The Adam Smith Institute itself has never received public money. Its founders, Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler, also set up and for many years co-owned Adam Smith International. This is a for-profit international consultancy advising foreign governments on privatisation and economic restructuring, or more specifically on how to communicate the message of economic restructuring. Adam Smith International's dominant client under New Labour, along with the World Bank, has been Britain's Department for International Development. 

Enthusiasts for DfID might have been rather less keen on its work if they had known that British aid money had been spent on the recording of The Privatisation Song, a pro-privatisation jingle played on Ugandan radio.

Will a future Conservative government continue such largesse to left-wing think-tanks? This must be a cause of concern for Demos and may help to explain why it recently launched a programme on progressive Conservatism, spearheaded at first by "Red Tory" Phillip Blond. It was launched with a speech by David Cameron and now includes as part of its team shadow cabinet member Greg Clark, former Tory spin-doctor and Times columnist Daniel Finkelstein and the environmentalist and Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith. George Osborne and David Willetts have both joined Demos's advisory board. So perhaps its funding is safe.