John Blundell, the departing head of the Institute of Economic Affairs writes in today’s Sunday Times of his quest to keep the IEA ‘clean’ through strict donor rules, including:

• No corporate money tied to projects either explicitly or implicitly
• No taxpayer funds
• No FTSE 100 company to give more than 2% of budget [I assume he mean's IEA's budget]
• No corporate sector (eg oil, banking, pharmaceuticals) to give more than 5% [of IEA budget, I assume]

He mentions how he had received offers of tax-efficient funding in return for his extension of scholarships/bursaries to the donor’s progeny (he refused: “Sorry, no deal”). He also thinks that politicians have become more guarded in their dealings with think tanks since 1997.