An informed conversation on how corruption works in elite British politics

This is an hour-and-a-half interview with Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper to discuss Kuper’s book Good Chaps: How Corrupt Politicians Broke Our Law and Institutions (2024). (1)

The conversation is a good overview of how legal (and sometimes not-quite-so-legal) corruption works at the elite level of British politics and the dynamics of campaign contributions in the British context. Kuper notes that Britain has "a deep-discount version of US politics" when it comes to money in politics. But as this conversation shows, even the deep-discount version is more than bad enough when it comes to undercutting the interests of the vast majority of the British people.

There is some discussion of Brexit and what at disaster it was, and about the politics of immigration. He also talks about Tony Blair’s massive think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and its strong neoliberal bias, although they don’t use the term “neoliberal” in the conversation. It's also an example of how wealthy donors – some more dubious than others – exert an enormous influence of political conversation.

This conversation is also a reminder that de facto corruption in the sense of great wealth in practice being able to nullify the democratic will of the voters is very often legal. Extreme concentration of wealth always undermines democratic institutions.

Notes:

(1) How the British Establishment REALLY Works- Aaron Bastani meets Simon Kuper. Novara Media YouTube channel 07/28/22024. <https://youtu.be/eaOInvE-YIM?si=MnhEPxtgSpxDvVZs> (Accessed: 2024-03-10).