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Friday 21 July 2017

Sockpuppet IEA slapped down by charity regulator

It was delicious this week to see the business lobbyists think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs  called out by the Charity Commission for breaking rules on political campaigning during the recent UK general election.

Although the Commission hasn't made a big deal of it, the small matter of an upheld complaint about the IEA's party political bias is contained in one of the charity regulator's reports (read the full report here). 


It's a welcome comeuppance for the IEA, which really is little more than a business lobbying outfit that masquerades as a research institute and is among the least transparent 'think tanks' in the UK.
The IEA has been behind a series of smears against the charity sector down the years, at various times attacking the Child Poverty Action Group for being too 'political'. It's infamous sockpuppet 'research' was used to smear the charity sector. Then, last year, the IEA was behind an announcement  by the Cabinet Office that charities who receive UK funding would themselves be banned from lobbying the government on legislation. A move considered by civil servants themselves to be stupid, unworkable and unnecesarry. It was eventually dropped.
Anyway, it turns out that the real sockpuppet in all of this was... the Institute of Economic Affairds itself.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.