The Democracy for Sale podcast

In this episode of Democracy for Sale, Peter Geoghegan is joined by Professor Kim Lane Scheppele to unpick the high-stakes election in Hungary. With Orbán trailing in the polls for the first time in sixteen years, we investigate the transnational network of money and influence fighting to keep him in power.From JD Vance’s surprise appearance at a Budapest rally to the "Golden Spider" web connecting far-right movements across Europe, this is a forensic look at the "Hungarian Playbook" and how it is being exported to the United States via Project 2025.

Alan Rusbridger knows a scandal when he sees one. As editor of the Guardian he oversaw some of the most important stories in recent decades: cash-for-questions; phone hacking; WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.
Rusbridger thinks he’s looking at another scandal right now.
“GB News is essentially Reform TV,” he tells me in today’s Democracy for Sale discussion. “A broadcaster has become the media arm of a political party, and nobody is doing anything about it.”
This isn’t just about a scandal about a failure to enforce broadcasting rules, although it is that, too. At root, it’s a story about how money buys influence in British politics, and how our election laws are failing to keep up.

Something dark is happening on the British right.Racist language and ideas once considered beyond the pale are becoming increasingly mainstream.
In recent weeks, former Tory and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell has called for the “mass deportation of Pakistanis from Britain,” while self-styled academic Matthew Goodwin has revived the old “can Rishi Sunak be English?” trope.
Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride, meanwhile, said welfare should be restricted to UK citizens because “British citizenship should mean something.”
Racism in British politics is nothing new. But as Sam Freedman recently argued in this excellent (paywalled) piece, we’re seeing a shift toward ethno-nationalist rhetoric from within the political mainstream.
This hasn’t happened by accident. The rise in racist language is part of a calculated strategy to break taboos and reshape the cultural contours of political debate.
So how has this become possible? How did ideas once confined to the fringes of the British National Party become common currency in supposedly centre-right circles—and widely debated in newspapers and broadcast studios? And just how alarmed should we be by the rise of the far-right?
To help answer these questions, I spoke this week with Harry Shukman, journalist, researcher at Hope Not Hate, and author of Year of the Rat, a remarkable new book based on more than a year spent undercover with Britain’s far-right.
Posing as ‘Chris,’ Harry infiltrated nine far-right groups—some well known, like Britain First, others far less visible. Among them were the Basket Weavers, who present as a harmless men’s social club, but behind closed doors promote antisemitic conspiracy theories and dream of founding whites-only communities.
What struck me most, speaking with Harry and reading his book, is how Silicon Valley is helping power this movement—not just through unmoderated social platforms that amplify hate, but also through money.
In Tallinn, Estonia, Harry encountered white nationalists linked to the Human Diversity Foundation, a Wyoming-registered outfit funded by a US tech billionaire to pursue “race science.”
It sounds fringe. But it’s not. The Foundation’s magazine, Aporia, has thousands of readers. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien reposted one of its articles. Lords Toby Young and Nigel Biggar have both appeared on its podcast.
This is how extremism moves into the mainstream—from obscure online journals to the pages of The Spectator, and, as Harry explains below, to the social feeds of Reform UK candidates.

Harry also walked us through the world of think tanks and self-styled advisors who are recycling far-right ideas into Westminster politics - like Andrew Sabisky, whose views on racial differences and IQ cost him his job with Dominic Cummings in 2020. But that didn’t stop him secretly working with one of Rishi Sunak’s special advisors. (And breakfasting with Palantir boss Peter Thiel.)
Harry has done something extraordinary—and at no small personal risk. He exposes a hidden, growing network of far-right influencers and explains the distinction between the politics that trades in racist tropes and the often lost, disillusioned young men who are pulled into its orbit.
It’s a vital conversation for this political moment. I hope you find it as revealing as I did.
At Democracy for Sale, we’re committed to exposing how dark money and hidden influence are warping British democracy. If you value this work and haven’t yet joined us, now’s the time.
We’re chasing major leads, pursuing critical legal challenges, and investigating the forces bringing racism and authoritarianism into the mainstream. But we can’t do any of it without your support.
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This week, Democracy for Sale revealed how a secretive police unit is instructing forces across England to withhold information about their contracts with Palantir, the shadowy US firm founded by Trump donor Peter Thiel.
For Palantir, this kind of secrecy is par for the course. We know what it does—surveillance, military tech, big data—but much less about how it does it. The company is Silicon Valley’s closest thing to a black box.
But we can learn a lot from what its leaders believe.
Thiel openly argues that capitalism and democracy are incompatible. His co-founder, Alex Karp, talks of “disruption, domination, and deployment.” (For those who say his company is over-valued, the Palantir CEO dreams of “getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us.”)
Karp has set out his vision in his pitch-deck book Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, published in February. The Washington Post (proprietor: Jeff Bezos) called it “a call to arms for tech bros.”
So what does that worldview really look like in practice? And what impact are Palantir—and the rest of the tech elite—having on democracy, in the US and around the world?
To explore that, I spoke with Laleh Khalili, a brilliant writer and scholar whose work traces the ties between empire, capital, and control. Her books and essays explore everything from shipping lanes and oil flows to the hidden infrastructures of surveillance tech.
Laleh has described Palantir as “a child of the war on terror,” and in our conversation she drew out the deep connections between America’s vast defence sector—the Pentagon’s budget is bigger than the next ten countries combined—and the rise of surveillance technologies and, increasingly, AI.
What Laleh reminds us, too, is that Silicon Valley’s boasts of omniscience are often just that—boasts. Palantir’s market cap has soared, but as she puts it, its AI-driven promises are “50% b******t, and 50% sinister.” (Which might not surprise anyone who read our recent reporting on English hospitals refusing to use Palantir’s software—because it’s not much cop.)
We also talked about how Palantir and other tech giants pay former government ministers and top lobbyists big bucks to push their case—hello, Nick Clegg and Peter Mandelson. Even more importantly, these new masters of the universe use their money and influence to cultivate close personal relationships with top politicians and decision-makers.
This isn’t just about a handful of tech billionaires getting privileged access. It’s corruption on a scale not seen in America since the Gilded Age.
Democracy cannot survive this level of state capture. So what lies ahead for the US?
Laleh argues that America could be on the verge of serious social conflict, and warns about the risk of depoliticisation among progressives if the Democrats don’t seize on the success of democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York this week.
Right now, the future of American democracy feels perilously uncertain. Trump and his MAGA allies are intentionally undermining the institutions that have long underpinned US global power. The Supreme Court—handpicked to suit Trump’s autocratic instincts—seems to enable his every anti-democratic impulse.
All this should serve as both a warning and a wake-up call for the UK.
We don’t have a British equivalent of Citizens United, the US ruling that entrenched corporate power in politics. Our legal system doesn’t work that way.
Our government could still take money out of politics. The key word, of course, is could. Starmer needs to act now —before it’s too late.
At Democracy for Sale, we're committed to exposing dark money and hidden influence in our politics. If you value this work and haven’t yet joined us, now’s the time.
We’ve got major leads to follow, big stories to break, and critical legal battles ahead to challenge government secrecy. None of it happens without your support.
Become a supporting subscriber today—and be part of the fight to defend democracy.






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Last week, I was delighted to be joined by journalist and author James Bloodworth to discuss his new book Lost Boys. It’s a fascinating investigation into the rise of manosphere - and how the crisis facing young men is being exploited by the far right.
In our conversation - which you can watch in full above - we talked about everything from the role of social media and algorithms in online radicalisation to incels, influencers, and white nationalism, and what the liberals and progressives often get wrong about modern masculinity.
With so many young men voting for Trump, and signs that they could do the same for Reform, understanding the manosphere has never been more important.
Democracy for Sale now has its own YouTube channel - sign up here to follow it. Let me know who you’d like to see interviewed on Democracy for Sale by replying to this email with guest suggestions.
As political falls from grace go, Owen Paterson’s was particularly dramatic.
Back in 2021 the former Conservative environment secretary was found guilty of an “egregious” breach of parliament’s rules after lobbying ministers and regulators on behalf of two companies he was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to advise.
Paterson resigned his seat rather than face a 30-day suspension from the Commons, although only after Boris Johnson tried - and failed - to nobble the standards watchdog to save him.
You might think that given this public downfall, Mr Paterson would be leery of getting involved in debates about MPs being paid as ‘external consultants’ - but you’d be wrong.
Westminster’s committee on standards is currently holding an inquiry into whether there should be changes to the rules relating to parliamentarians outside interests - and Democracy for Sale was surprised to see that Paterson was among those who have submitted written evidence.
It's fair to say Paterson feels he has done nothing wrong - and there’s no problem with MPs being lobbyists, too.
Paterson’s submission - which runs to more than 2,700 words - ends with an impassioned plea that “the United Kingdom would be less well-governed and the public would not benefit” if second jobs were banned.
Well, it’s a take.
Others disagree. Rose Whiffen from Transparency International UK told us that "external consultancies don't enrich parliamentary debate - they instead create conflicts of interest that can leave MPs vulnerable to rule-breaking behaviour.”
Whiffen added that: “The government should limit second jobs for MPs - voters expect their representatives to focus on serving constituents and the national interest, not juggling outside commercial obligations that compromise their independence."
We’ll be watching the outcome of the standards’ inquiry with interest….

Speaking of lobbying in Parliament, we’ve another story for you….
The lobbyist, the Lord and problem of Britain’s “political influence bazaar”
Prem Sikka has been one of Parliament’s most outspoken critics of Fujitsu’s role in the Post Office scandal. The Labour peer has tabled parliamentary questions, spoken in debates, and published articles condemning the decision to continue awarding lucrative public contracts to the tech giant.
So when Sikka received an email in late May titled “Parliamentary Intervention Needed on Fujitsu’s Government Contracts”, he assumed it was from a campaigner or concerned member of the public.
It wasn’t.
The email came from a Conservative-linked lobbying firm. And the lobbyist was asking Sikka to raise concerns in Parliament about Fujitsu—on behalf of a client.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sikka told Democracy for Sale. “A lobbying firm shouldn’t be asking legislators to intervene on their behalf. It’s totally wrong.”
The e-mail was sent by Sameer Gulati, a former advisor at the Department for International Trade and now associate director at NorthPoint Strategy, a lobbying firm founded in 2023 by Tory peer and ex-MP James Wharton.
Gulati’s email didn’t identify NorthPoint’s client. It simply stated that the firm was “representing stakeholders concerned by both the [Post Office] scandal and Fujitsu's expanding role in public service provision,” and said Sikka’s “parliamentary influence is crucial in maintaining a spotlight on this issue.”
The email—reproduced below—asked Sikka to consider various interventions, including “tabling parliamentary questions about Fujitsu’s suitability for any government contracts.” There was no mention, or suggestion, of payment.
Earlier this week, Sikka wrote to the Lords Speaker, drawing attention to the email. “I am very concerned that commercial interests can subvert peers so nakedly and damage the standing of the House,” he wrote to Lord McFall.
NorthPoint Strategy’s client list includes aviation and energy companies, as well as a crypto lobbying group, the UK Cryptoasset Business Council.
The firm was criticised earlier this year after hiring Lord Callanan, a Conservative peer who now acts as NorthPoint’s general counsel. Callanan, who previously served as an energy minister under Rishi Sunak, received clearance from the Acoba watchdog to take the job, which involves providing “strategic advice” on political risks.
Responding to Sikka’s complaint, NorthPoint’s managing director, former Tory aide Simon Jennings, said the peer had “either fundamentally misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented the nature of the communication.”
“As is entirely standard practice in public affairs, we invited him to consider supporting activity aligned with those views,” Jennings told Democracy for Sale.
Two days after receiving Sikka’s letter, the Lord's Speaker replied. There would be no investigation.
“Should a Member choose to pursue a cause having discussed it with a lobbyist, this would not in itself constitute a breach of the Code, so long as no payment or reward of any other kind has been accepted or agreed,” McFall’s private secretary wrote.
Sikka said the whole episode highlighted the need to ban peers from working as lobbyists. While MPs are barred from taking paid lobbying roles under legislation introduced by Labour last year, members of the House of Lords can be paid to offer political advice.
“No legislator should be able to act as a hired gun for any interest,” Sikka said. “Until you end this political influence bazaar, we’re never going to restore people’s faith in politics.”
Finally: earlier this month, we reported on a pretty unprecedented blizzard of meetings between the Labour government and big tech giants. Tech secretary Peter Kyle even told Amazon that he would “advocate” for them at the competition watchdog.
We found 161 recording meetings between tech representatives and government officials during Labour’s first six months in office. (On average, business and commercial stakeholders have *23 times* as many meetings with ministers as charity, consumer and public interest groups, according to our friends at Spotlight on Corruption.)
Our story was covered in the latest issue of Private Eye.
Not included in our story was a meeting in April between Kyle Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI. What did the secretary of state and the CEO discuss over their £30 lunch?
We don’t know - when Democracy for Sale contributor Adam Byczkowski sent a Freedom of Information asking minutes, notes and other documents from the meeting he was told nothing existed. There was no written record of a meeting between a senior minister and one of the world’s most influential tech bros.
This is exactly the reason that Democracy for Sale is so committed to fighting against government secrecy. If you don’t already, please become a paid subscriber to support our work.




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