Democracy for Sale Podcast

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...

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 Val...

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 radica...

Forget “it’s morning in America.” Right now it feels like the US in the middle of a long, dark night. Like many of you I imagine, I’ve been fixated by Los Angeles this week. The armed troops. The aggressive immigration raids. The eerie sense that the whole thing is a set piece for TV, produced by the ultimate show runner, Donald J. Trump. The numbers defy logic. There are now more troops in LA tha...

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about cryptocurrency. I’ve been speaking with people who know far more about it than I do, and reading writers like Zeke Faux, whose recent book Number Go Up lays bare what he calls the “$3 trillion delusion.” But then a couple of things happened last week that made me really pay attention. First, the news broke that the Trump family’s media company—yes, the form...

These days I find myself returning to an old William Gibson quote: “The future is already here - it’s just not very evenly distributed.” The cyberpunk novelist was warning about how technology could massively deepen inequality, as a few get access to incredible advancements that were kept from the many. It’s a dark, dystopian vision, but if anything Gibson didn’t go far enough: now we are watching...

Reform is dominating our political conversation right now. Watching Keir Starmer this week you would never think he’s a prime minister with a 170-seat majority. While so many column inches have been dedicated to the electoral prospects of Nigel Farage’s party, I’ve been asking a very different question - who funds Reform? This really matters. Money buys power in British politics. Reform’s treasure...

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