joshua Wonderball (@J_Wonderball) July 7, 2016

Salisbury MP, John Glen, made the following promise back in 2010 “we must not balance the books on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society”

Salisbury MP, John Glen, has consistently voted in favour of cuts to local government spending (40% since 2010) that have had a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable in our society.

In fact John has voted in favour of every cut his government has made, irrespective of the damaging impact those cuts have had on the most vulnerable.

Those votes have included votes in favour of successive welfare changes that have disproportionally hit disabled people, such as cuts to social care and the recently passed cuts to employment support allowance. The cuts will reduce benefits by £30 a week for those in the work-related group.

John has failed to publicly acknowledge any concern about his government’s use of spin, misuse of data and misleading rhetoric to smear all benefits claimants as scroungers and skivers. [2]

We now have a budget in which George Osborne is taking $4bn from disabled people to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. Those who will benefit from the tax cuts include MPs like John Glen who have just had an 11% salary increase.

To make matters worse, the way the cuts in personal independence payments (PIP) for disabled people were announced, has inevitably caused maximum upset and fear amongst the most vulnerable in our society.

So perhaps it is time to remind Mr Glen of this promise he made in 2010:

John Glen MP – “we must not balance the books on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society”

It’s time for John Glen to come clean and stand by his promise.

UPDATE (22.29 18.03.16): Since I wrote the above, the government seems to have retreated on the PIP cuts and Iain Duncan Smith has resigned stating as his reason the shambles that is George Osborne’s cuts to disability benefits.  This stretches our credulity to breaking point given that IDS has been the government cheerleader for benefit cuts and has a very nasty line in benefit scrounger rhetoric.

A more plausible explanation is that his resignation is an opportunistic but desperate attempt to distance himself from the disaster that the Department of Work and Pensions has become under his leadership. [3]

Another possibility is that his resignation may be an even more desperate attempt to give some life to his Brexit campaign by undermining his chief opponent, George Osborne.

Whatever the motives, they do not appear honourable.

[1] IDS loses legal challenge to keep Universal Credit problems secret: http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/03/17/ids-loses-legal-challenge-to-keep-universal-credit-problems

[2] The demonisation of the disabled is a chilling sign of the times: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/04/ian-birrell-prejudice-against-disabled?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[3] Universal credit is a tale of failure that’s still unfolding: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/27/unversal-credit-failure-timetable-costs-iain-duncan-smith

[4] If we are not ‘all in it together’, this is largely due to Duncan Smith: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/19/if-we-are-not-all-in-it-together-this-is-largely-due-to-duncan-smith?CMP=share_btn_tw

[5] Chancellor’s Budget giveaways failed to support an all-out assault on poverty ( Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)): https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/chancellors-budget-giveaways-failed-support-all-out-assault-poverty?utm_content=buffer9654e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[6] George Osborne’s credibility has been brutally exposed by the departure of the secretary of state for work and pensions: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/20/observer-editorial-ian-duncan-smith-resignation-george-osborne-credibility?CMP=share_btn_tw

The IDS way: Victorian morality, reforming zeal and gross incompetence: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/20/ids-victorian-morality-reforming-zeal-gross-incompetence?CMP=twt_a-politics_b-gdnukpolitics

Here are 15 cuts and failures Iain Duncan Smith didn’t resign over: http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/here-are-15-cuts-and-failures-iain-duncan-smith-didnt-resign-over–byx3nvyu3JZ

George Osborne’s only solution to our economic problems – more austerity. No rationale, no logic, no evidence, just the ‘right thing to do’.  Very reminiscent of Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity – “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”: http://www.reasonandreality.org/?p=4309