This is a cross-post from John Sargeant at Homo Economicus
Mehdi Hasan has thrown down a gauntlet to me. Do Maajid Nawaz’s public pronouncements regarding when taxpayer funding ended square with the revelation on Newsnight recently of funding from the Department For Education (DfE)?
According to their policy editor Chris Cook:
In March 2011, the Home Office refused to continue funding the body, which had enjoyed public support, and which then said it needed £150,000 to keep working.
Defending that decision, Damian Green, a Home Office minister, said that “Quilliam should be free to contribute to the wider debate, but not depend on government funding to do so”.
Shortly afterwards, however, the DfE stepped in. Its ledgers confirm that, in May 2011, it contributed £120,000 to the think tank.
The date of this new funding being paid, May 2011, does not seem to square with Maajid Nawaz’s public statements when tax payer money ceased to be awarded to the Quilliam Foundation:
You can read the rest of John’s post here
