20 questions mainstream media should ask about the Institute for Statecraft scandal (but probably won't)

The Tory government has been caught red-handed shovelling over £2 million in public cash at a dodgy propaganda unit called the Institute For Statecraft which disguises itself as a charity for the purposes of avoiding tax.

A cache of leaked documents has revealed that this publicly-funded pseudo-charity has been interfering in the democratic processes and broadcast media outlets of our European neighbours, and furthermore the Twitter account they runwith the extraordinarily misleading name "Integrity Initiative" has repeatedly published highly partisan political attacks on the Labour opposition.

Here's a full article on the scandal with more details.

The mainstream media have been extremely quiet on the story, and don't be naive enough to expect to be hearing any BBC coverage of this scandal whatever.

However if we did have any kind of functional mainstream media (one that was intent on actually holding the powerful to account and asking incisive questions about their behaviour rather than generally running distraction for them and burying their scandals), here are some of the questions mainstream media journalists should be asking about the Institute for Statecraft scandal:

• What is  UK-based charity doing meddling in Spanish political processes?

• What is a UK-based charity doing bragging about "silencing" people on Serbian television?

• Are the Spanish and Serbian governments aware that a UK-based (and UK government funded) organisation has been actively meddling in their states, and did they give permission?

• What Key Performance Indicators have the Tory government set in regards to the £2 million+ in public funding, or is it just a "no strings" handout from the government?

• Aside from the £2 million+ in government funding, who else is funding this pseudo-charity?

• Were Tory government ministers aware ofInstitute for Statecraft's foreign interference tactics before the internal document cache was leaked?

• Did Tory government ministers sign off on the covert political interference in other European states, or did the charity use public funds in this manner purely of their own accord?

• Is this foreign meddling an abuse of charitable status, and how much do these clearly uncharitable political activities undermine public faith in what charities actually exist to do?

• Is it acceptable for the governing UK party to lavish £2 million+ of public funds on an organisation that smears their political rivals?

• Does a UK governing party actually have any legal responsibility to ensure that the public funds they're distributing are not used for the purpose of attacking their political rivals, and if not, why not?

• Does the £2 million in government funding for an organisation that is interfering in other nations' sovereign affairs constitute evidence that the Tories are quietly privatising and outsourcing the functions of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?

• If this was a right-wing pro-Brexit pseudo-charity (like the Institute for Economic Affairs for example) that was caught red-handed spreading partisan political smears and interfering in democratic processes, would award winning investigative journalists like Carole Cadwalladr be quite so keen to talk the scandal down and pivot criticism away from the guilty parties?

• Does the fact that numerous UK mainstream newspaper journalists have been named as collaborators working in "clusters" on behalf of the Institute For Statecraft in the leaked documents explain their media colleagues' disinclination to properly investigate the scandal?

• Have members of the "cluster" cells this pseudo-charity has set up received payment or incentives for their involvement, and if so how much? 

• Have the MPs who have involved themselves with this pseudo-charity properly declared their involvement, and any payment or benefits, on the Register of Parliamentary Interests?

• Is the colossal amount of money this government-funded pseudo-charity is flinging around on running seminars and foreign jollies (globs of between £20,000 and £60,000 for seminars and academies),  an absolute affront to decency at a time when disabled people, low-income workers, and literally millions of British children are being condemned to destitution by Tory austerity dogma?

• Isn't setting up shadowy publicly-funded operations to spread online propaganda and interfere in the affairs of other European democracies exactly what the UK government accuses Putin and the Russian state of doing?

• Even if we agree with this pseudo-charity's extraordinary use of public funds, isn't getting caught red-handed meddling in other countries affairs a massive display of incompetence from whoever signed off on this scheme at the Foreign Office?

• Doesn't getting caught engaging in shady cyber-war activities and overseas political interference massively damage the UK's credibility when it comes to criticism of stuff like Russian propaganda bot farms, and Russian political meddling overseas?

• Is it time for the Charity Commission to draw up new rules to prevent this kind of egregious political abuse of charitable status?

Aside from these specific questions, there's also the thought experiment of whether Jeremy Corbyn would be getting such an easy ride had he become Prime Minister and then set about pumping £2 million+ of public funds into a shady left-wing pseudo charity that smeared his political opponents at home and interfered in the democratic processes and broadcast media of our European neighbours? [if your answer to this thought experiment isn't "absolutely no way" then you can't have been paying much attention at all for the last three years have you?]

None of these are difficult questions to come up with, and any journalist willing to peruse the cache of leaked documents should be easily capable of thinking up plenty of other pertinent questions about this scandal.

However it seems unlikely these questions will be asked by most mainstream media outlets (and especially the BBC) because they undermine the prevailing mainstream media narrative that casts the Russians as the perpetual baddies because they spread propaganda and interfere in other countries affairs (which they do) and the Brits as the honest and trustworthy goodies standing firm against the nasty Russian threat (despite getting caught red-handed engaging in the same kind of propaganda tactics, foreign meddling, and geopolitical influence-mongering).

In fact the leaked Institute for Statecraft documents reveal the shady means by which this prevailing 'new cold war' mainstream media narrative is actually being spread, including the development of "clusters" of journalists working to spread the Institute's propaganda.

Half of the problem is that in order to question the Institute for Statecraft scandal, a lot of mainstream media hacks would have to question themselves and their colleagues.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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Theresa May's Putinesque propaganda war

Interfering in other countries' democracies, channelling public funds to shady operations that attack and smear opposition politicians and undermine the freedom of the press, maintaining secretive networks of loyalist journalists and civil servants at home and abroad, spreading social media disinformation, electoral cheating to maintain power, and all as the head of a political party bankrolled by dodgy Russian oligarchs.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a description of Vladimir Putin and his regime, but in fact it's Theresa May and the Tories.

Anyone who has paid the remotest attention to how the Tory cabal funds itself will know that they've racked up more than £3 million in donations from dodgy Russian oligarchs and Putin cronies since 2010, including the sale of direct personal access to government ministers just weeks before the Tory government quashed Labour moves to clamp down on the tsunami of dodgy Russian cash flooding into the City of London.

Anyone who was paying attention during the 2017 general election will know that the Tory party is just as willing to use despicable social media propaganda to achieve their objectives as Vladimir Putin and the armies of Russia-based social media propaganda bots.

And who could forget the brazen electoral cheating the Tories got away with in 2015?

And now we're learning about the incredibly shady activities of a government funded propaganda operation called the Institute for Statecraft after the leak of a cache of damning internal documents about the global propaganda operation they're running (see here to browse the documents for yourself).

The Institute for Statecraft has been set up as a charity so as to avoid paying tax, and has benefited from around £2 million in public cash channelled through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

They've established what they refer to as "clusters" in democratic states across the developed world, including the UK, Spain, France, Greece, the US/Canada, Scandinavia, the Baltic region, and the Balkans. These shady cells act as anti-Russia propaganda outfits and also actively interfere in other countries' democratic processes.

One of the operations they're most proud of was their mobilisation against the appointment of Army reserve colonel Pedro Baños as Spain’s Director of National Security with a concerted smear campaign in the media within hours of the announcement.

They also openly brag about their interference in Spanish politics and the "silencing" of non-conformist voices on Serbian television in a document called "Top Three Deliverabilities for the FCO".

So the UK government is funding this organisation to the tune of £millions, and they're reporting back on their successes in interfering with the political systems and free press of other democratic states.

For an organisation that has been ostensibly created in order to counter Russian propaganda, this all seems more than a little Putinesque does it not?

The Institute for Statecraft operates a Twitter account called "Integrity Initiative" which, according to their Twitter bio, exists to "counter disinformation and malign influence" and "promote media literacy and media freedom".

So now we have an organisation that brags about silencing unwelcome voices on Serbian television simultaneously posing as champions of "media freedom" on Twitter!

And it gets worse. This government funded Twitter account has published several highly partisan political attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, including one Tweet labelling him a "useful idiot" and others sharing the work of bitter anti-Corbyn propagandists in the mainstream media.

So we have a shady propaganda outfit that's pretending to be a charity in order to avoid paying tax raking in £millions from the Tory government while they abuse the leader of the opposition on social media.

The channelling of public funds into a shady organisation that attacks and smears the leader of the political opposition is an absolutely appalling look for an organisation that ostensibly exists to counter Putinism.

The Tory government's use of public cash to fund a shady organisation that interferes in other countries' democracies, attacks press freedom, and bitterly attacks the leader of the opposition would be an absolute outrage under any other circumstances.

Just try to imagine it. Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister and then sets about channelling £2 million in public cash into a shady left-wing pseudo-charity propaganda outfit that actively interferes in other democratic states and bitterly smears his political opponents at home.

Do you honestly believe that there wouldn't be absolute outrage about it across the BBC and the corporate mainstream media?

But you almost certainly won't be hearing anything about this outrageous Tory scandal on the BBC or in the right-wing propaganda rags, and one of the principle reasons why is that this shady pseudo-charity has infiltrated them (especially the Times with three of their 'journalists' listed as Institute for Statecraft assets) as well as dozens of charities, think tanks, and government departments.

Another principle reason is that the mainstream media groupthink is to desperately defend the crumbling and incompetent Tory establishment out of fear that Jeremy Corbyn will actually follow through on his word and reform the political system to put the interests of ordinary people at the heart of government for the first time in decades, rather than continually pandering to the wealthy and coddled establishment cass to which most mainstream media hacks belong.

Hence this scandal will be brushed under the mainstream media carpet along with all the other outrageous Tory scandals they either forget about within days, deliberately obfuscate, or don't even bother to cover at all.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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