Letters

Letter to The Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP concerning the guide to conspiracy theories for MPs and members of the House of Lords that she commissioned

Summary

The FSU’s General Secretary has written to Penny Mordaunt MP about a guide she commissioned, along with the Labour MP Lucy Powell, that’s designed to help Parliamentarians identify ‘conspiracy theories’ in the run-up to the General Election and which has been sent to every MP and member of the House of Lords. Although well-intentioned, it has several major flaws, e.g., two of the guide’s co-authors identified the lab leak hypothesis about Covid’s origins as a ‘conspiracy theory’ in 2020, several contemporary ‘conspiracy theories’ flagged up in the guide – such as the claim that George Soros funds anti-government protests – are in fact true and the Guide is itself guilty of promoting at least one bona fide conspiracy theory. We have asked her to withdraw it.