LM network

The LM network or LM group is a superficially loose and informal network of individuals and organisations sharing a libertarian and anti-environmentalist ideology. Its constituent organisations are led and largely composed of people associated with the defunct Revolutionary Communist Party and its principal publication Living Marxism. The network has no public presence or acknowledged existence. The strongest link is between the largest and longest established entities, Spiked and the Institute of Ideas, established in 2000 by close associates and operating from the same address. However, associated entities typically have overlapping personnel, themes, views and techniques, and promote one other.

The Institute of Ideas’ Claire Fox concedes ‘Certainly, there is a network of like-minded people. Some people do come from an RCP background, because we have a long intellectual history together, and we do work together sometimes…’ [1] Former editor of LM and Spiked and continuing Spiked contributor Mick Hume confirms ‘The network of people I live and work with contain lots of people who were members of the RCP.’ [2] while Spiked and Institute of Ideas contributor Dolan Cummings explains ‘I never left the RCP: the organisation folded in the mid-Nineties, but few of us actually 'recanted' our ideas. Instead we resolved to support one another more informally as we pursued our political tradition as individuals, or launched new projects with more general aims that have also engaged people from different traditions, or none. These include Spiked and the Institute of Ideas... ‘[3]

Many of the organisational and campaigning approaches used by those in the network are, not surprisingly, characteristic of the RCP, including: the creation of a range of organisations without apparent formal links; the launching of multiple campaigns; the use of extensive and extended debate; the adoption of contrarian and controversial positions; the use of martial terminology; and the early adoption of leading edge communication techniques.

A defining characteristic of the network’s entities are their positioning as catalysts for debate or irreverent challenging of established orthodoxy. In practice, this enables the promotion of the views of the network and its sponsors on almost any topic, under the guise of free enquiry. Their principal underlying themes of economic development and freedom from regulation benefit corporate interests and the larger and more established organisations explicitly seek sponsorship, either directly or via PR companies or free enterprise think tanks. Several of the entities target young people while others are sector or issue led. The network's entities are increasingly seeking partners overseas.

Individual ex-RCP members with links to the network have assumed influential positions elsewhere, particularly in the media and sciences. More generally, higher education is the most common occupational sector of associated personnel, followed by the media. Many have past or current links with the Universities of Kent, Sussex and East London. Details of some of those associated with the LM network are available via LM network at the bottom of this page.

Funding

None of the organisations associated with the LM network provides a breakdown of funders and how much they have provided. We do know, however, that they are funded by corporations that fund think tanks dedicated to promoting their interests in the political and media spheres. For example, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer has funded both Spiked and the Institute of Ideas and two organisations with which the LM network has connections, the Science Media Centre and Sense About Science. Both are engaged in managing debate about scientific issues.

As well as funding the LM network, Pfizer funds free market think tanks such as the US-based Competitive Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute, the Netherlands-based Edmund Burke Foundation, the Brussels based Centre for the New Europe (which also does work on climate funded by Exxon), the UK’s Social Market Foundation and the American Council on Science and Health, a deceptive front group. Pfizer is a member of one of the most important global corporate lobby groups, the International Chamber of Commerce.

Other corporations and corporate lobby groups that have funded the LM network are BT, Cadbury Schweppes, IBM, Novartis Orange, O2, The Mobile Operators Association and the Society of the Chemical Industry. These sources of funding are typical of lobbying or PR firms. Unsurprisingly, some of the biggest lobby firms also fund the network. Hill and Knowlton is one of the most controversial lobbying and PR firms in the world, having famously been behind the deception on the incubator baby story in Kuwait in 1990/91. It also worked for a long list of controversial corporations, including some from the oil, tobacco, pharma, fast food, and GM industry. It worked too for repressive regimes, including Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey – and China after the Tiananmen square massacre. Along with PR firm Luther Pendragon (which has worked for the Hinduja brothers, Macdonalds, Pepsi, the GM industry and others), Hill and Knowlton has put up cash for LM network events. The LM network has also worked with other free market think tanks such as the International Policy Network (which took money from Exxon for climate change ’outreach’) and the Social Issues Research Centre (which takes money from the food, alcohol and tech industry and downplays the risks from their products).

Associated Entities

• Academics for Academic Freedom - Unqualified free speech
• Audacity - Construction
• Big Potatoes - Innovation
• Future Cities Project (together with ManTownHuman) - Planning/ architecture
• The Great Debate - Debating forum
• Institute of Ideas (together with Battle of Ideas, Culture Wars and Debating Matters) - Debating fora
• Manifesto Club - Anti-regulation
• Novo Argumente - German online magazine
• Salons (Regional) - Debating fora
• Spiked (together with Young Journalists Academy) - online magazine
• Trasna An Domhain Go Leir - International analysis
• Voltaire - Swedish online magazine
• WORLDwrite (together with WORLDbytes) - International analysis

The LM network appears to have some influence with the Genetic Interest Group, Progress, the Science Media Centre and Sense About Science.

Defunct Associated Entities

• Africa Direct
• Campaign Against Militarism
• Campaign for Internet Freedom
• Channel Cyberia
• Families for Freedom
• Feminists for Justice
• Freedom & Law
• Global Futures (dormant)
• Internet Freedom
• Irish Freedom Movement
• Libero
• London International Research Exchange
• Modern Movement
• Transport Research Group
• Workers Against Racism

Any information on The Litigious Society, Parents Against the Charter, or other past or present LM/ RCP initiatives would be gratefully received.

Resources

• Andy Beckett, 'Licence to rile', The Guardian, 15 May 1999.
• Chris Bunting, 'What's a nice Trot doing in a place like this', Times Higher Education Supplement", 28 January 2005 (log-in required).
• James Heartfield 'Dave Hallsworth' Obituary, Guardian, 20 December 2007
• John McVicar, The Scoop that Folded a Magazine Punch, 29 May 2000.
• Don Milligan, Radical Amnesia and the RCP, Reflections of a Renegade, January 8, 2008.
• George Monbiot, 'Invasion of the Entryists', Guardian (UK), Tuesday December 9, 2003.*David Pallister, John Vidal and Kevin Maguire, 'Life after Living Marxism: Fighting for freedom - to offend, outrage and question everything", Guardian (UK), Saturday July 8, 2000.
• Dave Renton Living Marxism, spiked online and the RCP Temporary Hoarding, 4/8 March 2006.
• Andy Rowell, "LobbyWatch: SMC complaint", April 2007. (This is an edited version of a submission made by Andy Rowell to the board of the Science Media Centre).
• Andy Rowell and Bob Burton, “Rising Rhetoric on Genetically Modified Crops, PR Watch, Volume 10 No 1, First quarter 2003.
• Andy Rowell and Jonathan Matthews, "Strange Bedfellows", The Ecologist, May 2003
• Mike Small, 'The Faction That Fools the World' Variant Issue 24, Winter 2005, version placed in web archive 20 April 2007
• George Monbiot, "Freedom for whom?" Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 February 2005.
• Usenet Discussion of RCP/LM front groups, from usenet, April 1998.
• Dave Walker Libertarian Humanism or Critical Utopianism? The Demise of the Revolutionary Communist Party New Interventions, Vol.8 No.3, 1998
• Martin J Walker, "Brave New World of Zero Risk: Covert Strategy in British Science Policy" (book), Slingshot Publications, 2006.
• David Webb, 'Liberalism - Let's Spike It!", Part 2, Thread started on: Apr 16th, 2005, 4:58pm Originally published in the Salisbury Review Vol 21 No 4, June 2003, pp.25-28.
• David Webb, 'Liberalism - Let's Spike It!", Part 2, Thread started on: Apr 16th, 2005, 4:59pm Originally published in the Salisbury Review Vol 21 No 4, June 2003, pp.25-28.
• David Webb, 'Liberalism - Let's Spike It!", Part 3, Thread started on: Apr 16th, 2005, 5:00pm Originally published in the Salisbury Review Vol 21 No 4, June 2003, pp.25-28.