Would you like to hear about the links between a Welsh think tank and paid Facebook adverts denying climate change?

Of course you do!

This is quite a tangled web so let's pick through it together...
It starts with a Facebook page called Eco Central.

Like many Facebook pages it is initially unclear who actually runs it.
The page has spent thousands of pounds on adverts designed to prevent action to stop climate change.

It claims that those calling for action on emissions are a “cult” as well as saying “climate change isn’t about saving the planet...It’s about fear. It is about power”.
Claims include the enormous wildfires we have seen in recent years were actually caused by green policies.

It also calls on young people to not be taught about climate change in school and attacks D.Attenborough's campaign to stop damage to the natural world as “fake news”
Eg:
Just to be absolutely clear - these claims are all incorrect.

It is a scientific fact that climate change is happening and is caused by the action of humans.

You can read some of the myths about climate change debunked here:
walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-new…
But there are loads of these disinformation accounts on FB - why is this one significant?

Well this one has links to a Welsh think tank - the Centre for Welsh Studies.
According to the disclaimers on Eco Central page, some of the nearly £4,000 that has been spent on adverts on the page came from the Centre for Welsh Studies.
So what is the Centre for Welsh Studies?

It is a pro Brexit think tank based in Cardiff Bay.

It has quite a few well known names on its board of advisors including 3 Tory MPs: former sec of state for Wales David Jones, MP for Vale of Clwyd James Davies and MP Sarah Atherton.
However these MPs are advisors, they do not run the think tank.

The Centre for Welsh Studies is actually a private limited company which according to both the website and Companies House is run by its chairman 28-year-old Matthew MacKinnon (pictured in the pink shirt below).
When WalesOnline asked Mr Mackinnon why his think tank was paying for adverts on a page that denies climate change he sent us this reply:
“The Eco Central project is nothing at all to do with the Centre for Welsh Studies.

“It is a project run for a client by Consulate Communications Limited. A totally separate company, who works with various clients in the private sector.
“This is strictly a private contract and does not have any link what so ever with any work I or my colleagues do for the Centre for Welsh Studies Ltd.

“Any suggestion that the Centre for Welsh Studies is behind Eco Central are untrue".
For good measure he added: “If there is a published accusation that the Centre for Welsh Studies is paying for Eco Central adverts, then we will be forced to take this further.”
When we pressed Mr MacKinnon on why Facebook recorded the Centre for Welsh Studies as doing exactly that - paying for Eco Central adverts, he told us it was because the Facebook page had been renamed.
He said the page was originally used by the CWS for a 2019 campaign called “Clean Brexit Cymru”.

This is backed by the FB transparency info showing the page was created on January 28, 2019 as "Clean Brexit Cymru - the Grassroots Campaign" & renamed on 26/05/20, as Eco Central.
While under its first name, the Centre for Welsh Studies paid for five adverts promoting Brexit including leaving without a deal.

Mr MacKinnnon said that when this campaign ended, the page was “gifted” to Consulate Communications as it was no longer used.
This not an insignificant gift.

In the digital age, being able to reach people is a valuable asset and having a Facebook presence which already has followers is a commodity worth having.

Something that many companies are willing to pay for.
So what is Consulate Communications and who runs it?

Back to Companies House for this one.

According to the official records Consulate Communications Ltd was started in September 2019. They have two directors one of which is ... Matthew MacKinnon!
So even if the Centre for Welsh Studies has not paid to advertise on Eco Central, it has still provided indirect support through Mr MacKinnon's consultancy by the gift of its page which would have built up followers with the help of the funds it provided.
Those people who followed the Clean Brexit Cymru Page thinking it was a campaign to leave the EU are now being spammed by disinformation about climate change.
Mr MacKinnon told WalesOnline that Eco Central is “a project run for a client by Consulate Communications Limited” which is “a totally separate company, who works with various clients in the private sector” and this work has no "link whatsoever to the Centre for Welsh Studies".
But this is thrown into doubt because the Eco Central page has benefited from a significant gift of a page grown using funds from the Centre for Welsh Studies and which is also likely to have attracted followers because of that.
TBF to the 3 MPs involved in the think tank, they seem to have had no knowledge of Mr MacKinnon’s extra curricular activities.

Mr Jones said he had not heard of Eco Central and has no links to it.
Mr Jones does seem to be on good terms with Mr MacKinnon.

Here is a picture of them together during the EU referendum count in 2016:
Full story below.

Massive credit to environmental investigations outlet @DeSmogUK who conducted the initial investigation into the page.

Check them out. A great organisation that deserves your support.

walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/…

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More from @WillHayCardiff

16 Oct
So why won't the Welsh Government publish the hyper local data for coronavirus?

It looks like we have an answer.

[Thread]
This issue has been rumbling on for over a month.
The Welsh Conservatives in particular have been obsessed with raising this as they are advocating for hyper local lockdowns where, for instance, just a council ward will be locked down.
Every week the UK Government release maps like this for England. It shows, at a very local level, how many Covid-19 cases there are.
Read 13 tweets
14 Oct
[Thread]
Let's take a look at the evidence underpinning the @fmwales decision to ban travel from Covid hotspots other parts of the UK.

Mark Drakeford has pointed to three pieces of evidence underpinning his decision.
1. Waste water analysis found similarities in virus strains in North Wales and the NW of England.

This technique was developed at Bangor Uni & monitors the amount of virus RNA (equivalent to our DNA).

According to the FM the similarities suggest transmission from Liverpool.
2. Research from the Public Health Wales Pathogen Genomics Unit and Cardiff University School of Biosciences.

This looks at mutation in the virus to work out where the original source of infection in an area came from.
Read 9 tweets
14 Oct
Big news.

First Minister Mark Drakeford will impose restriction on travelers from England on Friday at 6pm if Boris Johnson does not take action himself.

[Thread below]
walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/…
From 6pm on Friday, October 16, people from areas of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland with high prevalence rates of the virus will not be allowed to travel to Wales.
According to the First Minister, the rules will apply to anyone in an area of England in the top two tiers of alert in the English system - those deemed to have "high" and "very high" risk levels.

Areas of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 are currently ordered into “medium”, “high” and “very high”.
Read 5 tweets
14 Oct
Pretty bleak from the Welsh NHS Chief executive today.

The Welsh NHS's normal critical care capacity is already full.

Planned surgeries will be cancelled to make room. All very March 2020.

Continued:
There are 12 hospitals in Wales that are under serious pressure at the moment.

He said: "Today there are 12 hospitals reporting either levels three or four, which show the increased pressure across the NHS "

3 & 4 are the highest levels.
Read 4 tweets
21 Sep
Breaking news.

A local lockdown has been ordered for:
- Newport
- Bridgend
- Merthyr Tydfil
- Blaenau Gwent.

This will be coming it at 6pm tomorrow.

More details below:
On the Merthyr lockdown - cases appear to be mainly focused around two distinct clusters, linked to a large employer and a pub.

Two new, smaller clusters have also been identified.
In Newport, the rise in cases appeared to start with a house party at the end of August and was subsequently linked to a number of pubs.

There is a wide spread of cases across the city, which are not linked to a particular cluster or showing links with existing cases.
Read 7 tweets
12 Sep
There is a lot of confusion over who is to blame for the situation in the Rhondda so thought I would try and cut through the misinformation and general Twitter fury.

[Thread]
So testing in Wales is split between the Welsh & UK Government.
Most of the drive in centres you see are run by the UK Gov (through Deloitte/Serco etc).
At present about 75% of Wales' testing is done by the UK Gov (though since the start of the crisis Wales has done more).
Why so confusing? Good question.

It stems back to March when the UK Gov opened a testing centre in the Cardiff City Stadium without properly discussing with WG or PHW.

So for better or worse, we have a duel system (1 of which tests by putting up the nose and 1 who doesn't).
Read 10 tweets

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