2: You also didn’t say “vast right wing conspiracy” - shame on you.

3: I wonder if I’ll ever be accused of being part of the machine?

1. I have an update to add which states what I propose to do next - which is to ask the Charity Commissioners to carry out an across the board review of political think tanks and charitable status.

BTW, I didn’t mention Crick because I didn’t see the report.

2. I let the evidence speak for itself - one thing you cannot deny here is that the background on Policy Exchange and its links to the Tory Party do raise some very interesting questions.

3. I dare say I’ll get something like that back in some quarters, even though this is a completely independent piece of work.

Ministry of Truth - Guido, The Smith Institute and the Think Tank he’s not writing about: Paul Staines, who blogs under the psedonym ‘Guido Fawkes’ has recently run a series of typically snide posts about a registered charity, The Smith……

By a review, what I am talking about is a detailed examination across the board of the specific issues raised by political think tanks registering as charities under which even the validity of suhc registration comes under scrutiny.

Dizzy - I have been ‘doing’ charity law in my work for about last ten years, so I know exactly what I’m going after. :0)

Oh fuck off you silly twat. I’m just offering to make a bet. Go and wear the tinfoil hat and have a wank. ~

Jeeeez. Touchy.

Surely, though, it’s hardly surprising that political thinktanks tend to align to the party that’s most in line with their views, just as it’s no surprise that Guido has more sympathy for the Tories than Labour, what with him being right wing and all…

As for the insinuation that having connections to specific parties could impinge on rules governing charities, evidently not, or there wouldn’t be vast numbers known to be aligned to the two main parties, from the IPPR’s well-known Labour connections to the Adam Smith Institute’s well-known connections to the Tories. The Smith Institute’s (not the Adam Smith Institute’s) possible connections to Gordon Brown are a story because he’s likely very soon going to be Prime Minister, that’s all. The Tory thinktanks will also come under scrutiny if it ever looks like they’re going to get back in, just as the IPPR’s connections to Blair were when he was about to come to power.

You know me well enough to know that I’m not aligned to anyone or anything. But if you want to extend the conspiracy, I did use to work for a Tory MP (I’ve even publicly stated as much on the blog a few times). Perhaps I’ve also been hiding my real politics the entire time I’ve been blogging to subtly influence online debate in favour of the Tories?

Sorry - still can’t see why this whole spat is important - or, indeed, anything other than because Guido’s a righty. If he was an influential left-wing blogger I very much doubt either you or Tim would be after the guy. As this whole affair’s supposedly after “openness” it’d be good to see you chaps come clean on that one, or at the very least come up with a plausible alternative explanation for quite why you’re so annoyed by what Guido does, because I genuinely can’t see one.

It’d also be nice to see you and Tim concentrate on the stuff you used to write about, which was all far more interesting.

(Hope that doesn’t sound overly tetchy, but this extended spat has been going on a while now, and seems to be going nowhere, that’s all…)

My initial fear however is that it might too be easy to label this as a big ‘conspiracy theory’ (Dizzy seems to be pondering in that direction with characteristic wit) to dismiss it and muddy the waters on what this appears to have uncovered.

:o)

I’m still allowed to applaud, though.

Good stuff Unity.

Oh well, back to work…

Well said.

Its a thought, Alex. Its definitely a thought.

Oh goodie. Paul Staines: Iain Dale has a piece on Doughty Street TV tonight about the Smith Institute which explains why they should lose their charitable status. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know why this is the very definition……

Handy hint: http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=5209&inst_id=1

How much did Thatcher and Major charge the CPS, I wonder?

Nick Boles:
When we started we felt rather like rebels in a forest with our faces blacked up, lobbing grenades at high command, and the high command being pretty unnamused by the whole process. And that was an exciting time and you have a purpose.

And now, of course, somebody we like and admire has taken over high command and is relying on us to do some useful work to actually flesh out what the new direction is going to be.”

“So, I hope that a lot of what we do will compliment what the policy groups that the conservative party have set up are doing, and perhaps provide some sort of deeper research evidence for some policy positions.”

http://tomgriffin.typepad.com/the_green_ribbon/2006/06/pc_spooks_ii_th.html