Friday
Jan272012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Who pays for Brendan?
Jan 27, 2012 Climate: Sceptics FOI Brendan Montague has written a report on the Information Tribunal hearing into GWPF's seed funder. There's not a lot new to tell the truth, apart from the fact that our Brendan is being represented by a barrister.
Now a couple of days back Leo Hickman told me that this pursuit of GWPF's funders was a personal initiative by Brendan
No 3rd party is "funding" the request. Montague is doing it himself. Believes in transparency etc
I've asked the question and today Leo has said that Montague is paying the barrister himself.
Hmm.
I've left a comment at the bottom of Brendan's article.
Update on Jan 27, 2012 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
I'm sure I recall Brendan telling me how tough life as a freelance journalist was when he came to visit me in 2010. Business sure must have been good since then.
Reader Comments (43)
What would it demonstrate if Montague had a backer then ?
Have you ever asked your friends in the GWPF who funds the GWPF?
Hengist I don't care who is funding him but I suspect that BBD should in the light of the comments in previous threads.
you make me laugh Hengist, long may you continue! If Brendan is pursuing this enquiry on a personal basis, why is he hiding behind an organisation, supported by a grant from a charity designed to help local entrepreneurs set up viable businesses?
As I said at Brendan's site, I don't think he is under any obligation to reveal his backers. But he has said that he thinks it important that this kind of information be transparent, so he will no doubt want to reveal all.
Hengist - you aren't fooling anyone with that monicker. We all know you are a front for an International Flint Cartel determined to pick up huge boondongles for filling up all their holes with sequestered CO2.
There is always the risk that those who are convinced that the end of the world is nigh unless they get something done about it sharpish, will not get hung up with niggles about consistency or morality or even about the substance of counter-arguments and evidence. No time for all of that. Attack! Attack! Attack the unbelievers! The End of the World is (after all) Nigh!
That's the most charitable light I can contrive for Guardian 'environmental/science' writers and their chums.
Brendan Montague is a Marxist-Leninist...not that that is a bad thing.
'In short, gross inequality survives in late capitalism. The profit motive is also driving the planet towards catastrophic climate change.'
'A Year On the Sauce', Brendan Montague
I agree with the Bishop seems strange that Brendan Montague just happens to have enough money to pay for this effort. Or perhaps his legal team is pro bono? If that is the case, they should declare it.
Hengist
What would it demonstrate if Montague had a backer then ?
Sounds like you don't believe him either. The issue, my dear man, is WHO is backing Montague. Is it Big Oil? Or Al Gore? Or someone using public funds improperly?
Diogenes and myself discussed Brendan Montague's funding here on Jan 23rd:-
I am not certain of the funding behind Request Initiiative because of its highly opaque website. However, it does get funding from a "charity" called The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, whose last accounts show total income of £8.8m.
"Where the money comes from
UnLtd Millennium Awards are funded by the income from a legacy of £100 million granted by the Millennium Commission. This legacy is carefully invested so that the income can be obtained for awards for the future - this is what is called a permanent endowment.
The Millennium Commission is the only distributor of lottery funds to good causes who some time ago decided to provide awards to individuals. Around 25,000 of these have been made so far and they have been so successful that they decided to provide the legacy to UnLtd to carry on this work for the future."
The objects of this "charity" are:
1 the relief of poverty
2 the promotion of education and training
3 the advancement of other purposes beneficial to the community
these objects are to be carried out only by grants of money to individuals.
so this grant to Request Initiative is possibly ultra vires.
I hope that Hansen is concerned by this.
Jan 23, 2012 at 7:20 PM diogenes
Fascinating dg.
So a charity, set up with £100m of public lottery cash to promote "social entrepreneurs" - which illustrates its website with pix of starry eyed multiculti kiddies setting up youth clubs - actually doles out the cash to dodgy failed tabloid hacks who want to dabble in the dark arts of political PR.
Maybe they should keep some money in reserve for rehabilitating the more colourful characters currently explaining themselves to the Leveson enquiry.
Then, if they've got any left over - for "the advancement of other purposes beneficial to the community" - they could bung it all to a really worthy cause like Bob Ward's institute.
Jan 23, 2012 at 8:59 PM Foxgoose
I have posted on Request Initiative's website today asking whether they have received this lottery money and how they can justify it.
@Bishop Hill, thank you
None of us can speak for Brendan, but I think he would draw a distinction between how his finances are arranged and how a group that lobbies Parliament is funded. And as one commenter has pointed out , the brief could be pro bono.
It's pretty clear now that you broadly defend the GWPF's position of opacity on this then.
Brendon's solicitors are employing a very expensive barrister £400 per hour.
Brendon's solicitors - Harrison Grant - are, surprise surprise the solicitors of choice for Greenpeace.
The International Flint Cartel are also cornering the marketing in stone axes...
Hi Hengist!
I am a small financial backer of the GWPF and have been ever since it was formed. I don't believe in the CAGW religion. I don't want our civilisation to be destroyed by the idiocies that CAGW promotes.
Kind regards
Mike Post
I woudlnt want my name made public if I was donating large sums of money to the GPWF...lord knows what crazies you will get stalking you! And quite rightly it should be a matter of personal safety simply because of the lunatic fringe that believes in the religion of Mann Made Global Warming (tm).
Regards
Mailman
"a very expensive barrister £400 per hour"
Not a QC then.. :-)
I was also a founder donor to GWPF and have donated regularly since.
I wouldn't expect them, or any other charity I donate to, to reveal my identity to the public - particularly since I live in a city infected by mad greenies who paste stickers on my (hybrid) 4x4.
Do FOE, Greenpeace, WWF or The Union of Concerned
DoggiesScientists reveal the names of all their donors?These people with their fraudulent science are getting extremely worried. They really don't like the GWPF revealing the truth. Desperate times seem to call for desperate measures.
From Companies House:-
Request Initiative was founded as Request Initiative Ltd with a share capital of £2 split equally between Brendan Momtague and Lucas Amin. In November 2011 it converted to a "Community Interest Company" (not-for-profit) and changed its name to Request Initiative CIC.
I hasn't filed any accounts yet.
The link between the Millenium Commission, Request Initiative and Brendan Montague needs to be thoroughly investigated. If it does turn out that Montague's fishing trip against GWPF is being ultimately or partially funded by the National Lottery, then it is probably legally questionable.
not banned yet:
I'm shocked at this revelation, which is self-evidently correct, requiring no further evidence. Nothing the guy says can ever be true, least of all the statement "I am Hengist McStone." Everything is a vile lie because this evil denier is in the pay of the IFC, the very heart of Big Flint.
I learned to reason like that, I say with pride, from some of the most prominent climate scientists in the world. Only the names have been slightly changed.
Fox,
They probably wont publish any accounts for at least two years. This isnt a conspiracy, its just that you dont have to send your first accounts in for two years from the date you registered your company.
Mailman
Jan 27, 2012 at 4:26 PM | not banned yet
Hengist - you aren't fooling anyone with that monicker. We all know you are a front for an International Flint Cartel determined to pick up huge boondongles for filling up all their holes with sequestered CO2.
###############
McStone - the name gives away the connection to a flint cartel.
The flint cartel clearly wants to make money from this and turn holes which are currently a liability into assets.
With the money they make they can then establish new flint quarries just in time for the revisited stone age all this nonsense is intended to create, with a tremendous demand for flint tools they are all set to satisfy - at a price.
These people are devious.
This was posted on WUWT in comments on the Mann case pursued by ATI with UVA
"Mann is part of a team submitting FOIs to the GWPF, and failing, so far."
Re: Brendan on "late capitalism"
That is a farcical phrase that marks its user as an ideologue shaped by Marx and his ilk. There is no adequate reason to believe we are in some "late" phase of economic freedom, unless the ideologues of the radical left manage to end our freedoms with the type of hysteria that passes for "CAGW" hype.
Mailman
I wasn't implying a conspiracy - just stating a fact.
Its worth remembering that the total lack of evidenced of any conspiracy is in fact a sign of the conspiracy at work . Well it is for the tinfoil gang.
Re cosmic
It's worse than you thought.
The flint cartel was almost crippled by Oreskes et al during the war on tobacco. Fewer smokers, fewer lighters, fewer flints needed so the cartel's profits plummeted. The quartz cartel didn't help either by promoting cheap piezoelectric lighters. Although they similarly suffered from the decline in smoking, their products had some dual-uses, like getting free credits in slot machines or upsetting smart meters.
People like Oreskes saw how much money and influence they could make from tobacco and looked for new campaigns, like the war on warmth and affordable energy. The flint and quartz cartel also saw the new opportunities and started moving their pawns. The quartz cartel's most prominent PR person is allegedly Bob Ward, who moved from doing a PhD in paleo-piezometry into disaster promotion. Flint's pawns are perhaps darker, but Huhne's opposite number on Labour's benches could be a dead giveaway regarding the extent of their influence.
(Huhne's own role is best explained by an Austrian documentary maker, Walter Wippersberg)
The end-game though should be obvious to anyone who remembered our Winter of Discontent, and the frequent black-outs that went with it. Those created a large demand for candles, and the means to light them. Both quartz and flint cartels thus stand to gain from our energy policy, as does the candle cartel. Many environmentally friendly people who wittingly or unwittingly support and buy Big Candle already. Bees aren't disappearing, they're simply being stockpiled ready for the power cuts. It also should suprise no-one that the cartel's science office is located so close to the historic centre of Big Flint at Grrimes Graves near Norwich.
Alternatively, it's easy to create a conspiracy, if you twist your mind hard enough and I'm sure Montague will reveal his funding sources in the interests of transparency.
Fox,
No worries mate. It won't surprise me if they don't publish their first set of accounts for a couple years.
Regards
Mailman
I hope Brendan does clear this up - If he is paying for this initiative (inc. barrister) himself I think he needs to be clear about the boundaries between his own personal finances and those of his Community Interest Company.
As far as UnLtd goes, I think they might respond to a request for a copy of their Award to Request Initiative. Whether or not they are subject to FOI I don't know but BigLottery are and they appear to take their obligations seriously.
http://www.bis.gov.uk/cicregulator/guidance
http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/index/foi
I thought this article in Spiked put it all into some context.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/12005/
It's pretty clear now that you broadly defend the GWPF's position of opacity on this then.
Jan 27, 2012 at 5:00 PM | Hengist McStone
Hmm! Was not the lack of "opacity" over the H.S./CRU what started all this CAGW malarkey off? There appears to be a lot of side track issues going on at the moment as opposed to discussion of real empirical science.
There appears to be a lot of side track issues going on at the moment as opposed to discussion of real empirical science.
It's never been about the science.
Should the CO2 link to warming be shown conclusively to be wrong, the one thing you can be certain is that Montague won't accept that he should cease to proselytize against "late" capitalism. He'll just move on to some other excuse. Whatever that is – ruination of the biosphere, economic collapse, etc – it will be proclaimed as imminent and catastrophic.
M Ryutin - for more context UnLtd financial accounts are worth a look. pp9 and 10 show the network that they are connected to - including the Guardian Social Enterprise Network:
http://www.unltd.org.uk/download/unltd_accounts_2011.pdf
http://unltd.org.uk/template.php?ID=17&PageName=introduction
I notice that Brendan's crusade against 'deniers' has the support of the BMJ and Lancet editors, among others:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/26/transparency-donors-climate-sceptic-lobby
From the letter:
"The Climate and Health Council supports Nasa scientist James Hansen as he joins the campaign to uncover secret funders bankrolling climate sceptic Nigel Lawson and his lobbying think-tank (Climate experts back unveiling of Lawson thinktank donor, 23 January). The public may finally discover who is secretly influencing UK climate policy – contrary to scientific consensus – today (27 January), when the Information Rights Tribunal hears this key freedom of information case."
Apparently anyone who doesn't believe in CAGW is akin to those who 'deny' the link between HIV and AIDS, smoking and lung cancer, etc.
It is appalling that these once respected journals are now apparently in the hands of anti scientific, namecalling ideologues.
Do these people never allow their brain cells to meet, or something?
Mike - that was the point I was trying to make to BBD on the other thread - the resources available to GWPF are miniscule in comparison with what DECC, WWF, Greenpeace, Bob Ward et al have to play with. Where are the signs that GWPF has had any impact on policy? The only real sign of a change of heart by the UK Gov in the last 2 years was about those solar feed-in tariffs and that was from financial motives prompted by the Treasury. The Climate Change Act is still on the books. My local MP burbles on about the need for revewables and diverisfying sources of energy, and reducing dependency on oil.....GWPF punches above its weight, thanks to Lawson, but it is no match for the massed ranks of the "we know better" brigade in the BBC, Gov, Civil Service etc
Something like 99.999% of climate science is funded by the state, an organisation with a vested interest in alarmism. No surprise then that the climate 'consensus' is alarmist.
Odd that Brendan is more concerned about a tiny fraction of the tiny fraction of the remaining funding.
Ho ho ho, looks like he couldn't take other people asking him akward questions.
Comments Closed.
:-)
That's transparency for you.
I thought the FOIA only covered public bodies, government departments etc.
Under what authority are the Request Initiative trying to get the GWPF to release these details?
Perhaps a FOI request should be lodged against request Initiative to find who's paying their lawyers?
They probably wouldn't like it up them, as Private Jones would say.
Both the Lancet and the BMJ have been in the hands of left wing activists for some time.
Lancet editor Richard Horton was prominent in the "Stop the War" movement - here's the Socialist Worker's video of him ranting about "anglo-american imperialism" alongside George Galloway at a rally in 2006.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9788
Fiona Godlee of the BMJ also makes no secret of her politics. As well as presiding over climate change conferences:-
http://climatechange.bmj.com/
she runs her own green activist group from the BMJ offices:-
http://www.climateandhealth.org/the_council.html
She also makes no secret of her political leanings in her tweets - where she confesses to being aroused by "Gordon Brown's animal magnetism.
She has been on BBC news all morning today - trying to sabotage the coalition NHS reforms.
Basically these people are trade unionists.
Fiona is 'aroused by Gordon Brown's animal magnetism' ???
Poor woman. Looks like the cognitive dissonance is very deeply ingrained indeed. :)