Television personality Chris Packham has re-opened the crowdfunder he launched in December last year – and closed just one week later, having raked in a stonking £84,945 from 3,132 donors – to enable him to take Rishi Sunak to court for backsliding on three Net Zero policy commitments. It seems Packham v Sunak has become Packham v Starmer, without those 3,132 donors being given any chance to say whether they agree that’s what Packham should now be doing with their money, given the change of government on 4 July and the Starmer administration’s stated mission to deliver Net Zero.

Furthermore, Packham’s three-sentence update to the crowdfunder, announcing the change of defendant in the litigation, fails to mention that, on 1 August, the new Labour Government wrote to him, presumably inviting him to withdraw or defer his judicial review claim. This is a clear breach of Rule 3.3 (Misleading Advertising) of the Non-Broadcast Code of Advertising Practice, which provides that: “Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information.” Furthermore, to my mind, it amounts to a breach of Regulation 3 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Background

As documented on this blog in January, Packham launched his crowdfunder on Crowdjustice on 4 December, with an initial target of £75,000, to cover the legal costs of launching a judicial review of the then Tory government’s decisions to “abandon statutory green pledges made in its latest carbon budget to keep the UK on target for Net Zero” and in particular to “delay or abandon key climate targets around vehicles and gas boilers”. In a video posted on social media, Packham boldly claimed that his case “could set a precedent that our leaders or their Governments cannot act on a whim without facing the legal consequences”.

Despite the crowdfunder text lacking key information that might enable potential donors to make an informed decision about the merits of the judicial review claim and its prospects of success – such as the text of the ‘pre-action protocol’ letter that Packham seemingly sent to the Prime Minister and other ministers in early October, and the Government Legal Department’s (evidently dismissive) response – the crowdfunder raised more than £46,000 within 24 hours, and more than £60,000 within 48 hours.

The initial target of £75,000 was then reached on 7 December, when the target was raised to £100,000. However, by 11 December the crowdfunder was closed, having raised a total of £84,945 from 3,132 donors (an average donation of just over £27). And on 4 March, Packham announced on social media that he had been granted permission to apply for Judicial Review. Packham’s solicitors, the law firm Leigh Day, also issued a news release.

Recent developments

In January, I noted on this blog that, as Packham’s case was unlikely to reach court before the General Election, then widely expected to be held in May, it was not clear why Packham considered it appropriate to solicit money from well-meaning but manifestly uninformed members of the public, for a legal challenge that had little if any chance – even if ultimately successful – of changing the Tory government’s policies on Net Zero.

I wasn’t quite right about the timing of the General Election, but as I anticipated Packham’s case had still not reached court when Rishi Sunak was booted from Downing Street on 4 July.

Given that Labour’s General Election manifesto stated “the climate and nature crisis is the greatest longterm global challenge that we face … That is why clean energy by 2030 is Labour’s second mission”, you’d think Packham might at least want to give them a chance. But on 28 August he re-opened his crowdfunder and added a three-sentence update, stating simply: “The new Government won’t back down. We’ve had a change of government, yet there is still no indication that this new administration will reinstate these key initiatives to help us hit Net Zero”.

The same day, Packham posted a 60-second video on X/Twitter, in which he states:

An update on the legal case which I initiated almost a year ago now. Cast your mind back, the then Prime Minister Mr Sunak rowed back on three key Net Zero policies: the transition to electric vehicles; the installation of heat pumps rather than gas boilers; and ensuring that landlords properly insulate their tenant homes. We believe that these were integrally important when it comes to meeting those Net Zero commitments. But, time has moved on, and we do have a new government. They have reached out to us about this case, but at this point there is no indication that they are going to reinstate those policies and address other issues of transparency. So, I need to ask for your help. We’ve got to raise a little bit more money to ensure that we can hold Labour’s feet to the fire of climate breakdown.

That “little bit more money” is £25,000, because on 28 August Packham raised the crowdfunder’s target to £110,000. And it remains unclear who the “we” and “us” are, other than Packham himself and his solicitors, Leigh Day.

In the video, when Packham mentions the Government having “reached out to us about this case”, there is a still of a one-page letter, dated 1 August 2024, to Packham from the Government Legal Department (GLD). But, other than the date and salutation, the entire contents of the letter have been redacted by Packham.

Given the evident brevity of the GLD’s letter, and the fact that Packham characterises it as the new Government ‘reaching out’ to him about his case, it seems likely that the GLD was writing to invite Packham to withdraw or at least defer his judicial review claim, in light of the change of government and the new Labour administration’s clear policy commitments on Net Zero (which Packham himself has warmly welcomed).

At the very least, those now being asked to donate “a little bit more money” to Packham’s crowdfunder, on top of the £85K already raised, need to know about the Government’s initiative in ‘reaching out’ to Packham, yet there is no mention of the GLD’s letter in the update to the crowdfunder text. But, to be able to make an informed decision about whether to donate, and if so how much, they also need to know, at least in general terms, what it is that the GLP has proposed on behalf of the Government, and how that affects the judicial review claim’s prospects of success, should it proceed. And that information is not provided in either the update to the crowdfunder, or the video posted by Packham on X/Twitter on 28 August.

Packham’s deliberate omission of this material information is a patent breach of Rule 3.3 (Misleading Advertising) of the Non-Broadcast Code of Advertising Practice (the CAP Code), produced by the Committee of Advertising Practice, the sibling organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority. Rule 3.3 of the CAP Code provides that:

Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.

Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product.

The Committee of Advertising Practice has stated explicitly that “individuals or companies seeking donations should be aware that claims made on their pages on crowdfunding websites constitute advertising and are subject to the [CAP] Code.”

Furthermore, Regulation 3 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 provides that:

(3) A commercial practice is unfair if—

(a) it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and
(b) it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product.

To my mind, Packham’s deliberate omission of material information – the purpose of the GLD’s letter of 1 August – when soliciting new donations to his crowdfunder is likely to materially distort the behaviour of the average consumer, by causing that person to make a donation that they would otherwise not make, or to make a larger donation than they would otherwise make. Because, armed with that material information, that person might well conclude that it is Packham who should now ‘back down’. Since 28 August, 130 people have donated a total of £3,582.

Accordingly, I have made complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA ref: A24-1261081), and to Trading Standards (via Citizens Advice).

Update, 25 September: It is now four weeks since Packham re-opened his crowdfunder, yet he’s added just £4,157 (from 156 donors) to the £85K he grifted in December. At this rate, it will take another five months for Packham to reach his (new) target of £110K. Which tends to confirm that many if not most of those who donated that £85K in just one week in December were motivated not so much by the need to achieve Net Zero, as by their animus towards Rishi Sunak and the Tories. Unsurprisingly, Packham v Starmer simply doesn’t appeal as much as Packham v Sunak did.

Whatever, Packham now faces a dilemma. Does he risk not just defeat in court but adverse costs by pursuing his obsolete legal challenge to specific policy decisions that the Starmer-led government did not make, and which new ministers are entitled, given the mandate they received on 4 July, to conclude are (currently) less important than delivering their own raft of manifesto commitments aimed at delivering Net Zero? Just this week, for example, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced “new plans to boost minimum energy efficiency standards for all rented homes”. Or does Packham accept that he simply initiated his legal challenge too late in the life of the Sunak government, and back down?

The latter course of action would require some humility on Packham’s part. And I’m not sure humility is something he does. But Packham has to decide: Is he a moral leader, or a grifting loser?

Update, 30 October: Yesterday, with his crowdfunder standing at £89,337 – just £235 more than on 25 September – Packham announced in a thread and video on X/Twitter that he has settled and withdrawn his legal claim, as the Government has conceded that the previous, Sunak-led Government “acted unlawfully” in September 2023 when abandoning pledges in its carbon budget delivery plan. And a press release from Packham’s solicitors, Leigh Day, confirms that the Labour Government will now “reconsider [the previous Government’s] decisions to delay transitions away from petrol and diesel vehicles, gas boilers, off-grid fossil fuel domestic heating, and minimum energy ratings for rented homes in its revision of the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan by May 2025.”

So, Packham has his ‘win’, and accordingly is rather pleased with himself. But the fact is he failed to change the policy of the Sunak-led Conservative Government before its demise on 4 July and, given its (welcome) manifesto pledges on delivering net zero, the new, Starmer-led Government has simply agreed to do what it would no doubt have done anyway. Whoopy doo! But taxpayers are left with a hefty bill for the legal costs of responding to Packham’s legal claim. All very performative. And just a little bit macho.

Presumably, at some point, Packham will get around to updating and closing his crowdfunder, which as I write remains open to new donations.