Tufton Street and nearby Westminster addresses are home to a network of policy ‘think tanks’, lobbyists, pressure groups, PR and media organisations. They offer a range of services, among them offering access to politicians, promoting right-wing agendas, and providing a revolving door to government and media.

Many of these organisations provide ‘expert’ opinion and false balance on mainstream media, but their funding is often shrouded in mystery, with connections to far-right American organisations and tax havens. Their web of influence in areas such as Brexit, climate change denial, and our elections, is aided with social media engineering by the likes of Cambridge Analytica.

In this Real Media co-production for DeSmog and The Media Fund, we hear from three independent investigative journalists, Mat Hope (DeSmog), Peter Jukes (ByLine), and Adam Ramsay (Open Democracy) who connect the dots around this insidious threat to democracy.