A return to the perennial topic of "who actually funds your think-tank/research?".
Here's a breakdown on transparency of funding for different think-tanks from A (Completely Open) to D (Highly Opaque) with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in its own "Actively Deceptive" category.*
Perhaps the great minds of Scrutable can identify any common factors.
Anyway the Guardian have trawled through thousands of pages of US tax filings to try and shed a little bit more light on this, with predictable results.
Oh Policy Exchange you dishonest bunch of dipsticks and shills. TBF given the calibre of the output of many of the think-tanks-for-hire you'd want a refund. What are the chances the BBC continues to invite their representatives onto their shows as supposedly "neutral" and "impartial" commentators on new policy suggestions?
*Spoiler:
Transparify ranked it third largest UK think tank by expenditure, but gave it its lowest rating, 'deceptive', on funding transparency.[2]
In 2016, The Guardian reported that IISS "has been accused of jeopardising its independence after leaked documents showed it has secretly received £25m from the Bahraini royal family", noting that leaked "documents reveal that IISS and Bahrain’s rulers specifically agreed to keep the latter’s funding for the Manama Dialogues secret".[7][8] The IISS did not dispute the authenticity of the leaked documents or deny receiving funding from Bahrain, but issued a response stating that "[a]ll IISS contractual agreements, including those with host governments, contain a clause asserting the Institute’s absolute intellectual and operational independence as an international organisation that does not participate in any manner of advocacy."[9] The Middle East Eye subsequently reported that IISS may have received nearly half of its total income from Bahraini sources in some years.
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
