Great Western Coffee Shop

From time to time we post articles of interest that have been published by 'Think Tanks', organisations with official-sounding names which can mask their political or ideological bias. To help members put these publications in context, here is a list of Think Tanks and their leanings. It is rather short at the moment, but I will add to it as necessary. I have used the organisations' own descriptions of their political stances; for many 'progressive' means 'left wing' and 'free market' means 'neoliberal':

Name	Abbreviation	Ideology	Website
Adam Smith Institute	ASI	Neoliberal/Free market	https://www.adamsmith.org/
Centre for Policy Studies	CPS	Centre right/Conservative	https://www.cps.org.uk/
Institute of Economic Affairs	IEA	Free market	https://iea.org.uk/
Institute for Fiscal Studies	IFS	Independent	https://www.ifs.org.uk/
Institute for Public Policy Research	IPPR	Progressive	https://www.ippr.org/
Taxpayers Alliance	-	None stated*	https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/

* The Taxpayers Alliance is one of a number of think tanks and lobby groups based at Tufton Street, London. These organisations are generally characterised as being right wing, eurosceptic and sceptical about anthropogenic global heating.

Should the financial side be included?

Institute for Fiscal Studies    IFS                                        https://www.ifs.org.uk/ (https://www.ifs.org.uk/)

I'll leave somebody else to define the Ideology.

Presumably the relevant transport think tanks could be included.

The IFS says it aims to be "non-political", and it is more af a genuine academic research institution than "just a think tank". Its director, Paul Johnson, is a frequent BBC pundit and never struck me as committed to any political side. But coverage of the launch of their "Deaton Review" last month made it sound almost Corbynist, and that was how their own publicity had pitched it. The full document explaining the review was less prejudiced, being mainly proper economics, but even that contained graphs that would mislead a non-expert reader and support a left interpretation of recent history. So I'm beginning to wonder.

I've added the IFS, and classified it as 'independent' as that's how it describes itself. I note that its reports have been accused of being partisan by the left and the right.

Added Taxpayers Alliance, and note on Tufton Street.