MPs issued with guide to conspiracy theories

New guidance for MPs and Parliamentary candidates has been published this week, instructing politicians how to spot and combat conspiracy theories. Yet the report, commissioned by Tory Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt and compiled by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, may not really be the promised silver bullet to the tinfoil hat brigade which supposedly dominates the internet.

The guide aims to inform MPs about the risks of conspiratorial thinking, but ends up drawing some rather tenuous links between various conspiracies. The chart above goes some way in illustrating this complex web of theories, which places antisemitism at the centre of everything.

The collection includes the chemtrails conspiracy theory, which posits that contrails from aircraft deliberately release dangerous chemicals. The report suggests it is associated with antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming that chemtrail truthers “believe in a clandestine global conspiracy” involving the Rothschild family, among other powerful figures.