BBC Radio 4’s flagship ‘Today’ programme this morning dedicated a whole feature on the charitable status of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), despite management effectively ‘banning’ its head, Lord Lawson, from the airwaves.

The story focussed on the fact that the GWPF will relaunch in September with separate charitable and campaigning wings, following a ruling by the Charity Commission that it should not use charitable money for campaigning. A report also appeared on the BBC News website.

The decision to report the story has left the GWPF especially mystified as it was first reported in the press over two months ago.

The corporation had previously ruled that climate change sceptics should be given less airtime after listeners complained about a debate involving GWPF head Lord Lawson. The ‘Today’ programme had invited Lawson on back in February to discuss the recent floods, but some listeners thought a sceptic should not be allowed on the airwaves.

The BBC agreed, and ruled that the debate should not have taken place, leading Lord Lawson the write an angry response in the Daily Mail, claiming that he had been effectively banned from appearing on BBC and describing the decision as “Stalinist”.

Speaking to Breitbart London, Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director said the group were confused about why the BBC decided to report on them: “This is an old story that we announced in May and the Guardian and the Independent had written about this already.

“The most likely [reason] is that this is in response to the criticism of their decision to more or less ban Lord Lawson from the airwaves.

“I think they are annoyed, I think the BBC is worried about their decision to essentially censor sceptics because they got such a bad press – It’s against their own charter and it’s a risk for them. I think they are risking increased scrutiny about their policy.”

Dr Peiser then went on to thank the BBC for raising the organisation’s profile: “If it was [an attempt to smear the GWPF], it didn’t work because it was fantastic PR for us as far as we’re concerned. We are ever so happy to get huge exposure by the BBC.

“After all, all they reported was that we’re going to set up a new campaigning organisation that will be more effective than our charity.”

Earlier this month, Breitbart London reported how as many as 200 senior BBC staff attended seminars on climate change, given by notable alarmists. Although they had spent many tens of thousands of pounds hiring lawyers and fighting FOI requests in order to keep the identity of the seminar leaders secret, a blogger unearthed the information nonetheless.

It turned out that most of them were green activists from pressure groups like Greenpeace and Stop Climate Chaos.