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Peter Geoghegan

@petergeoghegan.bsky.social
68K followers 1.8K following 3.6K posts

Irishman in London. Founder of award winning investigative news site Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com

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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Dust and Road @dustandroad.bsky.social · 7h
'Manchester City: club football's "biggest ever scandal". Industrial-scale cheating, football's “financial wild west” and sportswashing, with Miguel Delaney' via @petergeoghegan.bsky.social #ManchesterCity
democracyforsale.substack.com
Manchester City: club football's "biggest ever scandal"
I spoke to author Miguel Delaney about the UAE, industrial-scale cheating and football's “financial wild west.”
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 13h
‘In fixating on the threat of “foreign” money, Labour has implicitly accepted that plutocrats can buy politics, so long as they are on the electoral roll.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on party fundraising. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Peter Geoghegan · Short Cuts: Funding Reform
British politics has long been complacent about the power of big money. The relatively low price of access to...
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Oh wow 7k people have watched my interview with @migueldelaney.bsky.social since this morning It’s definitely worth a watch! youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Democracy For Sale with Peter Geoghegan - YouTube
Democracy for Sale is all about the threats to democracy from dark money and hidden influence, why it matters…. and what we can do about it. Launched in July...
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 18h
Am on LBC with Matthew Wright talking about Nigel Farage saying he thinks people were 'quite impressed' by the £72m political donations to Reform UK….
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Oh wow 7k people have watched my interview with @migueldelaney.bsky.social since this morning It’s definitely worth a watch! youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Democracy For Sale with Peter Geoghegan - YouTube
Democracy for Sale is all about the threats to democracy from dark money and hidden influence, why it matters…. and what we can do about it. Launched in July...
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Very nice excited to pick this up today (will start once finish Rachel Connolly’s Belfast set Lazy City) Fittingly bought it on local London bookstore run by Belfast folks
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 03/10/2026
‘Rupert Lowe, who set up the far-right party Restore Britain after falling out with Farage, earns about as much from posting about mass deportations and rape gangs on Elon Musk’s X as he does from being an MP.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on party fundraising. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Peter Geoghegan · Short Cuts: Funding Reform
British politics has long been complacent about the power of big money. The relatively low price of access to...
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Pasi Vaaranmaa @vaaranpa.um.fi · 03/10/2026
Excellent piece by @petergeoghegan.bsky.social
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Like the Institute of Economic Affairs were running events and writing articles advocating against football regulator last year Wonder who paid for these? 😱 iea.org.uk/films/is-a-f...
iea.org.uk
Is a football regulator necessary?
Is English football broken? Should government try to fix it? And are any of the proposals in the Fan-Led Review … Continue reading "Is a football regulator necessary?"
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
🔴 Manchester City is what happens when the rich and powerful believe money trumps any rules or regulations I've written about club football's biggest ever scandal, and interviewed the brilliant @migueldelaney.bsky.social, for Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/manchester...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Manchester City: club football's "biggest ever scandal"
I spoke to author Miguel Delaney about the UAE, industrial-scale cheating and football's “financial wild west.”
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Henry Dyer @direthoughts.com · 02/10/2026
Intrigued to see the Conservative conference will feature a speech on "press freedom" next week while they ban lobby journalists such as @josiahmortimer.bsky.social from attending their conference.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The Supplementary Vote is not ‘electoral reform’
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 30/09/2026
‘British politics has long been complacent about the power of big money. The relatively low price of access to politicians here has often been interpreted, wrongly, as a sign of probity.’ Peter Geoghegan on party fundraising: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Peter Geoghegan · Short Cuts: Funding Reform
British politics has long been complacent about the power of big money. The relatively low price of access to...
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Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
‘If you’ve got £1 million or £2 million to spend on political advertising, forget it,…. If you’ve got £8 million, you can make people believe anything you want.’ I wrote about Britain’s broken political finance system for the latest @lrb.co.uk
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
‘If you’ve got £1 million or £2 million to spend on political advertising, forget it,…. If you’ve got £8 million, you can make people believe anything you want.’ I wrote about Britain’s broken political finance system for the latest @lrb.co.uk
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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 01/10/2026
They’ll be restaging the Nuremberg trials before long at this rate
WSJ notification: More than 50 years after Watergate, the Justice Dept. is reaching back into history to consider whether Richard Nixon was treated unfairly
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🔴 Protests against Palantir across England today. In July, we published this deep dive into Palantir, its lobbying in Britain and the myriad problems NHS staff have had with its software. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/its-just-a...
democracyforsale.substack.com
"It's just a waste of time": inside Palantir's £330m NHS failure
Our new investigation reveals the problems with Palantir’s NHS tech - and the unrivalled political access that fuelled the firm’s march into the British state
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Daniel Trilling @trillingual.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Some news... 1. If We Tolerate This sold just shy of 5,000 copies in its first two months. Thanks to everyone who has read, responded to or shared the book so far. 2. If you haven't yet, it's only 99p on kindle for the whole of October. Get involved! www.amazon.co.uk/If-We-Tolera...
The cover of "If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable", which features the title plus an illustration of a frog in boiling water.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🔴 We asked Tony Blair's think tank about charging businesses £500k for political access at party conferences and why one of its sponsor's logos disappeared after our reporting last week on TBI's alleged cash for access scheme This is what they said
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Paul Evans @pauliewaulie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A thoroughly disrespectful approach to serious and responsible journalism.
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Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The anti-TBI business model feels like it's far less financially rewarding than the TBI business model.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🔴 We asked Tony Blair's think tank about charging businesses £500k for political access at party conferences and why one of its sponsor's logos disappeared after our reporting last week on TBI's alleged cash for access scheme This is what they said
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Spent the last few hours thinking there must be a Talking Heads/Andy Burnham pun but can’t seem to make it work ‘Burnham down the house’?!
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
First thing I saw outside Labour conference today, mobile sign calling on Burnham to ditch Palantir…
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is very cool! If you're on Instagram do follow Democracy for Sale there 🎉 Our very first reel is a clip from my interview with the peerless Patrick Radden Keefe!
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Political unionism has decided that drumcree is an issue that they should support. That’s madness in 2026. The Orange order have every right to want to walk down that road. A) that doesn’t mean they should be allowed and b) doesn’t mean political unionism should support them
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Sigh. I didn’t say it has. The problem - for unionism - is that it is currently the default position and it’s doing nothing to create a vision for people who are neither (or soft nationalists) It’s literally still banging the drum If that doesn’t encapsulate the problem I don’t know….
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The online far right conspiracy theorists’ obsession with the Fabians - stoked massively by GB News, Talk TV et al - is one of the weirdest, most disturbing things in British politics right now (and that’s saying something) Like a mini British QAnon Must be awful working for Fabians rn
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Something very depressing about hearing ‘Drumcree’ at the top of morning news Reminds me of my teenage years when it seemed to be a constant. Now feels like unionism banging the drum - geddit? - while the whole world has changed around them
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Looks like game now going ahead
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Talk growing that Ireland’s players will refuse to play Israel www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer...
irishtimes.com
Ireland’s match against Israel thrown into chaos as Bazunu tells squad he does not want to play
Some other players understood to be considering whether to join goalkeeper in withdrawing from Nations League fixtures
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A former staff member of Tony Blair Institute said they had serious concerns that this was “very much trading money for access”, but was instructed by a colleague not to describe it that way. ‘They were saying you have to be really careful not to make it seem as if they’re paying money for access’😬
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Antonella Napolitano @svaroschi.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Talk is cheap, they say... Another great investigation on power and influence by Democracy for Sale and @lighthousereports.com (always very happy to support DfS and investigative journalism outlets - if you can please do the same)
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🔴 BREAKING: BP, Uber, Amazon and more paying Tony Blair's think tank $25,000 for “networking” opportunities with politicians and policy makers at party conferences Experts say "looks and smells like cash for access" Full story on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...
democracyforsale.substack.com
BREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”
Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A former staff member of Tony Blair Institute said they had serious concerns that this was “very much trading money for access”, but was instructed by a colleague not to describe it that way. ‘They were saying you have to be really careful not to make it seem as if they’re paying money for access’😬
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Jennie Kermode @jenniekermode.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Some fascinating stuff coming out here (though I can't really say I'm surprised).
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Deleted previous bluesky on this story as was so full of typos! democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...
democracyforsale.substack.com
BREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”
Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🔴 BREAKING: BP, Uber, Amazon and more paying Tony Blair's think tank $25,000 for “networking” opportunities with politicians and policy makers at party conferences Experts say "looks and smells like cash for access" Full story on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...
democracyforsale.substack.com
BREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”
Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.
77895436
Reposted by Peter Geoghegan
Lottie @sellottie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The price of cocaine has roughly halved in the last couple of years, whilst purity has increased massively. Price is going up again a little bit in the last year but it’s a very different market now — and here are (some) of the corollary social effects.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
It feels like Britain and ireland needs to start talking about the mass scale of cocaine usage that seems to be happening Just got off train to bunch of lads outside station playing techno and snorting lines. But seen similar in rural ireland And that’s before get to the ‘patriots’
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ah man. The Afghan Whigs *rocked* And I got to meet a proper rock hero
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Ian Fraser @ianfraser.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The increasingly close ties between Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the seven authoritarian members of the United Arab Emirates should concern us all...
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
‘What is emerging is not simply a relationship between [Reform and Farage] and a wealthy Gulf state, but a channel through which an authoritarian government can cultivate political influence here, and abroad.’ Would really recommend a read of this democracyforsale.substack.com/p/reform-and...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Reform and the UAE – a threat to British politics
Nigel Farage's embrace of the UAE is part of a wider effort by the Gulf petrostate to build alliances with the far right across the West, says Alex Carlen.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
‘What is emerging is not simply a relationship between [Reform and Farage] and a wealthy Gulf state, but a channel through which an authoritarian government can cultivate political influence here, and abroad.’ Would really recommend a read of this democracyforsale.substack.com/p/reform-and...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Reform and the UAE – a threat to British politics
Nigel Farage's embrace of the UAE is part of a wider effort by the Gulf petrostate to build alliances with the far right across the West, says Alex Carlen.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Hmmm on what is arguably the biggest issue in British politics right now, Andy Burnham’s government sounds a lot like Keir Starmer’s…. Wild thought, but maybe this is what happens when you keep the same people in post?
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This shit will continue to happen as long as publishers don’t fact check books - which they don’t (as admitted with Jason Arday) I paid someone - out of my own pocket - to fact check my book. But you can pretty much put anything in a book if you want. It’s mad www.theguardian.com/media/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Piers Morgan says he will sue Earl Spencer over ‘fabricated inaccuracies’
Broadcaster refutes memoir claim that he was behind publication of gym photos of Diana, Princess of Wales
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
‘We’ll eradicate the state pension’ would be quite the proposal for Reform www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Thinktank linked to Reform UK calls for abolition of state pension
‘Radical’ report likely to influence party’s platform also proposes abolishing inheritance and capital gains taxes
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Can’t believe Gwendoline Riley’s the Palm House isn’t on this list www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
I read 163 novels and these are the six best: Mary Beard on judging the Booker prize
I found being a Booker judge hugely rewarding. All the works on our shortlist will change how you see the world
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is so so dark
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Great to see @financialtimes.com following up @lucasamin.bsky.social and @samgelder.bsky.social ‘s excellent reporting on how English police forces are dropping Palantir
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