UKC

...alongside Brexiters and climate change deniers. 
Who is based at or meets at 55 Tufton Street? The 'Nine Entities':

1. The Adam Smith Institute (Great Smith St)
2. Brexit Central (55)
3. The Centre for Policy Studies (57)
4. Civitas (55)
5. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (55)
6. The Institute for Economic Affairs (Lord North St)
7. Leave means Leave (55)
8. The Office of Peter Whittle (The New Culture Forum) (55)
9. The Tax Payers’ Alliance (55)

You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder what's going on.

Further information - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Tufton_Street

https://www.desmog.co.uk/55-tufton-street

http://www.brexitshambles.com/brexit-scam-we-need-to-talk-about-tufton-stre...

I would imagine that building is pretty well bugged.

But to your point, I can't see too much of a problem that a bunch of like minded people ,that plenty disagree with, have a meeting place (so secret it has it's own wiki page) ?

Er, what do you think is "going on"?

Don't tell them about the secret underground conference room where Jewish financiers meet to pull the levers of power worldwide.   ... oops! 

Looks blindingly oblivious.  

Dark forces are throwing money at a bunch of fake “think tanks” (1) to promote their interests through propaganda and lies dressed up as a mix of expert opinion and the wishes of the common man.

If should come as no surprise to most on here to see denialism of global warming, Brexit and neoliberal stuff all under one sordid umbrella.

Dance, puppets, dance.

(1) a think tank is something that thinks about a problem to find a solution.  These are all organisations whose job is to selectively pick evidence, selectively fund studies and build demagogues to further their explicit and implicit agendas.   

Try reading the articles.

Well what we have is a bunch of politically motivated lobbyists masquerading as academic organisations and in some cases charities (with attendant tax breaks). This cover allows them to be invited on to current affairs programs under the guise of fairly nuteral commentators. They are shady about their funding but the received wisdom is that some ultra rich characters (and possibly foreign govts which aren't best friends with the uk) are using these organisations to sway govt policy in their favour.

I'll leave you to decide if that's true or a good thing. What do you think is going on? 

Did you read the articles?

Well I, for one, didn't read the desmog one. 

That's because, just as I started trying to read it, the screen when blank and up poped a box asking me to sign up to their newsletter -- and on principle I refuse to read websites that are that obnoxious! 

What do you think that they reveal is going on?

But you can still read it. You can just shut that window without signing up. 

You are too easily dissuaded - why remain ignorant when you can just close the box? 

The obnoxious ones are the ones that won't close when you click on the little 'x' - I've come across a few like that recently. 

You're a little reluctant to say what you think about this issue - that's not like you! 

Well I just see a bunch of quite high profile right of centre think tank/lobbying groups in adjacent offices with some overlapping personel and funding sources.

 But maybe I read too quickly the scrupulously objective article starting" More intriguing than a John le Carré thriller, the shadowy story behind Brexit is a tailor-made blockbuster involving eccentric billionaires, far-right cabals, spies, spivs, technological skullduggery and a host of unscrupulous politicians supported by an unwitting cast of millions of UK citizens"

The other two links seemed very dull,

All the same people getting money from the same rich guys using lots of different names to try and get more influence.   Either that or they really are 9 different organisations with separate staffs and that little house is a Tardis.

Possibly using many different names to spread donations thinner so as to stay under thresholds.

Possibly taking money from Russia and the US hedge fund people that backed Trump and using it to influence UK elections and referendums.

Possibly plotting to use Dark Magic to resurrect Maggie Thatcher and/or Voldemort.

A good start would be for the media to use an accurate name for them - political lobbying groups, and ban the use of the term think-tank (or set a high bar for it's use). The tax payers alliance sounds like such a benign group.

Edit: a second step would be for the media to invite them to speak far less frequently. But given how often news stories now quote Dave from Twitter, this is probably wishful thinking.

I presume you're okay with climate change denial and dark money then?

  If people want to lobby against the  climate change orthodoxy in a free society then I don't see the problem. Should that be banned?

  I'm not OK with illegal funding.

I know I can, I just refuse to on principle! 

(A sign-up box to the side, where it didn't interfere, would be fine. A sign-up pop-up at the end would be just about tolerable. But a sign-up pop-up before you've had a chance to read anything on the site is just obnoxious. If a website wants to behave like that then I don't want to read it.)

I wouldn't go with "dark forces", they would have much better operational security than to use a common and well known postal address.

More like, some right wing free market types, have worked out they can make good money from hosting lots of right wing groups. Maybe there is a boilerplate type system, where one can buy a think tank off the shelf. Add in charity status, for a couple of quid more. If you want some gravitas, for a price, they can put you in touch with an ex MP or two. I notice Nigel Lawson, that bastion of morality, is mentioned.

There are lots of posh postal addresses that can be purchased to make a small business look bigger. All they are is a mail forwarding service. Google "virtual office London"

As far as I understand it these are actual offices and have hosted actual meetings between various of these groups. 

I could only read the wiki one and the desmog one as the third was firewalled at work.

I still cannot really see what's the point of your post. You have highlighted a few buildings next to each other that are used by similar right wing political think tank/lobby groups, some which deny climate change. They have to meet somewhere right?

It offers nothing, similar to if you had posted a link to the wiki page of Canary Wharf suggesting a conspiracy 881 days after Lehman collapsed. 

I'm not sure of the extent to which the money is illegal. It would help if some of the organisations concerned (e.g. Taxpayers' Alliance) were more open about where their money comes from.

Oh, and I'm not expecting climate change deniers to be banned. Just interested in openness and transparency. 

Point is that there's a revolving door between right-wing lobbyists who claim access and influence in government circles, the hard Brexiters, climate change deniers and undisclosed funders, often American. This is not healthy in a democracy. 

Wouldn't that be “shadow forces”?  I’m using dark in the rather old fashioned sense to imply interests against the progressive enlightenment rather than secret cabals.

That being said, given the opacity of funding and governance on these “think tanks”, it hardly rules out shadow forces.

Interesting idea; if you phone them up “mystery shopper” style, do report back! 

Could be.  I’m not going to London any time soon so won’t be surveiling the comings and goings from behind my copy of Pravda, but perhaps someone else will...

There are I think strong links into the more radical Christian unions in various university towns.  The sort of stuff that would cause uproar if it was Islam and not Christianity as the badge.

Are climate change deniers really influential? All I see is diesel cars being demonised, politicians saying that they are going to ban the sale of ICE cars by some date in the future, lots of charging stations appearing, our wind farms are growing, we haven't abandoned nuclear power (yet)...i'm not convinced on that bogeyman having much influence, also the public are far more aware of climate change IMO.

As for the political groups... everything's globalised now, so should we be surprised that lobby groups might attract foreign cash?

I think the time has come to identify any group spreading disinformation or denial about climate change as liars with an agenda rather than as any legitimate contributors to public debate.

The co-location of groups doing this with many others makes me dubious about the agendas and honesty of the other groups.

some of which apparently may not have been for purposes you might ordinarily associate with a respectable registered charity:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/30/labour-calls-for-inquiry-i...

You can't tell what their influence is - that's the point of this kind of lobbying. And it's not a matter of being surprised or not. I'm not surprised in the least. I just see it as one more thing that can - or does according to some - undermine UK democracy.

They are probably a damn site more influential if they are fronted by a "think tank" funded by Russian money and with access to BBC news producers. More importantly why are they doing it, what do they want and what do they stand to gain?

You mean kind of like the Fabian Society, Compass, IPPR, Demos,Smith Institute, Social Market Foundation etc etc?

  What's stopping you?

Yes. But with some very important distinctions. Displays funding info on own site? Names funders? Names amounts?

http://whofundsyou.org/org/fabian-society (yes to all)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/compass (yes to all)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/institute-for-public-policy-research (yes to all)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/demos (yes to all)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/smith-institute (yes / some / no)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/social-market-foundation (yes to all)

Whereas

http://whofundsyou.org/org/adam-smith-institute (no / no / no)

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/08/vote-leave-and-taxpayers-alliance-ch...

http://whofundsyou.org/org/centre-for-policy-studies (no / no / no)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/centre-for-policy-studies (yes / some / yes)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation#Funding_sour...  ('Because it is registered as a charity, the GWPF is not legally required to report its sources of funding,[15] and Peiser has declined to reveal its funding sources') 

http://whofundsyou.org/org/institute-of-economic-affairs (no / no / no)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/08/25/leave-means-leave-campaign-... (building a £5m war chest, but only mentioning 2% of this in 'recent donations'; where's the rest coming from?)

http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/ ('New Culture Forum is entirely reliant on private donations from the public' - none declared on website)

http://whofundsyou.org/org/taxpayers-alliance (no / no / no)

So. As relates to the fundamental issue of who pays the bills, there's not much equivalence at all now is there. 

Meanwhile, there would appear to be a ton of moral and legal wrongdoing on the Leave side. Just a coincidence though I'm sure. 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/05/vote-leave-tories-join-cal...

https://www.newsweek.com/mueller-wants-info-donald-trumps-british-ally-far-...

https://news.sky.com/story/leaveeu-fined-70000-over-eu-referendum-funding-a...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-referendum-vote-leave...

You could of saved yourself of lot of time by looking at the original link which summarised the transparency of different organisations

You might also note that I deliberately left the financial element off the part of the quote to which I replied.

Personally I think there probably should be transparency but as the OP has acknowledged there is no evidence of illegality.

Basically the whole ludicrous article could have been summarised in a few sentences to the effect "these organisations have opaque funding" which we think is wrong.

The rest of it could be summarised as "we disagree with these people and think it's unfair that they are organised (in much the same way that the left is)".

Footnote: the (anonymous) author doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the term "neocon", using it simply as a term of abuse for anyone to the right of him/her.

Footnote 2: who finances and runs the mysterious network of likeminded dangerous unscrupulous leftists that produces the shady propaganda tool know as "BS brexit shambles"?

Furthermore the organisations you mention above are highly diverse, with different policies, aims and funding sources. As far as I'm aware there is absolutely zero evidence that they coordinate their actions. Unlike the entities cloistered together in the OP. These latter groups - 'privately' financed, with strong links into media, government and business - are not think tanks. They are lobbyists; nothing wrong with that per se, however when the money is very dark indeed it's vital to ask searching questions. 

I could have. But I wanted to look at it myself, and be satisfied that these things were verifiable, and make that information available for anyone else who may wish to check such things. Unlike some  - yourself included it seems - I'm not willing to blindly assume benevolence and truth. 

The opaque funding practices of people associated with these entities have been identified as sufficiently 'wrong' to attract the attention of variously, the Electoral Commission, the Police and Crown Prosecution Service, the FBI and oh yeah, the Charity Commission too.

But ho hum, sure it's just a storm in a teacup isn't it. Let's not worry about Mr Banks' connections to the Russian state now. Sure it's not the tip of a rather large iceberg. 

Don't be daft! You know perfectly well that 'the left' couldn't organise a p*ss-up in a (Judean?) brewery! 

Are any of these offering cash for access? 

You are one obtuse motherf*cker.

  You really  think that left leaning think tanks don't receive private funding? They acknowledge it themselves. For highly politicised trade unions , substitute highly politicised individuals. You don't think that a think tanks with a clear political persuasion are by definition lobby groups? You realise they are mostly located within a few hundred metres of each other. (whoa..deeply suspicious) You don't think they talk to each other? Ever heard of the Westminster bubble?

And we haven't even mentioned politicised "charities" packed to the gunnels with Labour apparatchiks

  Some people are willing to blindly assume benevolence and truth. 

 There may be some dodgy money involved in which case the authorities can investigate. But basically you are just adopting double standards.

(If you're bored, spend a few minutes playing the parlour game "six degrees of Shami Chakrabarti".)

Pat. Your posts read like a bad attempt at being devil’s advocate. You’re surely not that naive to think I’m splitting hairs over what we decide to name these groups. 

In case you are let me be perfectly clear:

dark money 

dark money 

dark money 

plus 

nefarious data gathering practices

nefarious and illegal influence operations using said data

false claims and outright lies 

dog-whistle racist tropes

criminal election spending 

cash for access 

and more.

All the above is factual. The scale of deceit is staggering, and there’s much that’s not yet known or proven. But when you blithely promote the idea that these people are equivalent with other lobby groups, you could possibly first ask yourself who you’re being a patsy for. The connections to the Russian state here are manifold and writ large. Amazes me how completely those on the right now suck up to this horrific bully; if my agenda aligned with that of a hostile nation I’d first be asking myself why.

Seems Pasbury has it exactly right.

Of course you're right, when I've been wondering where to put my dark money to best increase my chances of multiplying it by encouraging governments to de- regulate I've been getting it all wrong.

The next wad is going to the Fabian society and if there's any left over it's going to Greenpeace where I'll have satisfaction of seeing it publicly declared too.

Yes. See the US currently, where the same groups (essentially) operate. Also much of the oil industry are actively involved to prevent a more rapid shift to renewables.

These groups aren't funded out altruism and intellectual curiosity , whatever the libertarian mugs here might think

Cash for access? I thought you were talking about Jack Straw for a minute....

That aside, genuine question, can you enumerate the facts of cash for access and criminal election spending by these organisations.

How do define "nefarious" objectively? Which data were they collecting?

What is your evidence that any of these organisations are financed by Russian money?

False claims and lies? They're f*cking politicos !

There is a lot of smoke being generated by the usual haters. Maybe it's clouded my eyes, but then again, in the absence of fire, maybe it's clouded yours?

    Rolls eyes. Do you think this is some sort of smart comment because it (deliberately?) misunderstands the point-which is that think tank/lobby groups all need finance and it will generally come from people or organisations who support their aims.-not that the same people or organisations will finance both points of view.

  I'd actually agree that "money politics", especially in the US, is a huge threat to democratic values, but it is not exclusively a phenomenon of the right.

And if you're a bigot I'm sure you'll have lots of self congratulatory fun.

I assume this misogynistic advice is inspired by Rod Liddle's nasty little article in the Spectator.

Just mainly.

  What is bigotted or mysoginistic about highlighting the incestuous nepotistic monopoly that hypocritcal metrolefties have created over the charidee and quango businesses?

  You’re oobsessed and imagining things.

No but the right wing think tanks are far less transparent than those on the left, as shown in Murderous Crow's sources above. And it's often clear why. Take this for example:

"A closer look at the highly opaque institutions on our list confirmed our hypothesis that think tanks that hide their donors usually have something to hide. For example, according to research compiled by TobaccoTactics, the Adam Smith Institute, the Centre for Policy Studies, and the Institute for Economic Affairs have all previously received undisclosed funding from tobacco companies, and all have produced research that was then used to lobby against stronger anti-smoking regulations."

Source - http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/70069/1/blogs.lse.ac.uk-Think%20tanks%20evidence%2...

This is from a group that believes that think-tanks, even ideologically driven ones, are a good thing by the way. 

I’m imagining things????