Following the money
What I’ve been doing this week...
The old journalistic adage “follow the money” is more relevant than ever in British politics.
Despite repeated cash-for-favours scandals – not least PPE contracts awarded en masse to Tory donors – more money is flowing through our democracy than ever before.
But these funds are not just washing through political parties. Right-wing ideologues and corporate interests have fashioned a range of institutions on the peripheries of power that wield vast influence over Westminster.
They include GB News – the reactionary rage-bait broadcaster founded five years ago by hedge fund manager Paul Marshall and the Dubai-based Legatum investment group.
GB News posted its latest accounts this week – showing that its losses had grown to a staggering £131 million.
In my first piece for The Nerve – the brilliant new publication co-founded by Carole Cadwalladr – I unpicked the meaning of these new financial results.
Although it’s tempting to laugh (and boy have I laughed) at the inability of a hyper-capitalist broadcaster to make a profit, I think GB News’ debt mountain reveals a new trend in populist philanthropy that should worry us all.
We’re up against radical billionaires trying to rig the rules of our democracy.
Please help to fund independent, investigative journalism dedicated to exposing their agenda…
GB News is Nigel Farage’s principal employer – paying him roughly £400,000 a year, four times his parliamentary salary. Farage even wore a GB News lapel badge when he testified before Congress last year.
New data released this week showed that Reform received another £3 million late last year from Thai-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne, adding to the £9 million he gave to the party in September.
Earlier this week, I was invited by PoliticsJoe to chat about Farage’s fundraising, the Gorton and Denton by-election result, and the state of the right more generally.
The full YouTube can be found below.
With your help, I will keep on following the money. I get the feeling it will be quite important in understanding the real motives behind Farage’s agenda…
Help me to expose Farage’s funders…
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We urgently need, desperately need, to get the money out of politics.
Saving to read later. Thank you for all your work Sam.