One of the points in the Media Sovereignty Act draft addresses think tanks as a common source of media duplicity. Learn here what think tanks are and why requiring them to be more transparent could be a defibrillator to British democracy.
Think tanks are organisations working to produce policy recommendations based on research. They produce recommendations to government on social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and culture. The aspects of running a nation. Think tanks exist on almost every axis of the political spectrum and can be structured in a broad range of ways. Some are registered charities, some are corporate entities, and some have a relationship of some kind with an academic institution.
Think Tanks like to position themselves as intellectual blacksmiths, forging raw data from universities into legislation and public policy. Between the rigour of the finest academics in the land and their own interpretation of new knowledge, reason will prevail. That is, if reason is guided by academic principles, and not by whoever can deposit the biggest donation. In many cases, we have no way of knowing, because think tanks are not legally required to declare where their funding comes from.
Bad Influence
Depending on the structure of individual think tanks, they are left to their own devices on how transparently they declare where their funding comes from. This becomes a problem, at worst a democratic crisis, when a think tank’s political influence is disproportionate to the regulatory oversight it is subjected to.
One such example is the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). They wielded immense influence during Liz Truss, the Lettuce Lady’s short time in office, the extent of which we will probably never know for sure. What we do know is two of her senior advisors were also directors at the IEA, Mark Littlewood and Ruth Porter. We also know that the IEA played a major part in preparing Truss’s 2022 mini-budget. The budget was based on ideas the IEA had been promoting for years and ended up an unambiguous and spectacular failure.
All this led the Good Law Project to open a regulatory compliance complaint against the IEA, supported by politicians across party lines. They described the IEA’s agenda in a way that illustrates exactly why financial transparency is vital to democratic integrity:
The IEA promotes extreme views such as there being “no sensible scientific objection” to increasing drilling in the North Sea, that healthcare in the UK should be insurance-based and that regulation on disposable vapes should be removed. It has so far refused to admit who pays for its work, but investigations have revealed some of its funding comes from the gas, oil and tobacco industries.
Good Law Project
The Good Law Project’s findings are as disturbing as they are unsurprising. These are policies the IEA is still pushing, and media is still selective at best about any mention of financial integrity and vested interests. Earlier this year, FT Advisor ran a completely uncritical story on an IEA report that recommended scrapping inheritance tax. I wonder why an institute run by members of the House of Lords would want to scrap inheritance tax? I wonder even more how this report was funded? Mainstream media is often complicit in turning the cogs that allow people like Lord Hannan to profit from wielding bad influence.
Think Big
The IEA are far from the only opaque and pernicious think tank operating in Britain. These practices are not universal to think tanks, but they do hurt the credibility of all think tanks. British people are sick of people and organisations who wield immense power and operate their finances in undisclosed backroom deals. It’s not fair, nor is it democratic.
Laws on financial disclosure are already evolving after Nigel Farage’s financial scandal made headlines earlier this year. With financial disclosure so prominent in recent cultural memory, this is a great time to push legislation that ensures the integrity of the reports that shape our country. What may be even more beneficial to democracy would be a cultural shift that legitimises local and activist-led campaigns for change just as much as large, rigidly structured entities like think tanks.
If you are using a think tank report as a source, you can use the free online resource whofundsyou.org to assess its reliability. Crucially, if you want to help keep think tanks accountable, you can sign the Media Sovereignty Act campaign’s petition.
Source list
https://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/think-tanks