User:Bobfrombrockley/Spiked

RCP/Spiked

Academic sources

White, Damian & Rudy, Alan & Wilbert, Chris. (2008) Anti-Environmentalism: Prometheans, Contrarians, and beyond. in The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society ISBN:9781412918435 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277007692_Anti-Environmentalism_Prometheans_Contrarians_and_beyond/citation/download

The spread of contrarian ideas in the UK has principally occurred through a rather mysterious group of journalists and intellectuals around the think tank ‘Institute of Ideas’ and the website ‘Spiked Online’. This group has its roots in an orthodox Marxist – Leninist group – the Revolutionary Communist Party – that developed from the 1970s and was founded by the sociologist Frank Furedi. However, from the early 1990s onwards the group increasingly moved away from socialist politics whilst maintaining strong commitments to the vangardism, scientism and technological determinism of orthodox Marxist–Leninism. The end result has generated an unusual fusion for antienvironmentalism currents. Declaring themselves ‘beyond left and right’ (Furedi, 2005), the Institute of Ideas/Spiked Online Group argue from an ideological position that draws together radical antienvironmental contrarianism, with the aspects of Leninism concerned with deference to authority and leadership structures. This is combined with a Nietzschian celebration of the unencumbered individual and an Ayn Rand style defense of elitism and the unrestricted free market... Claiming that the whole agenda of ‘sustainable development’ is merely a symptom of societies’ ‘culture of low expectations’, the ‘Institute of Ideas’ and ‘Spiked’ have emerged as central conduits channeling the thinking of US libertarian right think tanks into the UK media. More generally, they have become libertarian promoters of all kinds of contrarian ideas about everyday life and the sciences: from disputing the relationship between HIV and AIDS to denying the existence of global warming and the Rwandan genocide. p.130

Mellor, Felicity. "The politics of accuracy in judging global warming films." Environmental Communication 3.2 (2009): 134-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524030902916574

The production of Against Nature had involved former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a group which by the early 1990s had rebranded itself under the auspices of LM magazine and was now promoting an extreme libertarian, anti-environmentalist ideology with little apparent connection to Marxism (Living Marxism, 1996). Although Durkin denied that he was a member of this political network (Lobbywatch, Undated), Against Nature had reproduced LM's anti-environmentalist thesis in detail. When, a decade later, GGWS was also criticized, Durkin defended his film in an interview with Spiked, the online magazine which is the successor to LM magazine (O'Neill, 2007).

Douglas, Richard McNeill. “The Green Backlash: Scepticism or Scientism?” Social Epistemology 23 (2009): 145 - 163. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691720902962805 https://www.academia.edu/8795591/The_Green_Backlash_Scepticism_or_scientism

In the attempt to make sense of Stott, one might seek to locate him as being connected to that strange group of former Revolutionary Communist Party members and Living Marxism writers who have been so active in discourse on science in Britain in recent years. As Andrew Rowell and George Monbiot have documented, a small network of ex-RCPers has become remarkably influential within science communication circles, running the Institute of Ideas (which holds public debates and conferences) and the Spiked web site, as well as holding influential positions at the communications and lobbying groups, the Science Media Centre and Sense About Science. Certainly Stott is connected to them, having written for Spiked and appeared at Institute of Ideas debates. And certainly, they share much of his same outlook on science and the environment. As just one example, one of the regulator contributors to Spiked argues that, if climate scientists do happen to be right and global warming does soon become a grave problem, we should respond by using technology to change the climate back again—“Controlling the weather is nearly within our grasp”—while another echoes him (citing the first article as his only authority)

Adam, D. Hostilities resume over future of GM crops.Nature 419, 327 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/419327a

The debate has also thrown up some unlikely alliances, not least that between the Natural Environment Research Council, Britain's main environmental research funding agency, and spiked, an online publication set up from the ashes of the now-defunct Living Marxism magazine. The council is sponsoring a debate about the field-scale trials on the spiked web-site — a decision that has already brought complaints from researchers.

Tim Crook "Utopian dreams for better journalism?" Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, Vol 11, Nos 1/2 2014, pp.19-24 https://www.academia.edu/21788964/Towards_Responsible_Journalism_Code_of_practice_journalist_oath_and_conscience_clause https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/42552876/Towards_Responsible_Journalism_Code_of_p20160210-31731-nsyjz8.pdf?1455135610=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DTowards_Responsible_Journalism_Code_of_p.pdf&Expires=1598532534&Signature=WH08075h7ZBH38PzskJZckS6e1ADANRYxrYZwmnRVtFpWGQWFvpU~RMKXtoBXZyTiP2T6Em8dVevVC3GvOpWBmZ6gHMxgrSuAOGtUBiPyAXjWYm59nC6C8z~jH8O0WeGS8gOwVlJD1hIo1MEMaFPtD6BNeN3A1kk0AyfyA5EArpaAtj6TrzRUDyx-ujdBfiGEBc8VKyT2TX4IB916WRrrGNV6Ql5xdpeKQ4V6JgY04BsQBq6wSZzV9e50Rw3HmTmV5eCfv1-OGp0E5OS2YVA~cUuxzaBsPsDQ7VcCDZ8CvJsxVPVLbvAc0N6rYLexCfJoiYFcLtOlH~PuYG57rX~zQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA#page=21

The destructive polarity of opinions in the free speech debate is very well represented by the continuing positions of Professor Stewart Purvis, foreign correspondent Ed Vulliamy and Spiked editor Mick Hume over the successful libel action by ITN and its journalists, against Hume’s former magazine Living Marxism (LM) in 2000, litigation which led to the magazine’s demise... Hume is much respected as the author of There is no such thing as a free press and we need one more than ever (Societas 2013), and the editor of Spiked, branding itself as ‘Free speech! No ifs, No buts’.

Smith, ‘The National Union of Students and the Policy of “No Platform” in the 1970s and 1980s’, in J. Burkett (ed.) Students in Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, 2017, pp. 203-224 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58241-2_9 PDF (see penultimate para before conclusion, including far right activists and libertarians, such as those attached to the RCP's later incarnation, Spiked! Online, have portrayed themselves as defenders of free speech against the censorious politically correct left p.18

Academic sources to check

• Law, A., & McNeish, W. (2007). Contesting the new irrational actor model: a case study of mobile phone mast protest. Sociology, 41(3), 439-456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038507076616

This is available on JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42857006

Only one paragraph mentions Spiked:

2 The Explicit Irrationality Thesis

What is often assumed and left implicit as protester irrationality within risk analytical and psychological explanations has been made more explicit in recent sociological explanations that seek to challenge the hegemony of risk discourse in the developed worl. In this respect, Adam Burgess's recent work (Burgess, 2002, 2004, 2005a, 2005b) can be viewed as representative of a wider school of thought influenced by Frank Furedi's analysis of The Culture of Fear (1997) and currently articulated through the online magazine Spiked.⁴ As defenders of a peculiarly Promethean version of Enlightenment reason, bordering on the caricatured form often critiqued in post-structuralist and postmodern sociology, Burgess, Furedi and Spiked associates have developed a risk-denial perspective, unremittingly hostile to environmentalism and related social movements and discourses that seek to challenge the hegemony of dominant conceptions of scientific endeavour, economic modernization and technological development.⁵This project has been enjoined by the Liberal Democrat peer Dick Taverne, whose recent book (2005) paints a dark picture of a credulous, fear-ridden western culture in thrall to ecological and religious fundamentalisms, on the one hand, and of post-modern and sociological relativism, on the other. As a consequence, contemporary society is increasingly losing confidence in scientific authority, the benefits of corporate governance and the progressive potential for human advancement.⁶ For risk-deniers, the high profile that oppositional social movements enjoy in today's society is symptomatic of the 'march of unreason' (Burgess, 2004; Furedi, 1997; Taverne, 2005). The anti-globalization movement, for instance, is the very embodiment of this regressive trajectory: 'it is clearly not a movement based on reason. It represents an emotional reaction against power, authority and technology' (Taverne, 2005: 247).

Footnote 4 is Spiked's URL. 5 and 6 follow:

5. The connections between the key Spiked commentators and the now defunct RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) and Living Marxism journal have been well documented: see e.g. Cohen, 2002; Monbiot, 2003; Small, 2005. See also the close connections between Spiked commentators and forums like the Institute of Ideas, and registered charities like Sense about Science and Global Futures

6. Dick Taverne is a founder of the charity Sense about Science, which aims to 'promote an evidence based approach to scientific ideas in the public domain'. Tracey Brown from Spiked is a Sense about Science director and member of the SaS Working Party. See the highly favourable review of Taverne's book on the Spiked website (Guldberg, 2005)

Pilgrim, David, Critical and Radical Social Work, Volume 5, Number 1, March 2017, pp. 7-22(16) Publisher: Policy Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1332/204986017X14835297996415 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/crsw/2017/00000005/00000001/art00002

Phelan S. (2014) Neoliberal Imaginaries, Press Freedom and the Politics of Leveson. In: Neoliberalism, Media and the Political. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137308368_8 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137308368_8

David Campbell (2002) Atrocity,memory,photography: Imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia--the case of ITN versus Living Marxism , Part 1, Journal of Human Rights, 1:1, 1-33, DOI: 10.1080/14754830110111544 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14754830110111544

Alison Phipps Me, not you: The trouble with mainstream feminism eISBN: 9781526152725 Publisher: Manchester University Press https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526152725/9781526152725.00010.xml

Wagg S. (2014) ‘When I give food to the poor …’. In: Wagg S., Pilcher J. (eds) Thatcher’s Grandchildren?. Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137281555_6 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137281555_6

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2013.840537 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14797585.2012.756243 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1070289X.2018.1552440 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2017.1312008 https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yY2oDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP10&dq=%22spiked%22+%22aaron+winter%22&ots=JnxLlRXRvF&sig=x1slE8vFdZU5UXTjRvbM1tRDg-0#v=onepage&q=%22spiked%22%20&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s6PSDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT174&dq=%22spiked%22+%22aaron+winter%22&ots=twkAGt3zlP&sig=17h5wLvfBNUoShQyU_RqooVZ8VI#v=onepage&q=spiked&f=false https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/poi3.219 https://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2018/08/IPP2018-Heft.pdf https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/phoenix/osd/2016/00000016/00000001/art00005 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01426397.2020.1791811 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669582.2020.1803334

News sources to check

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/05/boris-johnson-ushers-in-radical-new-era-of-special-advisers They’re young, they’re ambitious, and many are of a libertarian bent. A new cadre of special advisers has entered Downing Street and various ministries under the regime of Boris Johnson, suggesting radical rightwing thought and true believers in hard Brexit are in the ascendancy.... one of the most radical appointments is Munira Mirza... Her background is unusual: she has links to a circle of former Revolutionary Communist Party supporters who wrote for Living Marxism, then morphed into libertarian provocateurs involved with Spiked online magazine. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018761609/dark-money-democracy-and-the-media