I watched about half of this and it seems much to do about nothing. The Royal Institute state their mission is:
During the pandemic there was a culture fund set up to help keep charities like this afloat so they could survive until things opened up again. Of course a charity like this is going to take money from a government fund. They seem to have used some of this money on a propaganda campaign centred around PT which does seem way out of their remit. Their board of trustees should be held accountable for how they have spent this money and people should just not donate to them.
Maybe there is a prexisting link between Olly and people on the board/media team then that would be an actual scandal. The other thing that should be talked about more is how they wanted a troon to front a pro science campaign. Olly is a guy who has stated that hes literally female - he is as anti science as they come.
I was all ready to submit a FOI request to see how much money my government had spunked on PT but as its a charity there is no recourse to see how much he got paid.
do it, submit the request, yes this is boring and much ado , but there will be something weird going on- both based on his anti science anti NHS screeching, and his other media exposure at the time in terms of conflict of interest
-there might even be some link up with that lgbt person of the year award which he boldly fell from on his sword before even winning because it had state links he didn’t like or whatever.
potential for real drop out reason due to being a conflict of interest, which makes his bullshit way of going about it even more disgraceful and dishonest.
honestly it was so weird for him to angle to be included, having you would assume, researched it, then drop it for no reason that was new information he wasnt aware of when he astroturfed a nomination initally- he'll probaly have been told to drop it, and it'll probaly have hurt him more to lose that opportunity, than he was able to scrape back form his bullshit about "why he droped out' - unless the stakes (£) was very preferable or he was unwittingly contractually obligated.
if there's anything to be found its likely there, and thats just the kind of thing that actually might fuck him if not legally then certainly reputationally
(to my mind quite strangely so, of all things- but this is just personally as i'm a slap dash and casual person - and assumed everyone was aware of the fact its all sewn up, backhanders- but the pretence of propriety is really important to a certain swathe of people and theres loads of laws around this and that.
this is what happens when things are on the downlow and they mistook ollies 'package' to be that of a more respectable, savvy individual.)
there will be something there