Peter Geoghegan @ democracyforsale.uk
@PeterKGeoghegan
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Investigative journalist @OCCRP. Best-selling author. Ex: @FerretScot, @openDemocracy + more Subscribe to my newsletter: https://t.co/sUZavzi98B
London
Joined March 2010
Worried about the influence of 'toxic' foreign dark money on British politics?. Support Democracy for Sale’s crowdfunding campaign so we can clean up the system. #GE24.
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Sinn Fein won Northern Irish elections and there are two pundits on BBC politics Sunday couch arguing about whether 90 mins is too long for Keir Starmer to eat a curry. Britain is an increasingly bizarre place.
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Your regular reminder that 'underlying health conditions' is not a synonym for 'they weren't really a real person/they would have died soon anyway.'.
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🚨 Last week Christopher Harborne gave £1m to Boris Johnson. This week QinetiQ - the UK defence company whose biggest shareholder is Harborne - won an £80m government contract. Great scoop from @jimfitznews (also in morning's Politico London playbook).
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Liz Truss has appointed the former head of the TaxPayers' Alliance as her chief economic advisor. That's everything you need to know about where Britain is heading right there.
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🚨Exclusive: The Met Police has refused to release details of its decision not to investigate the £3m ‘cash for peerages’ scandal in the House of Lords. This doesn't bode well. Cracking @openDemocracy scoop from @martinrw and @JennaCorderoy .
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Which begs the question. why has UK endured a decade of austerity then?.
"There is £26bn of headroom, the money is there, but we also think there is room to make some sensible tax cuts as well". Boris Johnson says the UK has enough money in reserve to prepare for a no-deal #Brexit, increase education spending and cut taxes
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Must confess I didn’t see ‘bishops are the enemies of the people’ being British Tories’ tldr Easter message.
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If number 1 on your list of 'why Joe and Boris will get on fine' is 'because Biden's great, great, great grandfather fled the famine in Ireland, then part of the UK' fear might be struggling @Telegraph
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Explosive @Channel4News package revealing that Arron Banks targeted far right groups before the Brexit vote - and the BBC had the story but didn't run it.
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This is absolutely wild. The biggest party in Britain is now acting like a disinformation node and is completely shameless about it.
Labour's manifesto launch today and the Conservatives are running attack ads on Google. The top link for "Labour" goes to a Tory mini-site using the domain
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Britain August 2022. A place where a man who ran Patisserie Valerie into the ground, bankrolled lockdown sceptics and now spreads climate scepticism is a leading voice on radio debate about the future of the British economy.
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So there's senior British journalists on here within, what, an hour of Mirror/Guardian revealing that Cummings broke lowdown rules arguing the story down and citing anonymous sources. Why?.
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🚨 The Tories have taken tens of thousands of pounds from Russia-linked donors since the Ukraine war began. Including £50k from Lubov Chernukhin day after Boris Johnson promised to step up sanctions to 'starve Putin's war machine'. New on @openDemocracy .
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So BBC has run a three minute puff video about ‘party girl does politics’. At no stage does mention that said party girl is in Turning Point, directly connected into dark money, and uses Sputnik clippings to illustrate. This is *so* poor.
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You've 48 hours to come up with a decent excuse for driving 30 miles to another town during lockdown and you go with 'to test my eyesight'? Imagine what the rejected alternatives were. .
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‘The money was only resting in my account’. Striking how Farage’s blokey tone basically disappears when he’s asked who funds him.
‘It’s a purely personal matter that I received hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations from a source I kept secret for ‘work’ I’m not talking about & which I didn’t declare’.
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There is a minority far-right minority in pretty much every country. But in Britain - like in the US - they are being now dog whistled at by political leaders.
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The idea of large scale voter fraud in Britain has *absolutely no* basis in fact. 44 milllion ballots were cast in 2017 general election. There were 28 allegations of voter impersonation and just one conviction. Shame on a member of Parliament were suggesting otherwise.
Photo identification will need to be presented to collect your ballot paper at polling stations from 4 May 2023. This is to protect your vote, and to prevent it being used without your knowledge.
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Banks appealed directly to Robbie Gibb at the BBC, who 'tried to hose it down'. The story never ran. Gibb is now Theresa May's director of communications and, according to Nick Boles, a hard Brexiter.
Explosive @Channel4News package revealing that Arron Banks targeted far right groups before the Brexit vote - and the BBC had the story but didn't run it.
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Not often you get to commission a news story you feature in. When @mrjamesob and I, on his show, said the IEA was a politically motivated lobbying organisation funded by “dark money” it complained to Ofcom. It's lost. @martinrw on it @openDemocracy .
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Vote Leave broke the law. Now they’re taking over the British government.
💥 Boris Johnson set to hire Chloe Westley from the Taxpayers' Alliance as his digital adviser in No10. Former Vote Leave campaigner and pro-Brexit talking head who you will know from your TV screens.
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This is one of the most important Brexit mornings and Today brings on David Davis for its flagship interview. Why? Was Michael Fabricant washing his hair?.
Why on earth is David Davis back on #r4today? Seriously it’s almost like he has a weekly slot. In which he giggles inanely and says nothing.
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Not satisfied with calling Leo Varadkar 'the Indian' for years, the good member of the House of Lords is now calling Kamala Harris 'the Indian'. These people are legislators. For life.
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That Patrick Minford is on my TV as an 'economics expert' says everything about how unmoored from reality British political discourse is right now. Wild.
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A parliamentary inquiry has condemned British government for running a secretive Freedom of Information 'clearing house'. From moment @openDemocracy broke this story in 2019, government has smeared our work. So: Any chance of an apology Mr Gove? 🧵.
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Just leaving up this snap from the DUP in Westminster.
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Matthew Elliott's Vote Leave broke electoral law. Now Elliott is being made a legislator *for life* by a prime minister who failed to out last a lettuce. The absolute state of British democracy in a nutshell.
🚨 RESIGNATION HONOURS REVEALED: . Liz Truss to make four new members of the House of Lords – despite serving for just 49 days. New peers:. 💥IEA boss Mark Littlewood. 💥Brexit boss Matthew Elliott. 💥Tory donor Jon Moynihan. 💥Long-term aide Ruth Porter.
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I wrote a thing, for first time in ages. Prompted by Telegraph story that said 'the British public wants a referendum on Net Zero'. Surprise, surprise it's all astroturf and and dark money. And it's not the only uncanny parallel w/Brexit campaign.
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On Sunday evening young Darren declared on Twitter that he knew nothing about Irish politics. Twelve hours later he's live on BBC spouting nonsense. As I wrote, so refreshing watching RTE without these grifters and hucksters. But seriously why enable them?.
As well as not understanding how a border poll would be called under the Good Friday Agreement, he claims the Irish housing crisis is due to “rent controls”
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This is absolutely wild. If we leave to Facebook to regulate our democracy we won’t have one much longer
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Not for second saying they're not significant issues, but struck by how much debate there is about Jeremy Corbyn and BBC, and how little about @JolyonMaugham 's revelation of existence of VIP channels for well-connected #Covid contractors given UK's failing test and trace system.
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Seeing so many photos of empty shelves in Britain. I went to small super market in rural Ireland yesterday and was well stocked. Irish people aren't different to British, or anyone else, they are just as fearful and worried. But they have had far clearer messages from Government.
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Everything this is wrong with British journalism in a single story. Rees Mogg didn’t ‘clash with’ David Nicholl he smeared him by comparing him to charlatan Andrew Wakefield. Journalism like this corrodes democracy
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This really is remarkable. A credit rating agency, Moody's, citing "weakening" of British democracy as factor in yesterday's UK downgrade. And what does UK government intend to do about this? Well, Tories floated idea of abolishing Electoral Commission.
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Theresa May on my radio saying she’s committed to leaving customs union, no hard border in Ireland and frictionless trade w/EU. ‘There are a number of ways that can be delivered’. No there isn’t. There’s no way that can be delivered.
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Am struggling to understand how/why Nigel Farage’s Brexit party is getting so much news time today and his talking points uncritically parroted.
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*PLEASE* can broadcasters not talk about 'super majority' without first pointing out that it means nothing in UK and then asking their guest why the Conservatives are pushing the term.
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Some good news - journalism works (sometimes). After long-running @openDemocracy investigation a judicial body has ruled that public has a right to see research produced by the European Research Group. Latest exclusive from @JennaCorderoy and I (thread).
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Remember Cheltenham? Where c 250,000 went to races as #covid start to spread across UK?. Well, local Tory MP - who called for festival to go ahead - received £4,000 from gambling lobbyists at Cheltenham last month. Then declared the gifts late. (Thread).
Exclusive: Tory MP under fire over £4,000 Cheltenham hospitality – days before COVID lockdown. Laurence Robertson was late declaring lavish hospitality from gambling lobbyists at controversial Cheltenham event. Latest @openDemocracy investigation .
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It's not everyday that you get to say that your journalism has led directly to a parliamentary inquiry. but today we can!. MPs are launching an inquiry into Government's secretive FOI Clearing House. Am very proud of all @openDemocracy .
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So much this. David, sorry Lord, Frost was basically every Brexit minister rolled into one. Vainglorious jingoism, puffed up rhetoric and, in the end, a failure who flounced off when faced with the reality of the ‘sunlit uplands’.
Bollocks to all the Lord Frost resignation ‘reasons’. He’s going because he crowed, threatened, struck stances and FAILED.
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🚨Meet the ex Russian MP turned lobbyist + Tory donor who offers his clients “exclusive access” to gov ministers and has *a lot* of photos w/Boris Johnson at Conservative events 😬. Another wild tale of how cheap access is in the UK. New @openDemocracy .
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A friend going through Heathrow just sent this. More than a year into a pandemic - and with new variants most likely to be imported - and this is still the state of key border entry point
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‘The Queen has Covid’ followed directly on the radio news by ‘Boris Johnson has announced that people with no Covid will no longer have to isolate’ doesn’t feel like the PR win the U.K. government were hoping for 😬.
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I've never complained to IPSO before. But I'm very tempted to now. Unless Tom Newton Dunn and the Sun retract this cheap smear immediately. Myself and my colleagues have been nominated for 'investigation of year' at 2019 British press awards + much more. This is pitiful shite.
So the Sun spreading far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Turns out @openDemocracy - where I work - is part of a 'hard-left extremist' network. Why? Because has received some funding from George Soros. Yep, the Jewish George Soros. What complete bullshit.
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🚨 Who funds you? Turns out it's Tory donors. Britain's incredibly influential right-wing think tanks refuse to declare their donors. But we've discovered that seven Conservative donors have pumped £6.85 million into Tufton Street since 2019 . Labour’s @liambyrnemp said “these
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"State capture happens when narrow interest groups take control of public policy, buying influence to rewrite the rules. There are signs it’s happening in Britain.". Must read piece from @LizDavidBarrett as Britain is engulfed in (another) sleaze scandal .
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Haha if you ever wanted to see me get really exasperated w/a vacuous Spiked talking head on live TV now's your chance (Trigger warning: contains lots of hand waving).
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Incredibly - unintentionally - revealing line from a News of the World journalist in this #Gazza documentary. 'Rebekah (Brooks/Wade) was a journalist with a job to do. to rip his life apart'. This isn't - and should never be - the job of journalism or journalists.
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🚨 *Another* MP with a conflict of interest. Tory MP Marcus Fysh ‘wrong’ not to mention his financial interest in insurance firm when proposing insurance-friendly amendment to care levy, says ex-standards committee chair. @carolinejmolloy has the scoop.
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🔴 Guess who is funding Sunak's Tories? The same super-wealthy donors who put Liz Truss in Downing Street. Major new investigation 🧵:.- Bosses at right-wing 'Tufton Street' think tanks have given £35 million+ to the Tories . - IEA, Policy Exchange etc don't declare their donors.
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The almost pained desire of British broadcasters this morning to paint Spanish election purely as ‘the rise of Vox’ is quite mystifying, not least as Vox didn’t do as well as hoped as country as a whole moved left.
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Hardly a hot take but fascinating that a government in power for a decade recorded its best result in 30 years by promising to tackle the disastrous effects of a policy it introduced (austerity). That’s proper populism that.
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Can’t help feeling Hotel Chocolat should have consulted an irish person before coming up with the ‘H Box’ 😬
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Wow another senior Tory on the Today programme saying Keir Starmer responsible for Jimmy Savile not being prosecuted. This is turning into Boris Johnson and the Conservatives version of ‘the Big Lie’. Pure Trump.
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Rees Mogg allowed to declare unchallenged on #r4today that a hard border in Ireland is ‘a red herring’ and will be no change to border. Ffs. No mention that it was day 6 of dissident republican rioting in Derry last night.
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🔴 An official inspector warned that a Home Office contractor dealing with Ukrainian refugees had the “sole focus” of making a profit and a history of squeezing cash out of applicants. Yet Priti Patel hired them anyway. Vital @openDemocracy scoop.
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🚨Quarter of MPs calling to replace sleaze watchdog have been punished by it . 59 MPs trying to prevent Owen Paterson suspension include MP who didn’t declare several mansions, and one asked questions after a £10,000 donation. Cracking @openDemocracy scoop
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BREAKING: Bad news for Johnson and Cummings, as Vote Leave referred to the criminal prosecution service. Latest @openDemocracy exclusive
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The *some personal news* klaxon🚨: Am absolutely delighted to be appointed @openDemocracy 's new editor-in-chief and CEO. A huge honour. Can't wait to do even more journalism that challenges power and inspires change! .
**Drum roll**. We are absolutely delighted to announce that @PeterKGeoghegan is to become openDemocracy’s fifth editor-in-chief:
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If there’s a chip van anywhere in the world with a better name I’ve not seen it
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This week Liz Truss's 'Popular Conservatives' railed against 'Davos man'. Guess where Truss was given free ski passes, ski guides, and dinner last month?. Yep, Davos.
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Arron Banks ‘loaned’ £6m to which has never been repaid. His declared diamond finds in Lesotho are ‘geologically impossible’. His insurance business was ‘technically insolvent’. Do we need to talk about Arron? @openDemocracy latest
It's still not at all clear where Arron Banks got the millions he flooded into the Brexit campaign: - by @PeterKGeoghegan & @AdamRamsay.
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Just thinking that British #covid death toll would be ever higher - possibly a lot higher - without Premier League. If PL hadn't unilaterally cancelled matches second week of March, who knows how much further virus would have spread.
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Revealed: Russian donors have stepped up Tory funding. So the Tory party said it was distancing itself from Russian donors. Guess what? There's been a significant increase in last year. New @openDemocracy exclusive by myself and @SAThevoz
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Does it speak badly of me that the first thing I thought reading this tweet was the tens of thousands of pounds (if not more) Matt Hancock has received from the horse racing industry during his time as an MP?.
Thanks to the nation’s resolve, horseracing is back from Monday. Wonderful news for our wonderful sport.
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Has either Panorama or Dispatches run films about a) who funded Brexit or b) who wants 'no deal' and why? Both *the* most important journalistic qs in UK right now.
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Serious question: how and why does O'Neill et al have a platform in British public life? They lied and smeared Bosnian Muslims 25 years ago and tried to gag the media who revealed them. That they still have traction is testament to deep problems in British democracy.
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‘The problem Dominic is people don’t trust you’ — did @IsabelOakeshott seriously just talk about trust?? After the last week? And then makes a pro Brexit applause point. Why is this person on my telly? And why is she badged as a journalist? #BBCQT.
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"Memo to British political pundits: Ireland’s election isn’t about you." Eh, so I went and wrote a thing about those #GE2020 hot takes and why British political coverage could learn from Ireland (especially when it comes to grifters and 'think tanks')
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Johnson was set to lockdown in mid-September until Sunak invited lockdown sceptic scientists Gupta and Heneghan to speak to them. PM his mind. Sunday Times estimate 7-11k people died as a result. Shocking story. Great reporting. Should be headline news
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PLEASE STOP REPORTING STORIES THAT INVOLVE ANONYMOUS SOURCES LIKE THIS. IT'S NOT A LEAK OR A WHISTEBLOWER OR GENUINE INFO. IT IS MISINFORMATION.
Leo Varadkar has reneged on a secret deal with Boris Johnson to open the way to a Brexit compromise, a senior Downing Street source claimed yesterday
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So today the BBC won't broadcast Attenborough on biodiversity loss for fear of a right wing backlash and Gary Lineker is not allowed to criticise the government on social media. Can we now talk about the chilling effect of a BBC chairman who is a Tory donor?.
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EU’s behaviour on Ireland has been an incredible advert for strength of European Union. Putting interests of a small member as a top priority.
@NickCohen4 Quite the opposite. You look at the EU's behaviour on Ireland, security, Galileo, and you want to stay? Good grief.
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Please, please, please British journalism be better than this. Reporting politics as narrating theatre is corroding democracy.
Whatever you think of Boris Johnson, his press conferences are 100 times more engaging than Theresa May's. He might not always fully answer the question, but he does at least engage with it.
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There’s a Conservative MP on my telly complaining that ‘article 50 stacks everything’ in the EU’s favour. That’s the Article 50 that UK helped draw up and which it unilaterally triggered. History will not be kind to this farce.
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Wow. Electoral Commission warned British government privately that the introduction of voter ID is neither “secure” nor “workable”. The government pushed on with Elections Act regardless. Vital @openDemocracy scoop (on @Channel4News right now too).
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That great Irish tradition of listening to your parents spend ten minutes trying to work out if a vague acquittance is dead, then another ten minutes trying to explain to you who they were. At end of which you're still none the wiser.
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Met Police now facing legal action over its refusal to investigate ‘cash for peerages’ after @openDemocracy and the Sunday Times revealed that Tory donors who give £3m are offered seats in House of Lords.
If the Met won’t investigate clear evidence of Boris Johnson selling peerages for cash we plan to ask the Court to make them.
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But we’ve not left the Customs Union. Tim Martin is cutting 20p from a pint because his huge fortune can sustain the losses to spread misinformation. Feels like an apt summation of British politics in 2019.
#Breaking The price of a pint of beer in Wetherspoon pubs is being cut by an average of 20p from today as an example of how leaving the Customs Union can reduce costs, the company has announced
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“Fourteen companies incorporated in 2020 received contracts worth more than £620 million, of which 13 contracts totalling £255 million went to 10 firms that were less than 60 days old.”.
NEW TODAY: The way the UK Government handled bids for supplying personal protective equipment and other #COVID19 response contracts appears partisan and systemically biased in favour of those with political access, our latest research finds.
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A work first. An MP has just suggested that my journalism incites violence - comparing it to the murder of Jo Cox - after I asked him a series of questions about his expenses. You'll be able to read about it on @openDemocracy soon.
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Said this before but when I finished my new book Democracy for Sale a small part of me wondered if I'd been unfair on Britain. If it wasn't really as cronyist and kleptocratic as I thought. I was right, in a way. It's worse. Much, much worse.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson has asked former Mail editor Paul Dacre to run thr broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. Charles Moore is close to a done deal to be BBC chairman
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Am absolutely delighted and humbled that @JennaCorderoy and I have been nominated for @PrivateEyeNews #paulfootaward for investigative journalism. Huge thanks to all @openDemocracy team
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If only Tom Harewood, Darren Grimes, and all the other grifters took the same view.
Klopp asked about potential effect of coronavirus. "I'm a football manager. I shouldn't be asked on these things. I'm not a politician or doctor. I wear a baseball cap.".
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You couldn’t make this nonsense up. I’d love to send Raab out to calve a cow at 3am armed with nothing but ‘a can do spirit’.
Asked about farmers warning that a no-deal Brexit would decimate their industry, Dominic Raab says that the country just needs “a can-do spirit” #ridge.
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🚨🚨🚨 Gina Coladangelo is paid £15k for 15 days work a year to 'challenge' Matt Hancock. She's not the only one. At least 16 individuals with close Tory ties, including donors, peers and ex-MPs, are non executive directors in gov't. New @openDemocracy
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: At least 16 individuals with close ties to the Conservative Party, including Tory donors, peers and former MPs, have been given lucrative oversight jobs in key Whitehall departments. By @martinrw and @PeterKGeoghegan.
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That’s an MP supporting media censorship (which just happens to be against outlet that broadcast revealing stories about Arron Banks, who has donated tens of thousands to Kate H).
As @Channel4News Never Ever has said anything positive about Leaving the EU this sounds a sensible decision.
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I never swear on social media so. these FECKING grifters. No wonder trust in media and government is so low when charlatans like this clown are paraded on political TV shows and given access to power. Britain, wake up!.
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Observation on Britain today. Democracy is now increasingly defined only in terms of what people vote for (by pro-and anti-Brexit sides), while the democratic institutions, rules and conventions are corroded and debased. This is very, very dangerous.
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New UK foreign minister Jeremy Hunt voted remain but now says he’d have voted for Brexit. So he’s watched last 2 years and thought ‘yes, I was wrong. This is much better than status quo’. Yep.
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So this week we won a three-year transparency battle w/Cabinet Office, a story I broke in July about dodgy contracts ended up w/High Court finding Michael Gove acted unlawfully, and @JennaCorderoy and I were shortlisted for @PrivateEyeNews Paul Foot award. Am off for a drink!.
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Basically Protestant Northern Ireland is now the last bulwark of Catholic Ireland social policies. History is funny.
Will attention now switch to Northern Ireland? Where gay marriage and abortion is still illegal (despite polling support). Arlene Foster says that there must be no difference between NI and the rest of UK.
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The Glasgow subway. Surely the only underground system in the world where the train driver leans out window and bids you ‘good night’ when you disembark.
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‘I understand this report will be brutal to the civil service….this is not government spin’ Nick Watt says on #newsnight. Call me cynical but laying the blame for Boris Johnson’s lies on the civil service sounds awfully like government spin.
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I see Arron Banks has become a COVID truther. What a surprise that Brexit's biggest donor - and New Zealand's finest iodine punter - would be in 'it's just the flu'/'the cure is worse than the virus'/'it's not that bad' club?.
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NEW: Cabinet Office is running an ‘Orwellian’ unit to ‘blacklist’ journalists and block sensitive FOI requests. Experts warn that UK government could be breaking the law. New on @openDemocracy by @JennaCorderoy, Lucas Amin and me.
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🔴 TaxPayers’ Alliance, Institute of Economic Affairs, Policy Exchange, Adam Smith Institute and Legatum have raised $9m from the US donors since 2012. None of these 'think tanks' disclose their donors. Really important @adambychawski investigation.
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