Yesterday I watched Channel 4 News’ joint investigation into the “secret foreign donations” of Reform, created with Verbatim, “a not-for-profit investigative journalism” organisation funded by the Centre for Climate Reporting - an outfit that ironically has no information about its funders on its website.

Raheem Kassam has done a good recce on his Substack, incidentally, showing that the CCR is funded by “the foreign groups: European Climate Foundation, KR Foundation, Meliore Foundation, Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, and a fund administered through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors”. (More here).

That hasn’t stopped Louis Wilson, one of Verbatim’s two founders, going undercover for over a year in “the highest levels of Reform UK” (as if you might find Lex Luthor stroking a white cat several levels up into the party) to sniff out the foreign moola apparently rolling into its accounts.

With Reform constantly being accused of receiving foreign/ Russian funding, you might think a journalist would find endless material to share with the nation. However, Verbatim actually had to invent a character in order to get any sort of scoop; a “plate of cookies” character designed to financially tempt Reform and get party officials to show their true characters.

Enter “William Lockwood”, played by Wilson, “British-educated, British accent, but his father, his father’s company, and his father’s money are American”, complete with a gilet and loafers (a disguise you sense Wilson is rather chuffed with).

Charlotte Gill

Channel 4’s Reform sting is boring. Plus: we…

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