This is such UTTER NONSENSE by Bulford. The whole point, which she is unable or unwilling to grasp, is that the BBC is complicit in giving these entirely opaque orgs the veneer of respectability they crave. It doesn't matter whether their views are challenged (which they're not).
https://twitter.com/Ross_Greer/status/1493606863195226113
Imagine I launched a private co called The Royal Trust Against Poverty. Would I ever be invited to comment on economic policy? NOT IN A MONTH OF SUNDAYS. And yet The Taxpayers Alliance or the (formerly) Institute of Ideas are precisely the flip-side of that.
The question is not whether the BBC challenges their views. By inviting them on, it de facto signals they have some authority to express them. Has it ever questioned their funding, agenda and reason for being BEFORE deciding whether they deserve a chair?
My sense is 'no'. Once your name is on the guest rolodex as - say - a columinst for the Spectator for 6 months, it stays on when you move to an opaquely funded 'think tank'. And the example is not random. Some publications have a blindingly obvious revolving door to Tufton St.
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