#THREAD Disabled children’s charity Street Foundation, funded mainly by HR Smith Group (big donors to Reform, Tories & Brexit groups) gave 43% of its grants (£749,000) to #TuftonSt lobbyists. CEO Richard Smith owns the building housing the New Culture Forum, Civitas, GWPF & IEA.

Richard Smith fomerly (currently?) of #TuftonStreet's Taxpayers Alliance, is a trustee of the Politics & Economics Research Trust (PERT), founded by Matthew Eliott. In 2015 it was reported that PERT gave 97% of its 2015 grants to groups who favour Brexit.

PERT was founded by Matthew Elliott in 2004. By 2009, it had donated more than £500,000 to the TPA and an investigation was launched by the Charity Commission following allegations that PERT was channelling funds tax-free to a political group in possible breach of charity law.

The Charity Commission investigation did not find evidence to support the allegation, but did warn that its reputation risked being damaged “if its relationship with the [TPA] is not properly managed”.

In 2015, PERT was found to have given 97% of its grants to pro-Brexit groups, principally the TPA & Business for Britain, also founded by Elliott. The TPA received £300,000 from the charity in 2013 alone.

A further Charity Commission investigation was launched which concluded that PERT had failed to put “formal grant agreements in place, and did not have processes to monitor research projects the charity had funded.”

PERT Director Alex Le Vey is also a Director of 'Conservative Voice' - “a place for the grassroots to make themselves heard”, or a nexus for right-wing think-tanks, lobbyists, PR firms & single issue campaigners to influence what those grassroots say?

While researching Alex Le Vey of 'The London Community Foundation' I found his 2017 article about Grenfell in the Alliance magazine - 'providing a space for news, thinking, debate & peer exchange among philanthropy practitioners worldwide':

Anyway, I digress. Richard Smith is a major donor to the Conservative Party and pro-Brexit causes. The #TuftonStreet building was purchased for £4.25 million in 2009 by Specmat, another technology manufacturing company owned by Smith.

According to Companies House, Richard Smith has four Active Directorships, including one for Eurosceptic think tank The European Foundation, registered at #55TuftonStreet - one Active Director is Bill Cash, & two former Directors are Tory MPs Iain Duncan-Smith & Andrew Rosindell.

Fitriani Hay was Liz Truss’s biggest donor for her 2022 leadership campaign, giving her £100,000. She had previously given more than £500,000 to the @Conservatives. Hay, the wife of James Hay, a former BP executive, gave Farage’s Brexit/Reform UK £50,000.

Hay's £50,000 Reform UK donation was matched by HR Smith Group Ltd, owned by Richard Smith, who gave the then Brexit party £100,000 through a subsidiary of HR Smith, Techtest, in 2019. HR Smith Group also gave £10,000 to Iain Duncan Smith’s constituency association in 2021.

Anyway, when people give money to charity - including chrities for disabled children - they should know exactly how their heartfelt donations are spent. Imagine finding out it actually goes to #TuftonStreet think tanks like the IEA & New Culture Forum. 🤬

And now we find out that between 2020 & 2023, GB "News" owner Paul Marshall, whose investment firm holds billions in investments in fossil fuels, donated £890,000 to Policy Exchange through a charitable trust under his control, the Sequoia Trust.

Policy Exchange, funded by fossil fuel companies, played a key role in drafting legislation introduced by the @Conservatives to crack down on climate protestors, & shared its premises with The Pilgrim Trust, Civitas, & Centre for Social Cohesion think tanks at Clutha House.

From 2008-11, the current head of the UK's Commission for Countering Extremism, Robin Simcox, was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Cohesion, founded in 2007 with funding of around £275,000 from #TuftonStreet think tank Civitas.

At that time, the Director Centre for Social Cohesion was right-wing Islamophobic extremist, Douglas Murray. CSC was subsumed into the Henry Jackson Society, in April 2011, where Simcox stayed until 2015. JOIN THE FUCKING DOTS. 🤬

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