55tufton bak
919 no lnx<div>
</div><div><div>=</div><div>https://www.desmog.co.uk/55-tufton-street</div><div>
</div><div>The Westminster building located at 55 Tufton Street is home to a small but influential network of right-wing think tanks including the UK climate denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. [1]</div><div>
</div><div>The building itself is owned by Richard Smith, a businessman who owns an aerospace company called HR Smith Group, and a former trustee of the pro-Brexit Politics and Economics Research Trust founded by former Vote Leave and Taxpayers' Alliance CEO Matthew Elliott. The building was bought in 2009 by Specmat, one of Smith’s technology manufacturing companies. While he keeps a low profile, Smith is perhaps best known for flying former Prime Minister David Cameron to his home in Shobdon, Herefordshire, in 2007. Smith is associated with several of the organisations at 55 Tufton Street and also donated money to the Vote Leave campaign (once located at the same Tufton Street address). [2], [38]</div><div>
</div><div>Stance on Climate Change</div><div>The building is home to several groups which spread misinformation about climate science and work to reduce protections for the environment. [2]</div><div>
</div><div>Key People</div><div>Lord Nigel Lawson – Chairman, Global Warming Policy Foundation</div><div>Sir Alan Rudge – Trustee, Civitas; Advisor, Global Warming Policy Foundation</div><div>Lord Nigel Vinson – Trustee, Civitas</div><div>Matthew Elliott– Founder, TaxPayers’ Alliance; former CEO, Vote Leave; Advisor, The New Culture Forum</div><div>Matt Ridley – Advisor, Global Warming Policy Foundation</div><div>Owen Paterson – Member, The European Foundation</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Building Residents</div><div>The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), founded by former Conservative Chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson. Several of GWPF's members and funders are affiliated with other groups located at 55 Tufton Street. [1], [3]</div><div>
</div><div>Civitas is an educational charity and publisher specializing in health, education, welfare, and economics. Sir Alan Rudge and Lord Nigel Vinson are both trustees – Rudge is an advisor at the GWPF while Vinson has funded the climate denial think-tank. The group has been criticised by Transparify for its “opaque” operations. [4], [5], [6], [3], [7]</div><div>
</div><div>TaxPayers’ Alliance is a pressure group and think tank formed in 2004 by Matthew Elliott to campaign for a low tax society. In 2016 the TaxPayers’ Alliance, along with U.S. climate science denying pressure groups the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the Heritage Foundation, held a free trade event at the Conservative Party Conference. The group was, as of November 2015, a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a climate denial organization run by the CEI. The Taxpayers' Alliance belongs to an international coalition of anti-tax, free-market campaign groups called the World Taxpayers Associations. Other members include the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance, Americans for Tax Reform, the Austrian Economics Center and the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. [8], [9], [10], [35]</div><div>
</div><div>Business for Britain is a pro-Brexit campaign group and was an occupant of 55 Tufton Street until October 2015. Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers’ Alliance founded the group, Matt Ridley of the GWPF launched Business for Britain North East, and Lord Vinson acted as an advisor to the group. [11], [12], [13], [37]</div><div>
</div><div>Vote Leave was the official pro-Brexit campaign group. The group was originally a resident of 55 Tufton Street but moved to a bigger office several months before the referendum. Members included Nigel Lawson, Matthew Elliott, Graham Stringer (also a GWPF trustee), Matt Ridley, along with prominent Conservative Party politicians Andrea Leadsom, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. GWPF and Tory donor Michael Hintze also donated to Vote Leave. [2], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]</div><div>
</div><div>The European Foundation is a high-profile Eurosceptic think tank chaired by Conservative MP Bill Cash. The group published a report in 2009 around the time of the Copenhagen climate summit entitled “100 reasons why global warming is natural” which argues there is no proof that human influence has anything to do with climate change. Members of the group’s advisory board include Matthew Elliott, Richard Smith, owner of 55 Tufton Street, the former UKIP MEP Roger Helmer, and Conservative MPs David Davis, Oliver Letwin, Bernard Jenkin, John Whittingdale, Graham Brady and Iain Duncan-Smith. Owen Paterson, former environment secretary and Chairman of UK2020, another organisation based at 55 Tufton Street, is also on the advisory board. [19], [20], [21], [22]</div><div>
</div><div>UK2020 is a right-wing think tank which has been called the British version of the American Tea Party and was set up by Owen Paterson in 2014. Among the policy recommendations the group calls for is “a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions.” These technologies include shale gas and small modular nuclear reactors. Matt Ridley of the GWPF is a policy advisor for UK2020 and Tim Montgomerie, founder of the ConservativeHome website and a former senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, is their political adviser. [23], [24], [2], [36]</div><div>
</div><div>The New Culture Forum is a right wing think tank working to change cultural debates they believe are dominated by “the left”. According to the ConservativeHome blog, Matthew Elliott serves as an advisor at the forum, while Michael Gove, UK environment secretary, has spoken at its events. Its founder and director is Peter Whittle, former UKIP leader in the London Assembly and Culture and Communities Spokesperson for the party. [25], [26], [27]</div><div>
</div><div>55 Tufton Street Contact & Address</div><div>55 Tufton Street</div><div>
</div><div>Westminster</div><div>
</div><div>SW1P 3QL</div><div>
</div><div>Related Organizations</div><div>57 Tufton Street</div><div>The building next door to 55 Tufton street also houses several other like-minded think tanks, including: [28]</div><div>
</div><div>Centre for Policy Studies is another free market think tank. Lord Vinson is the co-founder of the organisation and former director. [29], [30]</div><div>
</div><div>Initiative for Free Trade (IFT) is a pro-Brexit, free trade think tank launched in September 2017 by Boris Johnson and Liam Fox inside the Foreign Office. The group’s president is Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan, who has downplayed the threat of climate change, believing humanity can adapt to any impacts “with a fractional sum of money”. [31]</div><div>
</div><div>11 Tufton Street</div><div>Public First is a PR firm which helps its clients “understand and influence public opinion through research and targeted communications campaigns”, crafting “policy ideas that Governments can realistically apply to difficult issues”, according to its website. [39]</div><div>
</div><div>The company was founded by James Frayne, a Conservative political strategist who has held roles at other PR companies such as Westbourne Communications and Portland Communications, having also worked as campaign director at the Tufton-based Taxpayers' Alliance and as director of policy and strategy at the right-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange. [40], [41], [42], [43]</div><div>
</div><div>Natascha Engel, former Labour MP known for her strong pro-fracking stance, became a partner at the firm in July 2019, leading the company's “infrastructure and regulation” division. [44]</div><div>
</div><div>2 Lord North Street </div><div>Around the corner from Tufton Street is Lord North Street, which is home to the Institute of Economic Affairs. [32]</div><div>
</div><div>Institute of Economic Affairs is free-market think-tank and “educational charity” founded in 1955 by the late Sir Anthony Fisher and Lord Harris with the mission “to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.” Trustees linked to 55 Tufton Street include Lord Vinson, Neil Record, and Michael Hintze. [33], [34]</div><div>
</div><div>Resources</div><div>“Mapped: The Cosy Climate-Euro Sceptic Bubble Pushing for Brexit and Less Climate Action,” DeSmog UK, June 13, 2016. Archived December 7, 2018. Archive.fo URL: http://archive.fo/S4h4b</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/09/04/bbc-changes-editorial-guidelines-improve-scrutiny-unbiased-thinktanks</div><div>
</div><div>no lnx</div><div>BBC Updates Editorial Guidelines to Improve Scrutiny of Thinktank Pundits</div><div>Read time: 3 mins</div><div>By Mat Hope • Wednesday, September 4, 2019 - 11:20</div><div>
</div><div>The BBC has altered its editorial guidelines after persistent calls for the organisation to improve transparency around the commentators to which it gives a platform.</div><div>
</div><div>The broadcaster has now added “think tanks” to a list of groups that it says presenters and producers should “not automatically assume … are unbiased”. “Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context,” the guidelines say.</div><div>
</div><div>The change could have significant ramifications for representatives of anti-regulation, pro-Brexit think tanks and campaign groups based in and around offices at 55 Tufton Street, including the UK's principal climate science denial campaign group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, on which DeSmog has extensively reported.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>This follows pressure from journalists including the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr. She has long fought for the funding and ideology of groups including Vote Leave, Leave.EU, the Institute of Economic Affairs, Taxpayers’ Alliance, and other Tufton Street groups to be made clear when they appear on the BBC’s programmes.</div><div>
</div><div>Revealing the change to the guidelines on Twitter, Cadwalladr called the move “a very small ray of sunshine in an ongoing national shitshow”. In an email to Cadwalladr from a BBC press officer, she was told the changes had been made in part due to a meeting she had with the organisation’s Director General, Tony Hall.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Carole Cadwalladr</div><div>?</div><div>@carolecadwalla</div><div>OMG!!!</div><div>A v small ray of sunshine in ongoing national shitshow..but @BBC has introduced a new policy on think tanks! That includes info on "funding"!!</div><div>faints</div><div>Look! And it only took all of us going on & on for years (& a strategic ambush of the director general at a public event)</div><div>
</div><div>Cadwalladr told DeSmog:</div><div>
</div><div>‘It’s a really important move that a lot of people have been calling out for a very long time. These corporate lobbyists have been pushing policies on behalf of unknown clients and have been given a free platform to disseminate their misinformation across pretty much all UK broadcasters.” </div><div>
</div><div>“I really hope other news organisations will now follow the BBC’s lead and that we will finally see the end of this paid-for propaganda masquerading as ‘independent’ free speech’”.</div><div>
</div><div>[Read more: Mapped: A Who's Who of Brexit and Climate Science Denial]</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Adam Ramsay, Co-Editor of openDemocracy UK, who has also long argued that experts should be forced to disclose who funds them if they want to participate in high-profile broadcasts, called the change “a small victory for everyone who has investigated these lobby groups masquerading as think tanks”. But he urged caution until there had been some examples of the guidelines being implemented. He told DeSmog:</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s only a small victory until we see how journalists apply the policy. Will the IEA be introduced as ‘and now, the representatives of British American Tobacco are here to put the tobacco industry view?’ Or will they still in reality be paraded as experts, with a mumbled introduction informing viewers that other views are available?”</div><div>
</div><div>Dustin Gilbreath, Communications Manager for watchdog Transparify, which ranks think tanks on their transparency, welcomed the move, and hoped it would encourage groups to be more open. He told DeSmog:</div><div>
</div><div>“In the United Kingdom, the lion's share of reputable think tanks have embraced financial transparency as the standard. Only a limited few large think tanks continue to take money from hidden hands behind closed doors.” </div><div>
</div><div>“We hope that the BBC's actions will encourage those think tanks that remain opaque in the UK to reconsider their financial transparency.”</div><div></div><div>The change could have significant ramifications for representatives of anti-regulation, pro-Brexit think tanks and campaign groups based in and around offices at 55 Tufton Street, including the UK's principal climate science denial campaign group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, on which DeSmog has extensively reported.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>This follows pressure from journalists including the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr. She has long fought for the funding and ideology of groups including Vote Leave, Leave.EU, the Institute of Economic Affairs, Taxpayers’ Alliance, and other Tufton Street groups to be made clear when they appear on the BBC’s programmes.</div><div>
</div><div>Revealing the change to the guidelines on Twitter, Cadwalladr called the move “a very small ray of sunshine in an ongoing national shitshow”. In an email to Cadwalladr from a BBC press officer, she was told the changes had been made in part due to a meeting she had with the organisation’s Director General, Tony Hall.</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>https://littlesis.org/org/228862/55_Tufton_Street</div><div>
</div><div>Specmat Manufacturer of electronic components</div><div>• Owner (Dec 1 '09??) </div><div>Other Affiliations</div><div>Showing 1-10 of 15 :: see all</div><div>Civitas British educational charity and publisher specializing in health, education, welfare, and economics</div><div>• An Occupant </div><div>Global Vision Campaign group that believes Britain needs to negotiate a looser relationship with the EU</div><div>• Former Occupant (??Oct 7 '15) </div><div>Global Warming Policy Foundation A climate science denying think tank based in London</div><div>• Occupant (Nov 17 '15??) </div><div>Big Brother Watch A British civil liberties and privacy pressure group</div><div>• Occupant </div><div>Africa Research Institute UK research institute that encourages debate and challenges “received wisdom” in and about Africa</div><div>• Occupant </div><div>The European Foundation A UK campaigning organisation and leading Eurosceptic think tank</div><div>• Occupant (Mar 25 '10??) </div><div>The New Culture Forum Right wing think tank working to change cultural debates they believe are dominated by "the left"</div><div>• Occupant </div><div>Centre for Policy Studies Free-market UK think tank</div><div>• Next-door Neighbour </div><div>TaxPayers' Alliance A British pressure group and think tank formed in 2004 to campaign for a low tax society.</div><div>• Occupant (Mar 1 '10??) </div><div>Business for Britain UK campaign organisation calling for Britain to leave the EU</div><div>• Former Occupant (??Jan 12 '16) </div></div>